Norton AV 360

ok Malo here it is:
You need to wrap your computer up with plastic wrap, before engaging in cybersex, or your computer will catch nasty viruses....
I can't believe your dad didn't have this talk with you......

Thanks Don, but my father is 81 now, and firmly believes he can do without computers.. I'll guess he is right at his age. And no, he didn't mentioned it to me ever
Martin.

Yup, and the Norton removal tool doesn't work properly in my experience.

Best way to kill it completely is to run a little freeware tool called Win Patrol: http://www.winpatrol.com/download.html

This allows you to examine services and start up programs and disable them one by one and includes a decent look-up reference.

It is also a useful adjunct to anti-virus software, since it sits in memory and requires authorisation for new applications/processes seeking to install themselves; if you are not specifically installing something it is reasonable to assume that malware has slipped through other defences.

Gosh I hope we haven't terminally depressed Lilly. It's fine for us geeks to talk about all these things but she just wants to keep protected.

I think we do all agree that Norton 360 isn't the best tool to use as it does seem to drag a fast computer to its knees and I support 70 shops with some simple software that Norton seems to kill as it accesses the Internet from within the program.

Tough call for Lilly - go with what she has and will still work and risk slowing the computer or take the advice given here.

Mike

PS Don Malo is teasing he runs some form of Unix which no-one can be bothered to write viruses for (or maybe you knew that already).

It's actually quite easy to give the right advice, but which for those less computer-savvy can be the wrong advice.

It may be that Norton will serve Lilly and many others very well. Maybe it will slow the computer a bit, but maybe not enought to be a problem.

Likewise, the expert experience of Norton might well be out of date because it will have probably been avoided for some time. It could have changed and be less of a problem now than it was.

All the PCs I work on have Norton or McAffee on them and they all fly like the wind...

Then they'd be faster without them

It's definitely still the case with N & M, John. I see far too many PCs running them and "plain" users who notice a vast difference once changed. It's not just my geeky nature
Both Norton and McAfee used to be great products - in the dark days of DOS and Win 3.1 (I was a happy "hacker" with Norton Utilities 4!).

Still, each to their own. I'm pretty used to people ignoring my advice by now, so I don't lose too much sleep over it!

Matt

Nothing wrong with your advice, Matt!

I started on Windows 3.1 but was much happier when Windows 95 arrived.

I was much happier when the Mac arrived a couple of months ago!

It's software, written by bad people, for popular operating systems.

I saw the thread and thought you'd been photographing motorcycles the M6 was fair stuffed with Nortons at the week end and they didn't slow down the traffic too much

Not all Nortons are bad then...

I am glad i looked at this thread. I just brought a new laptop a HP Pavillion, 2.5GHZ processor, 4gig of ram and 256MB dedicated graphics Memory.
It comes preloaded with Norton and i want to try something else, I am sick of Norton and all its little idiosyncrasies.

I will have a look at ESET and give it a try. Thanks Matt, I never ignore your advice

I have 3 other computers running in the house 1 x PC with Win XP and 2 X laptops running Vista all with Norton on them.

I was very tempted to get a Mac on the basis of all the good reviews you guys have passed on. But being old and dumb i couldn't see myself learning a new system and i wasn't sure how i could get it networked with the other 3 comps.
As they say it better the devil you know

Clarky,
If you buy multiple licenses from Eset it's a good idea to call them - they'll always increase the number of licenses for a good price We went from 5, to 11, to 25 - and it's incredibly cheap at that kind of quantity.

Additionally, it's the only anti-virus product I know that works quickly over a dial-up modem!

Matt

Thanks Matt i saw the prices for multiple licences on thier website. And they have an Aussie contact number, so thanks for the tip I will try the free trial version on my new laptop before I make a decision on the other 3 computers.
Thanks again

BTW as discussed in this thread i gather its very important to remove all traces of Norton before installing a new program. Why is this so vital::

Because you can't have two AV products running at the same time

BTW, while we at it, I've seen two computers this past week "infected" with a so-called anti-virus product! It's called "Anti Virus XP 2008" or "Anti Virus 2009" and looks absolute genuine. However, when run it shows you have 85, or 200 odd viruses and try and scare you into paying a subscription (When there definitely are NOT any viruses on the machine!) What a scam!

Matt