Does Norton slow your pc ?

TornadoTom

I installed Norton internet security 2007 recently....

...It must take my pc around 4 or 5 minutes to boot up ....it like waiting for paint to dry
Is this common with norton ?

I had to get something to replace macafee after my c/card details were obtained and some lowlife went on a spending spree over christmas :doh:
This was the second time it has happened with macafee, so I had to ditch it.
My F-I-Law bought norton, so I used his disk..:rolleyes:
Tom

judderman62

Not sure if it has gotten any better in recent years , but norton has always been a brand that the longest barge pole ever made by man wouldn't have been long enough to keep me at the distance I would want to be from any Norton product.

Their AV has always been known for being VERY resource hungry and all but impossible to remove from a PC once installed.

Additionally we use it at work and about 18 months/2 years ago I did a scan on a colleague's PC (I know she had bad surfing habits, not a clue on surfing wisely or a darned clue about anything IT) using Panda's active scan and it found and successfully dealt with 10 ..yes that's 10 infections that Norton happily let through.

The words f***ing s**t spring to mind rather readily

judderman62

btw sorry to hear about your card details getting nicked.

btw do you also use:

a firewall
spy/adware protection
a trojan detector - most av progs are reckoned to not be too great at finding trojans.


and for a third btw - if you're interested in opinions on AV products mine is that the best money can buy is NOD32 - used it for the last 3 or 4 years - had it reccomended ny someone I trust implicitly and who knows their onions on IT matters.

hth

J

TornadoTom

I have to own up to being a cheapskate on this........I didnt have to pay for the software...and it was the latest version, I just had to get rid of macafee quickly.
I should have know better, I had norton a few years back on another pc and had problems then too :doh: I just didnt think.

I use ad-aware every week, I have also got ewido....although I dont like it much. ewido take ages to do a scan.
The firewall comes with macafee / norton.....so yes I had a firewall.

The start up time is a big big difference.....I might look into changing norton :think:

Tom

southernscouser

I'm not a techie person but I've never had a problem with it. I can't say that my machine is quicker or slower as I know no different but it certainly doesn't take long to boot up. Less than a minute.

Also never had any problems virus wise!

Perhaps a disk cleanup/defrag might help!

judderman62

well I always want FREE software - the one area however I will not compromise on is in AV protection - that is why I went for NOD32.

It also scans darned quick - I believe it's something to do with the programming language it's written in (way above my head )

I use:

Adaware - adware etc remover - Free

Spybot - adware etc remover - Free - does loads more besides - inc teatimer which locks out changes to your registry unless you allow them and there's something that blocks malware from hijacking your homepage in Internet Explorer (though why the **** anyone would use IE anyway beats the heck out of me - can't believe people stil use it )

Sygate - firewall - Free

A2 (A squared) - Trojan finder and buster - Free

amd of course NOD32 - AV - not free but decent price - licences for 1/2/3 years - the two year is good value at around the £50 mark.

TornadoTom

I think the problem lies with my kids, they are forever downloading WWW wrestling videos and stuff from off Morpheus.
I keep telling them to scan everything they download before they open it, but whether they actually do it...I dont know

...might have to put a stop to it.
Tom

judderman62

TornadoTom wrote:

I think the problem lies with my kids, they are forever downloading WWW wrestling videos and stuff from off Morpheus.
I keep telling them to scan everything they download before they open it, but whether they actually do it...I dont know

...might have to put a stop to it.
Tom

If your AV is set up correctly it should warn as soon as you try and download.

Sites that offer cracks n hacks for software are notorious for being full of malware and of course stuff downloaded by any type of file sharing is a bit of a risk

HoofeHearted

If anyone wants to ditch Norton and install one of the free utilities already mentioned then just Google for "Norton_Removal_Tool.exe" and download this utility supplied by Symantec(Norton). This is the only way to properly remove a Norton Utility.

John_Gray

If you have a powerful PC, then you may not notice the overhead that Norton Antivirus imposes. (I didn't, when I had it.) You certainly will if it's mid-range or lower specification.

The newer versions of Norton are alleged to use "somewhat" less resources than the older versions.

It can be difficult to remove, but it's do-able, as previously indicated. Try getting rid of McAfee, or AOL, or Yahoo Messenger!

John

GreenNotM

TornadoTom wrote:

I think the problem lies with my kids, they are forever downloading WWW wrestling videos and stuff from off Morpheus.
I keep telling them to scan everything they download before they open it, but whether they actually do it...I dont know

...might have to put a stop to it.
Tom

Hi Tom

Manually download the latest update file http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/download.html.
Then get off the internet and uninstall Norton, reboot and then reinstall - manually apply the downloaded updates -
Then boot into safe mode and do a full system scan.

Next put a password on your account and the administrator account and create non admin accounts for the kids, if they don't already have them.

HTH