Norton 2004 - Are there problems? Are they fixed?

[Matthew A. Murray]

A while back, my mother was experiencing compatibility problems
with her ISP and her Norton Antivirus 2001 software, and I had considered
switching her over to 2004 to clear it up. However, when I perused users'
comments on Amazon.com, a number of people had complained that there were
lots of problems with the 2004 editions of both Antiviruis and SystemWorks
(the 2003 version of which I use) that resulted in a lot of errors
(sometimes resulting in the necessity to completely rebuild machines) and
noticably decreased performance. Has anyone here also experienced these
problems? If so, since Norton frequently provides program upgrades and
updates with their LiveUpdate program, has Norton addressed these issues
yet? I'm still interested in upgrading her software (and possibly mine),
but I'd like to hear from some other people who have had experience with the
most recent version before progressing further. Thanks in advance.

 

[BoB]

A while back, my mother was experiencing compatibility problems
with her ISP and her Norton Antivirus 2001 software, and I had considered
switching her over to 2004 to clear it up. However, when I perused users'
comments on Amazon.com, a number of people had complained that there were
lots of problems with the 2004 editions of both Antiviruis and SystemWorks
(the 2003 version of which I use) that resulted in a lot of errors
(sometimes resulting in the necessity to completely rebuild machines) and
noticably decreased performance. Has anyone here also experienced these
problems? If so, since Norton frequently provides program upgrades and
updates with their LiveUpdate program, has Norton addressed these issues
yet? I'm still interested in upgrading her software (and possibly mine),
but I'd like to hear from some other people who have had experience with the
most recent version before progressing further. Thanks in advance.

Here's a comment from the Langa newsletter:
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Nav 2004: 10,000 Zero-Byte Files...

hey fred, having been a huge fan of norton anti virus and also
having worked with brian with nav team to work thru issues you
just have to read this thread at dslreports.com.

it is a problem with nav 2004 creating a big BROWSER slow down
attributed to scanning of js files.

also the creation of 10,000 zero byte files in the C\Program
Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\VirusDefs individual
definition folders which bring even the fastest computers to
their knees with a slowdown.

it afflicts both xp pro AND xp home.

please check out the extremely long thread of about 13 pages
here: http://langa.com/u/1w.htm

it is an eye opener for even the most avid nav users like
myself who are computer savvy but just sick over navs slow
response to this while they spend their time instead devising
ways not to let users crack their program.

maybe you could lend some needed help to this issue with a
little publicity. thank you, mark adelman

Thanks, Mark. Symantec acknowledges the problem (see
http://langa.com/u/1v.htm ) but as of this writing has no fix.

There appear to be other problems, too: The Product Activation on Nav
2004 is giving some users fits, for example: http://langa.com/u/1x.htm

Looks like Nav 2004 may have been taken out of the oven a little too
soon. If you're looking for antivirus, it might be good either to wait
for Symantec to fix the problems; or try NOD32 (
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=nod32&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000 ;
its my #1alternate recommendation for commercial antivirus), or AVG (
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=avg&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000 ) for
free antivirus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BoB