dtgeeks.com — Norton anti-virus sucks, and the world despises it. Why is it around? Because Compaq bundles it with their PCs. Geek Squad at Best Buy hands it out to old ladies who can’t even get their monitors on; With the history laid, here are the top twenty reasons that the world despises Norton
Sep 30, 2006 View in Crawl 4
stonebearSep 30, 2006
I have always considered it a virus on par with AOL. Only someone very naive would let such a program take over their computer.
brenOct 1, 2006
Ok, Norton/Symantec, same thing, It's all Symantec now. We manage IT for plenty of businesses here, and the as a matter of policy, we tend to use SAV Corp to protect the network. This was the case when I joined the company, and I've been grumbling about it ever since.It does, however, work, sort of... In a corporate environment, where one installation is "protecting" many machines, it's not so bad. The thing is, it's the ignorant users that it is "protecting: more than anything. The problems: It chokes. Way too much for anything that you pay good money for. If it is installed on a fresh server, you'll probably be lucky enough for it work properly (which is not the same as well) for some time. But it will choke. We can't run it for a lot of businesses becasue of the way it drags everything down as it scans files going to and fro. We run AVGs corporate network solution for all of our dentist clients because it slows data transfer so much and clogs things up to the point that things like xray images in a digital clinic get botched up when they do come through, and often SAV slows them down so much, it can crash the system. Most other suites don't have it this bad, it's most likely (hey, I can't say with 100% certainty..) because SAV is so damn bloated.It breaks, often. I don't care to try to count the times a client brings a machine in that's misbehaving to find that everytime I right click on 'my computer', it initiates a reinstall/repair of Symantec. I mean, what does Symantec think it's doing? Often, when SAV can't clean a n infection, you end up with a machine that can't browse the net. Everything else works, you can ping, netstat, etc but IE, FF, Mozilla,just can't find anything. Symantec also does this when it's trying to clean your machine and locks the intarweb down to protect you, then gets eaten by the infection. Guess what? Reformat! You can't uninstall it. Heck, even on the machines that come with it preloaded, but not fully installed and activated, if you remove it, you have to go digging for the program in the tray that is still running after you've used it's own uninstalled to "remove all".reformatting is the only way to clean it out, and often your system still remains sluggish while the leftover components try to scan files coming and going to make sure they're clean. often once uninstalled, it's worse because the program can't find all the pieces it needs to do it's job anymore.Then you have to pay, pay pay, each year. Sure it's not much, but for a single machine, it's useless. At home, you can use any number of other freeware programs that will work better without the performance hit. I like AVG for those who don't feel comfortable without an AV. When I need to clean a system, so I can retrieve precious pictures of vacations for people, before I reformat the machine, I use sysclean from Trend Micro to wipe out the nasties. Spybot (I know It's a little outdated now, what are the current top of heap ASpywares?), AVG, even McAffee your system a couple of times. Trend also has an online scanner (if your system is healthy enough to find the intarweb) that will use java or a plugin to scan for viruses and spyware which works pretty well for a routine check up. It's free, and you don't have to worry about keeping it up to date.Plus, most of the research these days into the effectiveness of AV says that the most popular, expensive programs are the worst at protecting you. So find some good free ones, and use more than one. Then stop clicking on the donkey sex pics.
litespeedOct 1, 2006
what java gui?
daroachOct 1, 2006
We (Geek Squad) don't hand anyone Norton. We hand them Trend Micro's PC-cillin and SpySweeper. We actually discourage people from using Norton or McAfee.
allthingsthatflyOct 1, 2006
Here is some good NOD32 stats;<a class="user" href="http://www.ramsinks.com/nod/">http://www.ramsinks.com/nod/</a>
Closed AccountOct 1, 2006
This list seems to be thrown together based on problems that happened maybe once to the person that wrote it or occurs with any software application. Buried.
Closed AccountOct 2, 2006
Even their uninstaller completely sucks. When we migrated from norton on our networks, we literally had to reformat and reinstall XP on several machines because norton would not uninstall at all. We tried their Norton removal tool on a few machines and it broke windows update and those machines need to be manually updated now. The registry is a mess and there are services we can't remove even as administrator. When we called symantec, we were put through three levels of obtuse and unhelpful "tech support" who had even less of a clue than we did.I am appalled at the incompetence of these supposedly smart guys who can't write a basic, decent installer/uninstaller which actually works.
salmonmooseOct 2, 2006
Not really.There have been occasions when I have found viruses on bought CDs, the small performance hit I suffer from on access protection doesn't concern me.
lapinetteOct 2, 2006
Anybody stupid enough to pay for this crap deserves to have his puter slowed down to a crawl for good with no chance of restoring to normal.Should also lose his puter driver permit.
azazelkaOct 10, 2006
Some thimes ago i use Norton Antivirus but when i read how Norton antivirus software exposes computers ( <a class="user" href="http://antivirus.thesitez.com/2006/05/29/norton-antivirus-software-exposes-computers/">http://antivirus.thesitez.com/2006/05/29/norton-antivirus-software-exposes-computers/</a> ) i start to use Nod 32 =)
holyvierOct 11, 2006
It remember me when i used to have that ... i couldnt go use firefox for about 2 weeks because of a crappy corrupted update. And it wasn't all the computer couldn't end correctly because it kept crashing some process. The problem was in a update of the firewall of Norton.And I'm not talking of when i used to play a network game and Norton made my entire os crash just to show the box to ask me if I want the application to connect to the network.Now I use Kaspersky witch I recommend to everyone. Run in background and block real virus, spyware, etc. and it's not just telling you "This script may content malicious script, do you wish to let it executed ?".
aaznJan 20, 2007
I use Linux and I've never ever gotten a virus. It's impossible; the sudo command has no holes, so all it could do is replicate itself 90000000 times in my /home folder... I used to have Norton, as did everyone else. @lapinetteGrow a brain and stop abbreviating "computer" with "puter." It makes you sound like a f**king retard. (Or is it just that you sound like one?)I never get viruses becasue:(*) I use Linux(*) When ever I run programs, I run them under a virtual sandbox that cleanses itself. (..) ^ This sandbox reverts back to the default installation unless I tell it not to. So even if I got a virus,(..) ^ it would still have no where to go. Bring it on, W32.Blaster(*) If I ever use Linux at my friend's PC, I have a USB Flash drive with my "paid for" version of Eset (..) NOD32 v2.5 that updates it's definitions and scans when ever it is plugged in. I just plug it in to their (..) computer, let it scan, plug it out, move to the next s**tty computer, etc.
ssfourteenSep 16, 2009
Comodo Antivirus FTW....
teksqrMay 14, 2011
Protect your computer check for free option at http://www.teksqr.com/2011/05/secure-and-protect-your-computer-from.html