I dumped Norton !!!!!!

[Alias]

: If possible could you clarify a few things:
: What is a "real" firewall?
:
: I have a Linksys router that conects to a 3com hub which conects to my
: computer(s). Do these (Linksys / 3com) units have a NAT? I have never
: configured (i don't think) anything other then the Norton I have installed
on
: my pc.

Your router came with a manual. In the manual it will tell you if it is NAT
or not.

Alias
:
:
: > As for firewalls, if you can't afford a real firewall, a NAT box, like a
: > Linksys or D-Link will make a nice unit between your computer and the
: > internet, and you don't have to worry about configuration issues or
: > flaws in the personal firewall or OS as much.
: >
: > Between using a router with NAT (or getting a real firewall) and
: > Symantec Corporate Edition 9.0 AV product, you would be very safe and
: > not have to deal with the bloat.
: >
: > --
: > --
: > (e-mail address removed)
: > (Remove 999 to reply to me)
: >

 

[Leythos]

If possible could you clarify a few things:
What is a "real" firewall?

You can good a search for the definition, and NAT in a router does not
make it a firewall.

I have a Linksys router that conects to a 3com hub which conects to my
computer(s). Do these (Linksys / 3com) units have a NAT? I have never
configured (i don't think) anything other then the Norton I have installed on
my pc.

Linksys "routers" have NAT, at least every linksys router since they
started making the blue/black units has been a NAT device. If you have
not updated the firmware and changed the password you would be
relatively easy to compromise - you should have read the manual that
came with it, it clearly tells you how to change the default password.

NAT is all that most home users need.

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 18:01:38 -0700, "Bill in Co."

The real tragedy is that the Norton stuff used to be SO good, back in the
DOS days, and he (apparently) "sold out". Guess he doesn't care, as long
as the bucks keep coming in.

Ai shame, I think he was just getting older and needed a retirement
plan (and he's certainly earned that!). Peter Norton is to "Norton"
as Colonel Saunders is to KFC - i.e. don't expect to find him wearing
an apron in the kitchen, coding up a storm

--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

Tech Support: The guys who follow the
'Parade of New Products' with a shovel.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

OK, thanks for that update. I still think if I were he, I
wouldn't
want my name tarnished by these "new renditions" of the bloated
(Norton named) Symantec products. But maybe when you're
really
rich, that becomes irrelevant in this world.

You're welcome. But he has no choice. He sold his name along with
the product line.

 

[Papa]

One word: Retail

Ah, yes, good old Madison Avenue. So tempting, so misleading.

 

[D.H. Cesare]

The new AVG FREE will block OE from accessing the server for some reason.
My self and 2 others, that I know of, had same problem. Removed it,
installed AVAST and no more problems.

 

[Ed]

A few days ago I removed all trace of Norton Internet Security products, in

Is this just a simple case of Control Panel, Add/Remove programs ? Or
are some special additional procedures required to remove 'all traces'.

I am about to do the same thing on my WinXP machine and want to make
sure that I do the job right.

Thanks,
Ed

 

[Fishb8]

Norton/Symantec products are so invasive. Only a search through the registry
will remove everything. I use a program called"Ashampoo". Now this takes a
snapshot of your registry before an installation, then one just after and
remembers the difference. When you wish to un-install a program it removes
ALL the items detected on installation. For instance, if you tried a 30 day
trial, you could un-install, at the end of the trial, then re-install and
start again, if you could be bothered. I'd never install any Symantec
products without using Ashampoo.

~~~~~<*)))))><{~~~~~~~~~~<*)))))><{~~~~~~~~
~~~<*)))))><{~~~~~~~~~<*)))))><{~~~~~~~~<*)))))><{~~~~ (r)
Roy Price - May the Fish be with you

 

[R. McCarty]

Allot of it depends on which version you are removing. The normal
uninstall will likely leave Live Update, Live Reg and WMI Update.
Then the uninstall will probably "Orphan" a number of system level
services found in the Non-Plug-&-Play driver category of Device
Manager. Even with 100% uninstalls completed the system will still
have at least two Symantec folders on C:\. One in your profile's
Common Files folder and a System level Common Files folder as
well.

