Which Norton should I get?? Advice please...

JJ_Egan

It's so much better than McAfee and wish I'd used Norton before. I've only got praise for it so far (no doubt I'll be warned otherwise).
The latest Norton is much better than the Norton of the last few years .

Your praise for it is relevant only as without getting infected you dont know how good it is .


jje

jbreckmckye

redcard wrote: »

That's the simple answer, yes.

You'll also find that there are no remote access service enabled by default, root user is not enabled by default, and the UNIX base also make it more secure than Windows.

In addition to that, security by obscurity is still security.

I'm happy that there's so many Windows users keeping the virus makers in business

OS X is safer, but a caveat. Just because you're using a *nix derivative (*technically* Apple OSX isn't actually Unix, but rather a BSD-like Unix derivative named MACH + a proprietary Darwin API... but that's a tale for another time) doesn't make you *immune* to malware. Windows has been multi-user since '05, and at any rate, not SUDOing around doesn't make you invulnerable.

For instance, it wouldn't stop malware in a boot sector commandeering your interrupt vectors with its own pointers (which would, I believe, trump root 'user'space). It wouldn't, in its own right, 'prevent' things like buffer overflows or format string attacks hijacking executables, making them unstable or even unusable.

Consider the zero-day vulnerabilities in last year's Free BSD kernel release - several privilege escalation exploits (there goes the root protection). Likewise, whatever your OS, you'll still need a firewall.

It's nice to have the advantages of a Unix-like operating system, but if we foster complacency, we see a barrage of trojans, adware, crapware and more.

There's only one really sturdy sort of protection - safe browsing. Use Noscript. Don't download from untrusted sources. Give torrents a wide berth. Use your firewall and OS by all means, but they alone aren't enough. Stay safe. Stay alert - whatever your platform.

Francesanne

JJ_Egan wrote: »

It's so much better than McAfee and wish I'd used Norton before. I've only got praise for it so far (no doubt I'll be warned otherwise).
The latest Norton is much better than the Norton of the last few years .

Your praise for it is relevant only as without getting infected you dont know how good it is .


jje

Think that applies to any protection - free or paid for.

roddydogs

No votes for AVG these days?

gonzo127

not at the moment, as with Norton, AVG has improved a lot just recently, however a few months of improvements doesn’t quite make up for years of inadequacy, if it keeps up its current level of 'quality' for another 6-9 months or so it will make its way back onto my recommended list, however at the moment i am not quite ready to risk recommending it incase the current improvement is just a blip in its recent history of inadequacy

flexrider

Threre a little tale about norton i would like to share with you all on why i cannot stand it and with most branded laptops and computers like for example HP Norton is known for recovering your hard drive (Known as ghosting) Which means it copy's all your original files in a small file ect and when a virus has attacked or trojan ect, when you place the disk in if the virus/Trojan is known and not a wild virus(which is comman like the current one thats been in the news recently in china) it will restore your hard drive or files back to normal,

Thats why so many norton Security packages take so much god damm space.

If your a cable customer(Virginmedia) You can get anti-virus and firewall for free from them,If not try the other places everyone else mentioned.

Me personally thats why im a mac fan Osx has built in firewall plus router has built in firewall and Time machine restore so if the offchance happens of something its a click and back to normal again, Plus with 11 drives sata connected and 5 other computers in a network (3 laptops with windows 1 mac and 1 mac mini also) I could care if i got a virus tomorrow lmao!...ok i could really lmao!

DatabaseError

^ LOLWUT

Waaaay too early for me to drink enough to understand that

I think you're saying that because Norton have utility called Ghost HP don't make Macs? Or is it that virgins don't use sata..so we shouldn't use norton?

My head hurts

:P

roddydogs

gonzo127 wrote: »

not at the moment, as with Norton, AVG has improved a lot just recently, however a few months of improvements doesn’t quite make up for years of inadequacy, if it keeps up its current level of 'quality' for another 6-9 months or so it will make its way back onto my recommended list, however at the moment i am not quite ready to risk recommending it incase the current improvement is just a blip in its recent history of inadequacy

So why is AVG more popular, and why does Avast have those annoying pop ups, not to mention that "You've got to register" stuff

gonzo127

roddydogs wrote: »

So why is AVG more popular, and why does Avast have those annoying pop ups, not to mention that "You've got to register" stuff

i dont know exactly why AVG is more popular, its like asking why is McAfee popular? - just because something is popular doesnt actually make it good, you will probably find that it is popular because people know the name, and do not actually do any research into how good it is.

also what pop ups in Avast? are you thinking about Avira by any chance?

and registration, my god is a once a year task of poping in an email address such hard work for much better protection?

DatabaseError

AVG is popular because it was a fantastic product for a while, and so got a lot of exposure.