Pro's and con's of having a Norton package on your PC?

LightFlare

Chickereeeee said:

Olinda99 said:

there are no pros of Norton - only cons 

my advice is to uninstall it immediately

I have assumed in this post that you are running Windows 11

Well, the Pros are all on Norton's side....

Arguably so is the con - depending on your use of the word 

400ixl

Don't wait until the subscription expires, remove it all now and just make sure that you then have the Microsoft Security activated in its place.

Ayr_Rage

I agree with the general consensus, just use Microsoft Security and also consider Microsoft PC Manager.

outtatune

TUVOK said:

I've done a search re this query but most appear to be many years old and I'm not sure if the if the views are still relevant?
I bought a new PC last Xmas from a local PC shop, it's used every day, sometimes for quite a few hours, I have noticed no 'slowing' of the speed of operations during this period
My Norton screen today states that the following things are hindering the Pc and slowing it down:
Faulty driver 5
374 Broken registry keys.
Registry issues 374.
Apps slowing down 5.
6225 mb of 'clutter'
Browser junk 1368mb
Broken short cuts

To a non tech person like myself the list seems ominous! but I remember some comments from this Techie Stuff page to slate Norton as a waste of time, dangerous and that it actually harms your PC.
I'm not sure quite what to do in a few months time when the original free subscription expire?

Any comments, views and help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.



 

I'm prepared to bet that Norton doesn't say the bit in bold.
It probably says may be hindering the PC and slowing it down - because they know their software is useless and want to scare non-techy people into paying a subscription without committing themselves that there is actually a problem to solve or that their software will solve it.

Newcad

It is something that most of the old 3rd party AVs are doing now.

They know that with Windows Defender being included as standard they are no longer needed as AVs for home use.
Some of them may still be useful for certain business users.

So they started bundling in junk cleaners, registry cleaners, driver and software updaters, etc. to try and make themselves still look like something worth paying for.

Windows includes tools to do all that stuff for you. (And you can get other FREE cleaners and updaters if that is what you want).

Norton is now part of Gen Digial, which also includes Avast/AVG and CCleaner,(as well as many others, some that might surprise you). They share things and most of the cleaning bits in Norton are ported over from CCleaner, the software and driver updating is now based on the Avast versions.
None of it is actually needed, Windows can already do it and does it automatically in many cases.

Neil49

Just make sure that any auto renewal box is unticked in your account details.

They have a nasty habit of assuming you want to continue using their product at an extortionate price. 

finbaar

I'm so pleased to see the advice here. I've nothing to add but I'm happy!

_Jem_

Newcad said:

It is something that most of the old 3rd party AVs are doing now.

They know that with Windows Defender being included as standard they are no longer needed as AVs for home use.

Even the free AV software like AVG shows all that stuff I always ignored it. I think you could fix it for free in AVG. I haven't looked deeply into windows defender but does it offer to shred things with no trace like AVG.

I remember back in the day you would get stubborn items left from uninstalled apps, The windows bin wouldn't get rid of it, but using AVG built in shredder would get rid of it. 

Newcad

If you have a SSD, which most newer computers do, then there is no need for 'secure delete', or a 'file shreader', (or drive wiper), the built in TRIM and Garbage Collect of an SSD do that automaticaly for you anyway.
Using those extra tools is just using up the SSDs life unecessarily by making extra writes to it.

Leftovers from uninstalls (files, folders, and Registry entries) are a different thing, for those you don't need an AV or a file cleaner but something like Revo uninstaller.

bob2302

Newcad said:

If you have a SSD, which most newer computers do, then there is no need for 'secure delete', or a 'file shreader', (or drive wiper), the built in TRIM and Garbage Collect of an SSD do that automaticaly for you anyway.

It's more the case that there's  not much that can be done on an SSD; TRIM and garbage collection guarantee nothing - "file shredders" do nothing useful.