Symantec has post uninstall clean up tools like RNav &
RNisUpg and SymClean, but even those will likely leave parts of
the program behind. One aspect of the uninstall is leaving content in
the Registry to protect their Product Activation scheme. I've had to
do this process on at least 30+ machines and was a big factor in my
ultimate decision to drop Symantec from my own machine and stop
recommending it to my customers.

I would recommend you take a System Image of your drive before
starting this. Also the Non-Plug and play services are somewhat
hard to run down (such CCevnt and many others) many are only
going to appear in the HKLC Services tree and that's a manual edit
of the Registry.

Good Luck

 

[Solomon Grundy]

The real tragedy is that the Norton stuff used to be SO good, back in the
DOS days, and he (apparently) "sold out". Guess he doesn't care, as long
as the bucks keep coming in.

Kenny S wrote:

I used to use Norton. It was excellent for registry maintainance until XP
came out. Norton 2002 is a real POS. It works nicely with Win 95/98/ME but
under XP it destroys the system restore capability by messing with the
content of the restore files.

Of course, now I have a problem with XP, caused by some of direct-soft inc's
badly coded trash (my 3 year old could code better), Norton is of no help
whatsoever.

I'm going to dump Norton and get McAffee instead - and a spare disk drive in
case I need to reformat the hard drive.

 

[Rock]

Solomon Grundy wrote:

I'm going to dump Norton and get McAffee instead - and a spare disk drive in
case I need to reformat the hard drive.

You might want to stay away from Mcafee too. There are some good
alternatives for AV such as AVG, Avast, Kaspersky, Panda. For firewalls
there's Sygate, Zone Alarm and Kerio, all of which offer free and paid
versions.

 

[Solomon Grundy]

Actually McAfee used to make something called nuts and bolts. They don't
seem to do that any more. Seems like only Norton does registry managment
these days. I looked up something by pctools and tried it. It claimed I had
200 registry errors but wouldn't tell me what they were so i definitely
don't feel like buying their crapware.

 

[PCR]

You are under arrest, Fishb8! You & Colorado!

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
should things get worse after this,
PCR
(e-mail address removed)
| Norton/Symantec products are so invasive. Only a search through the
registry
| will remove everything. I use a program called"Ashampoo". Now this
takes a
| snapshot of your registry before an installation, then one just after
and
| remembers the difference. When you wish to un-install a program it
removes
| ALL the items detected on installation. For instance, if you tried a
30 day
| trial, you could un-install, at the end of the trial, then re-install
and
| start again, if you could be bothered. I'd never install any Symantec
| products without using Ashampoo.
|
| ~~~~~<*)))))><{~~~~~~~~~~<*)))))><{~~~~~~~~
| ~~~<*)))))><{~~~~~~~~~<*)))))><{~~~~~~~~<*)))))><{~~~~ (r)
| Roy Price - May the Fish be with you
| | > RJK wrote:
| >
| >> A few days ago I removed all trace of Norton Internet Security
products,
| >> in
| >>
| >
| > Is this just a simple case of Control Panel, Add/Remove programs ?
Or are
| > some special additional procedures required to remove 'all traces'.
| >
| > I am about to do the same thing on my WinXP machine and want to make
sure
| > that I do the job right.
| >
| > Thanks,
| > Ed
|
|

 

[Mark Timerding]

There are some good
alternatives for AV such as AVG, Avast, Kaspersky, Panda. For firewalls

Both Panda, and Kaspersky make a/v's that also include a firewall.
I dont know about Kaspersky as I couldnt get it to run on my machine,
but Panda's was excellent, and very easy to use/configure.

