just installed norton. any good?

[zigzag3143]

Fair enough Ken. If you found Norton at fault for a lot of BSODs, I take that as input. I can only talk from my own experience.

I don't touch those BSOD threads. I am too old to wade thru the dumps. Have done that long enough in the past - and all that in hexadecimal. One needs a lot of patience for that. I admire you for taking the time.

And I respect your opinion as well. We all bring our experience to the table.

 

[pparks1]

Ken, you must have some other problem in your system. I run NIS on 3 systems since years and I never had a BSOD ever. And I really don't know where the bloated part comes from. It uses hardly any RAM or CPU, does all the scans at idle time. What else can you expect.

With MSE on one of my systems I caught 2 viruses within 1 week.

I don't think I have seen 2 viruses in the past 5 years. I don't understand why others seem to have so many issues.

 

[whs]

Sometimes there seem to be viruses. Norton sometimes tells me that it has blocked them. And I am 100% only on technical websites.

 

[elstupido]

I think norton would be a fine choice.

 

[mart44]

Comcast does offer a free version to it's customers. It's called Norton 360 or something. My dad has Comcast and he gets this free of charge for being a Comcast customer.

I read that it is Norton 360 being supplied. It costs about £32 on Amazon, so not a bad give-away. Norton 360 is a step up from Norton Internet Security (NIS), which is what I've been using for about 3 years now. NIS doesn't include a Registry cleaner but does have an 'optimiser'. This initiates Windows' own defrag function when the computer is detected as being idle.

I've found NIS to be pretty good. It has respectable detection rates and resource usage figures considering it is a full suite. A very 'quiet' program too that seems to make all the decisions for you. I turned to it originally because it is such a 'set and forget' program. I'm just about to renew for the 4th time.

NIS isn't my only security layer but is is one that I think is worth keeping. Below is a link to AV-Test comparing various AV programs/suites:

AV-TEST - The Independent IT-Security Institute: Jan/Feb 2012

 

[luke127]

in response to this there are certain "rumors" regarding Norton. I have seen this myself. When people install it does it's job bla bla bla BUT once the license runs out and you don't replace it and then you uninstall it you start getting massive virus's I know because I had to clean out a laptop at school with some help from my administrator that had about 40 virus's in it. We ended up removing them manually as there were too many infecting different parts of the machine to run any sort of program without it too getting infected. So just a warning.

 

[mart44]

in response to this there are certain "rumors" regarding Norton. I have seen this myself. When people install it does it's job bla bla bla BUT once the license runs out and you don't replace it and then you uninstall it you start getting massive virus's I know because I had to clean out a laptop at school with some help from my administrator that had about 40 virus's in it. We ended up removing them manually as there were too many infecting different parts of the machine to run any sort of program without it too getting infected. So just a warning.

Uninstalling Norton does not give rise to viruses. What gets left behind are remnants or leftovers of the program. I find these do need removing manually from the C: drive and Registry. This being so even if the Norton Removal Tool has been run a couple of times.

I have recently tried 4 other security suites on a system that has had Norton removed. The first operation they do once installed is to scan the system for malware. None of them have found any.

 

[luke127]

Hmm maybe they have fixed this issue. There once a Norton that WAS a virus. literally an antivirus disguised as a virus many people fell for it until people like me complained. They must have found the hole and fixed it.

 

[Athene]

Ah, probably the scareware strategy. What happens is that while you are browsing, you suddenly get a popup claiming that your computer is infected with so and so many viruses. If you click anywhere on the popup (including on the "x" to close it), you can get redirected to the malware site, where the fake antivirus program will either try to install itself on your computer at once, run a fake scan and tell you to pay for virus removal, or coax you into buying the fake antivirus software...The goal is to get at your money. So do not ever click on such a popup. Instead, either close your browser by using the keyboard shortcut Alt+F4, or, even better, break your internet connection by turning off the Wireless switch or unplugging the internet cable and then closing your browser.

About leftover Norton entries in the registry: Norton Removal Tool:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/nor...docid=kb20080710133834EN_EndUserProfile_en_us

If you use it, it is best to run it twice, rebooting after each run (should happen automatically). You may also want to disconnect from the internet. And finally: the tool removes ALL Norton products on your computer. If there is anything remaining, then it will not interfere with your computer. The removal tool intentionally leaves behind your Norton product key in case you want to install your Norton product again at some later point in time.

