Norton or NO Norton?

[John R]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus. Would
welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

 

[Alias]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus. Would
welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

Stay as far away from Norton as you can.

Alias

 

[Poprivet]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus.
Would welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

Personally I like Norton and use Ghost and Sytemworks almost daily without
any problems. On a slow computer and with minimal RAM however, it can be a
resource hog though. Installed on a clean, properly functioning machine it
is no problem.

Pop`

 

[Rock]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus. Would
welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

If you searched this newsgroup using Google Groups Advanced search you would
have seen many posts about Norton home products and recommendations for
replacement. You should research by searching groups before posting.

That being said, I recommend against any of the Norton home products. They
are resource hogs, and if they run ok now on your system, then can cause
problems later. There are good, less resource heavy alternatives some of
which can be either free or low cost. I also recommend using any of the
other security suites.

For AV there is Avast (free and paid), AVG (free and paid), CA eTrust (low
cost), Nod32 (more costly but very good)

For firewall there is Sunbelt Software's Kerio Personal firewall (low cost),
Zone Alarm (free and paid), Comodo Personal Firewall (free).

You should also have several non viral anti-malware apps whose scans should
be run regularly in safe mode:
Adaware SE (free), Spybot S&D (free), Windows Defender (free),
SpywareBlaster (free), BHO Demon

Keeping free of malware is mainly a matter of common sense.

Also it's worthwhile to use a router with NAT and SPI (Stateful Packet
Inspection) between your modem and the computer.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus.
Would welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

My personal view is that they are the single worst products of their kind on
the market.

I would recommend ZoneAlarm and Avast (or AVG), all free, instead.

 

[Matt]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus. Would
welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

Norton caused me more problems than any malware ever did, one day it
just decided to delete all my incoming e-mails "Symantec E-mail proxy
deleted message.." What is more, you can't even uninstall it without a
fight.

NOD32 is by far and away the best anti virus. Say NO to Norton

 

[RHinNC]

I had (emphasis on had) Norton Internet Security 2005. After seeing it
deplete my system resources I decided to remove it. Never regretted it for
one moment. My system was so much faster without it. Took me forever
(actually 4 or 5 hours) to completely get rid of all Symantec's stuff from
the registry. This even after using their removal tool.

I have read that later versions of Norton were much improved, but not going
to take a chance. Currently I am beta testing Windows OneCare 1.5 and am
very, very pleased with the performance and functionality.

 

[Phisherman]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus. Would
welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

Years ago these were good products. Lately (2006-2007) I noticed that
some machines won't load NAV. Those that load are starved of system
resources. If you want to go ahead and buy, do so only if you have a
money-back guarantee.

 

[Rock]

Oh really? OneCare is good eh? I havent tried it and was hesitant but
maybe I will give it a try. But yeah norton is the worst thing in virus
protection IMO.

The virus detection hit rate for OneCare is poor.

 

[RHinNC]

Virus protection much improved in version 1.5

The virus detection hit rate for OneCare is poor.

 

[Paul Johnson]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus.
Would welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

Sure:

Norton Antivirus tends to cause more problems than it solves, and there's an
inexpensive alternative that runs circles around it available at
http://free.grisoft.com/ called AVG.

As far as the firewall is concerned, it's snake oil. You're better off
setting up a real firewall using a router. This goes for ZoneAlarm,
BlackICE, etc, as well. http://samspade.org/d/firewalls.html

 

[Rock]

oh really? I have talked to other people that used it but was a little
weary since they aren't to computer savvy so they really didn't know
what they were talking about. just what they were being told.

Maybe David Lipman will respond in this thread about the effectiveness of
OneCare live for virus detection.

 

[PA Bear]

Here's something about NAV that you may not be aware of:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/symantecdoc1.html

 

[RHinNC]

Which version are you referring to?

 

[E. Barry Bruyea]

I have read good and bad about Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-virus. Would
welcome comments regarding the value of these products.

I used Norton (Symantec) products when they were first introduced and
had excellent success until Windows ME, when I started having problems
that I learned to live with. That all ended with Windows XP; I simply
could not live with the aggravation and have ceased using any of their
products. Others have had similar problems and some say they haven't,
so, give it a try if you wish, but don't be surprised if 'the ghost in
the machine' raises its ugly head.

 

[Bert Kinney]

Stay away, far away for Norton applications.

You will find alternatives here:
Virus and Spyware removal and prevention steps:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/spyware.html

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org