Norton's security

[doblo]

My norton's is up for renewal tomorrow should I get it or is there any better out there......also is Norton's difficult to remove from pcif you change....many thanks for your help

[crossroads]

I use AVG and have never had any problems.
http://www.avg.com

[spaced]

remove nortons asap and downaload AVG antivirus, which is better and free. Nortons is crap and ******** my pc up. AVG is excellent

[Buenchico]

(2-part post):
The two security suites which are most frequently criticised by PC magazines (and widely hated by AB contributors) are the most well-known commercial ones, i.e. Norton and MacAfee. They are both known to slow down many PCs. The sooner you get rid of Norton the better.

You can't uninstall Norton using 'Add/Remove Programs in Windows. You have to download the removal tool from here:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo .nsf/docid/2005033108162039

AVG Free Edition is the most popular free anti-virus software:
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/28415/lng/us/tpl/v 5

Some people prefer Avast:
http://www.avast.com/eng/download.html

(NB: Just choose one of those two programs. You should never have two anti-virus programs running simultaneously; it could lead to system conflicts).

[Buenchico]

You'll also need a decent firewall. Zone Alarm Free Edition is the most popular choice with the 'regulars' in AB's Technology section:
http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/company /products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
(NB: Click the 'Basic' link, not the 'Trial Pay' one).

Comodo is also a popular firewall:
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/downloa d_firewall.html?currency=GBP®ion=United%20K ingdom&country=GB
(Again, only use one firewall, not both).

Ad-Aware is the most popular anti-spyware program:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_f ree.php

Whatever you choose to use, you shouldn't need to pay for it. The free stuff is at least as good (and often much better) than the commercial software.

Chris

[boobesque]

complain all you like, i had avg and norton installed and whenever i downloaded a virus norton was all over it straight away. avg tended to take 5-10 seconds longer. 5-10 seconds? not that long right? it could erase 5-10 seconds worth of your hard drive in that time.

Granted it is a systems hog but so is firefox. I never see people telling anyone to dump firefox for IE.

I use avg now btw. God damn symantec wanted me to give them money or something. im not down with that

[Mac70]

You ran two av's? No wonder you were downloading viruses? They will only conflict with each other.

[rojash]

Further to Chris's reply: I used to recommend ZoneAlarm, and now prefer Comodo, which provides a much higher level of security. The paid for version of ZoneAlarm provides better security than the free version, but has also (like Norton) started to turn into bloat-ware that slows your system.

I've noticed that a number of other on here who previously recommended ZoneAlarm have also switched to Comodo.

Boobesque: You should never run more than one AV program simultaneously - it can cause all sorts of problems. Did it occur to you that the delay in reporting from AVG was cuase by it waiting for Norton to finish its scan and analysis.

As to your comment that the virus could have already done damage by the time AVG reported it, this is also incorrect, as the whole point of the scan is that any virus is prevented from running until the scan (and hence the report) is completed.

[funkylad20]

I am very confused. Have the same situation as doblo, and have installed AVG, HOWEVER, trying to uninstall that damn Norton Uninstaller Tool and the link does not work. I'm half a technophobe and slightly paranoid ... are symantec people deliberately making it hard for people to uninstall their confusing crap product?!?