Which Norton to buy?

BillScarab

As others have said f you want free Anti-Virus get AVG 7.5, if you want to pay get NOD32, Kaspersky is also good. I can't think of any good reason to buy Norton. If I bought a PC with it installed I wouldn't even use the free trial.

Cricri

I wouldn't use Norton even if it was free because it's not efficient, it's not the best performer, and it embeds itself all over your system (program files of course, but also registry, services, etc etc).
Norton is overrated, and in fact I wonder how they still manage to lobby themselves in every bought computer despite the poor performance.

ormus

none..........

CHR15

You know the bloke on the front of the Nortons box??

He is the bloke who owns your PC once Nortons is installed! Norton's interferes with everything you attempt to do, making decisions without asking or even informing you it has made a change.

One of the first pieces of advice you will get if you have PC issues with Nortons installed, is GET RID OF NORTONS, then ask again.


I would say it is okay if you are COMPLETELY COMPUTER ILLITERATE i.e Power button, mouse click (but do not know a right click from a left click)
can just about struggle through saving a document but cannot retrieve it again.

Anything more advanced than that, keep well away from it.


There are plenty of free alternatives as has been mentioned.

ormus

the annoying thing is that the free ones are better than shyty norton.

steveo3002

ive had loads of grief with norton...get the free ones like avg as mentioned above

WNBRich

Thanks everyone for your help.
I've read Martin's article, and would like your advice on the my idea of downloading either AVG or Avast, and also downloading Lavasoft for Anti-ad and anti-spyware. Do I need another firewall apart from the Microsoft one? What about spam?
Finally, I'm a bit worried about uninstalling Norton before downloading the new stuff - won't it leave my PC vulnerable?

Thanks

I'm_With_Stupid

My mum insisted on buying Norton when she first got the internet, despite me insisting that she can get better products free and Norton is crap. Within a month, she had an engineer out fixing the computer. First thing he said? What are you doing with this rubbish on here? He got rid and put AVG and Adaware on there instead.

I'm_With_Stupid

WNBRich wrote: »

Finally, I'm a bit worried about uninstalling Norton before downloading the new stuff - won't it leave my PC vulnerable?

No because you'll be downloading from reputable/trustworthy sources. I'd download AVG and Adaware personally. I'm not sure about firewalls myself, don't have much experience with them. I think we have a hardware based firewall so we don't need the software one. Someone else will tell you how to check that though, because I don't remember.

BillScarab

Download AVG 7.5 for Anti Virus
Download Ad-Aware and Spybot for Anti Spyware (You can also get Windows Defender for realtime Anti-Spyware if you haven't already got it)
Then download Zone Alarm free version to replace the MS firewall (assuming you are running XP it doesn't run on Vista).

If you download all of the install files you can then disconnect your PC from the Internet while you un-install Norton and Install your new software.

The only thing to be aware of is that Norton can be a $*%*&^%*&% of a thing to get rid of. Just un-installing it doesn't get rid of everything. There is a tool available to get rid of it completely.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039