And finally, what REALLY happens once your Norton subscription runs out is the following: Norton will turn itself off completely. That is all. Until you renew your subscription. This is something which, to my knowledge, is done by most major antivirus software vendors.

 

[mart44]

If there is anything remaining, then it will not interfere with your computer.

I have found that to be the case too. The removal tool run in the recommended way as mentioned, will remove Norton enough not to interfere with the computer or any incoming (new) AV program. However, I have found that after using the tool, a search of the disk and Registry will still bring up leftovers. In the interests of making the system really clear of Norton, I've always removed these files and Registry entries manually.

 

[cyclic]

Norton or what I refer to as 'take over my computer ware' is much less reliable than MS security essentials, which has just updated to version 5.

A link was posted earlier in the thread, I'm just reinforcing how good a suggestion it is.

 

[windude99]

The latest version of Microsoft Security Essentials works really well. Pair it with Internet Explorer 9 and those two will block every malicious site I try. (I did this testing with a Vista virtual machine)
I don't know why people say that Security Essentials is that bad. I tried Avast and it has more false positives and is so intrusive. Plus, with Avast free version, you have to renew your subscription which is pathetic. No antivirus will catch all (which is why you have Malwarebytes installed as a scanner)

 

[Zahl]

Been using NIS since the '09 version and never had an issue with it. I say if its free definitely give it a shot and uninstall it if you don't like it.

 

[M1GU31]

Use to have norton back in the day,didn't like it due to 3 nasty viruses getting past it and I couldn't remove them at all and mind you this was back when I was less techy. Had to reformat the HDD.... I now in this present moment use MSE and it's great and doesn't slow down my machine like norton did back in the day when i had norton in 2005 .MSE has removed 2 infections that tryed to get in machine so far works great.

 

[luke127]

Ah, probably the scareware strategy. What happens is that while you are browsing, you suddenly get a popup claiming that your computer is infected with so and so many viruses. If you click anywhere on the popup (including on the "x" to close it), you can get redirected to the malware site, where the fake antivirus program will either try to install itself on your computer at once, run a fake scan and tell you to pay for virus removal, or coax you into buying the fake antivirus software...The goal is to get at your money. So do not ever click on such a popup. Instead, either close your browser by using the keyboard shortcut Alt+F4, or, even better, break your internet connection by turning off the Wireless switch or unplugging the internet cable and then closing your browser.

About leftover Norton entries in the registry: Norton Removal Tool:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/nor...docid=kb20080710133834EN_EndUserProfile_en_us

If you use it, it is best to run it twice, rebooting after each run (should happen automatically). You may also want to disconnect from the internet. And finally: the tool removes ALL Norton products on your computer. If there is anything remaining, then it will not interfere with your computer. The removal tool intentionally leaves behind your Norton product key in case you want to install your Norton product again at some later point in time.

And finally, what REALLY happens once your Norton subscription runs out is the following: Norton will turn itself off completely. That is all. Until you renew your subscription. This is something which, to my knowledge, is done by most major antivirus software vendors.

Nobody went on any sites just when we installed it and the 4 months later switched we had to clean everything out and it was a PAIN!

 

[mart44]

I suppose there may be the point that an AV program shouldn't be easy to remove. It needs to get deep into the system in order to protect it. Not only does it have to protect the computer, it needs to protect itself. If software alone could remove or disable any part of it, then malware could conceivably do the same. I'm quite happy with Norton needing a bit of effort to completely remove. That's the way an AV program should be in my opinion.

 

[kado897]

I suppose there may be the point that an AV program shouldn't be easy to remove. It needs to get deep into the system in order to protect it. Not only does it have to protect the computer, it needs to protect itself. If software alone could remove or disable any part of it, then malware could conceivably do the same. I'm quite happy with Norton needing a bit of effort to completely remove. That's the way an AV program should be in my opinion.

Good point.

 

[F5ing]

I suppose there may be the point that an AV program shouldn't be easy to remove. It needs to get deep into the system in order to protect it. Not only does it have to protect the computer, it needs to protect itself. If software alone could remove or disable any part of it, then malware could conceivably do the same. I'm quite happy with Norton needing a bit of effort to completely remove. That's the way an AV program should be in my opinion.

Exactly! For years that was the only thing I could think of that would justify it, but I've never discovered a definitive answer. I'm not necessarily supporting Norton, because they've definitely had other major problems over the years.