 

[Rock]

Actually McAfee used to make something called nuts and bolts. They don't
seem to do that any more. Seems like only Norton does registry managment
these days. I looked up something by pctools and tried it. It claimed I had
200 registry errors but wouldn't tell me what they were so i definitely
don't feel like buying their crapware.

For XP on the whole it is best to not use a registry cleaner. For the
most part they can cause more problems then they solve and result in
little improvement.

 

[Bill in Co.]

For XP on the whole it is best to not use a registry cleaner. For the
most part they can cause more problems then they solve and result in
little improvement.

For any operating system that is probably true. The only real way to do
it right is to do a clean install of windows.

 

[Alexander Grigoriev]

Beware routers that use GET method in their configuration webpages. They are
prone to e-mail attack.

 

[Buffalo]

...and my machine is a LOT healthier for it, and I AM A LOT HAPPIER WITHOUT
IT !!

For years I leaned towards not listening to any criticisms aimed at Norton,
in these NG's. One of the main slurs often levelled at Symantec/Norton
programs was that they are "bloatware," ...I now completely agree - Norton
IS "bloatware" - of gargantuan proportions ! ...and on top of that it's
VERY SLOW "bloatware" as well.

Geez,is there any 'bloatware' that makes your computer 'faster'?

A few days ago I removed all trace of Norton Internet Security products,

I really don't think you actually removed 'all' traces of the above.
If you really did, you should be a programer.

in
favour of well known firewall, and anti-virus programs, and a couple of
anti-spy/malware programs from other, well known, software houses -
(recommended by mvp's.) i.e. not the various anti-spy/malware software that
has spy/malware attached to them !

Good for you. But, you sound like a person that probably used every option that
NIS offered (quite a lot of stuff) and that used a lot of cpu power, resources
and memory.
Now you decided to use different programs with not many of the options that you
had before and are amazed at how much faster your machine shuts down, etc.
Damn, it should be common sense that with less programs running 'all' the time,
that will happen.

My XP home edition now starts up a lot faster, and "Shuts Down," in
approximately five seconds - something it hasn't done for almost a year.

It's about time Symantec COMPLETELY REWROTE its' internet security
software - don't you think !

regards, Richard

Happy you're happy.
Now, go away.

 

[Buffalo]

Actually McAfee used to make something called nuts and bolts. They don't
seem to do that any more. Seems like only Norton does registry managment
these days. I looked up something by pctools and tried it. It claimed I had
200 registry errors but wouldn't tell me what they were so i definitely
don't feel like buying their crapware.

WTF are you talking about?
Babbling.

 

[John Johnson]

...and my machine is a LOT healthier for it, and I AM A LOT HAPPIER WITHOUT
IT !!

For years I leaned towards not listening to any criticisms aimed at Norton,
in these NG's. One of the main slurs often levelled at Symantec/Norton
programs was that they are "bloatware," ...I now completely agree - Norton
IS "bloatware" - of gargantuan proportions ! ...and on top of that it's
VERY SLOW "bloatware" as well.

A few days ago I removed all trace of Norton Internet Security products, in
favour of well known firewall, and anti-virus programs, and a couple of
anti-spy/malware programs from other, well known, software houses -
(recommended by mvp's.) i.e. not the various anti-spy/malware software that
has spy/malware attached to them !

My XP home edition now starts up a lot faster, and "Shuts Down," in
approximately five seconds - something it hasn't done for almost a year.

It's about time Symantec COMPLETELY REWROTE its' internet security
software - don't you think !

regards, Richard

I used Norton System Suite up till 2002 and never had a problem,
always helpful. I know others had problem but I didn't.
Then it became impossible to uninstall. Still have remants of 2003 on
this system. Tried to install anti Virus 2004 and it wouldn't
because it found some hidden Norton files. Tried all their uninstall
tricks and nothing worked.
I tried AVG but got Panda and like it better.