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Norton Pain

Libre

Libre

Member
I recognize the need for virus protection software, firewalls, and the like. I just wish those programs would just work in the background, and leave me alone to do my work. They are like bratty children, always demanding my attention - sometimes competing with EACH OTHER for my attention, bonging bongs, beeping peeps, alterting me to this or that, and creating annoying distractions every few moments. I know there are settings that can subdue these annoying children to some extent, but they keep popping up anyway. AND, you have to pay for all this, not once, but over and over. Sometimes, these programs block out needed and useful applications, that I PAID for, and use all the time, but all of a sudden the anti-virus or firewall doesn't like it, and it POPS UP with an ALERT.

Suppose you had a home, a reasonably safe home, never been broken into, quiet and comfortable. One day, this guy comes over and tells you he wants to sell you a guard dog, and your home will never be safe without it. You tell him to get lost, you're fine without any guard dog. Later, this guy arranges to have your house broken into and vandalized. Now you call him up and buy the dog, for some major bucks. If that weren't bad enough, the dog attacks you every time you enter, and won't let you have any peace, keeps snarling at you when you are trying to read, always wants you to look at him, and distroys your serenity.

OK, I vented. I hate these programs though.
 
I have antivirus, firewalls etc, and i get perhaps one popup warning a month if that much. Correctly set up, they should not bother you at all.
 
Gosh. I have Norton Anti-virus and all it does is lie there by the fire slumbering like an ancient golden Retriever. I feel cheated.

I'm going to drag a mouse in front of it to see if it's alive.

:eek:
 
I have McAfee and my chief gripe is that when I reply to emails without changing the subject line, it pops up with a "WORM ALERT!!". Ditto for when I forward an email to multiple people.
 
I agree Libre, 100%. I purchased the 2005 McAfee suite, anti-virus, firewall the lot, (to replace an older Norton anti-virus) and it won`t leave my alone either.
What I have done is disabled it. My pc has never been better. I will run the anti-virus check every few weeks. I always reset my pc back to factory settings every six months anyway and reload what I need back on, only takes a few hours and keeps the pc uncluttered.
 
The dog metaphor is very accurate.

I had Norton but I forgot to renew my antivirus subscription or something so I purchased a renewal. That didn't work. After much searching, emailing, and posting I got frustrated and chucked it. Now I have McAffee and everythings calmed down.

During the time I had no virus checker (about 5 months) I was never infected with a virus or worm. Ironically, uninstalling programs has caused me problems with my screen resolution that I dont know how to fix.
 
Sounds like you need to get some new software :)

I use these programs. They are all free.

My Virus checker is AVG free editon

My firewall is Zone Alarm

Spybot scan, deletes, and immunises against spyware.

My browser is FireFox ( with java scrip control extension )

My email client is Thunderbird

I never get any kind of pop up while viewing web pages, thunderbird eliminates 90 percent of spam, my firewall and virus detection program never bother me apart from the odd occasion when it's needed.
 
Like geneviv, I used to have Norton, then I bought an upgrade online and downloaded it (no hard copy) and everything went to hell, I finally found out (they didn't mention it at the start of the download) I was supposed to remove the old version first before downloading the upgrade. So I removed both versions, got a second download and it didn't work at all. I got frustrated and went out and bought a hard copy of Zone Alarm and it was too complicated, so I went out again and bought a hard copy of McAfee. It's not perfect but at least it works, and I have a firewall and email antivirus scan. Oh yeah, and I got a refund from Norton. :D
 
And then when you do decide to complain to them, it's harder to find a phone number or even a customer service email link from their site, then to find Bin Ladin. One time when I renewed my subscription, it did not update my license, and I had to spend days going to their site to finally find a way to get the license to renew.
I have a suspicion that they themselves (or disgruntled (or even gruntled)) ex-employees are responsible for half the viruses out there. What need would we have for them without these bugs?
2 or 3 computers ago, I made the HUGE mistake of installing the whole Norton Utilities - not just the anti virus. They make it seem like their wonderful software is going to keep your computer trouble free.
WRONG
What it did, was to turn my computer into a platform for running Norton Utilities - as though that were the only reason I had a computer. The recycle bin became the NORTON recycle bin. It put all these little graphs and icons in my system tray. It alerted me to something or other every 5 seconds. When I tried to get rid of it, there was no uninstall, so I just deleted it from my hard drive. WOW, did it get back at me for that. My PC never ran right again no matter what I did, and I lived with this crippled machine until I reformatted the hard drive, which caused other major problems, and eventually I just bought a new computer.
 
Norton seems to be having renewal problems. IMHO they really suck.

People buy this stuff because they fear crashing and identity theft. But I think if you use common sense and stay away from places like kazaa and don't open obviously phony e-mails you are being sufficiently careful. During the time I had no antivirus I was not shy in my surfing habits and my computer remained virus-bug-and-worm free. Meanwhile, the clingy Norton would pop up to constantly warn me that I was vulnerable to attack. Even though I can't offer proof that the big corporations are responsible for writing the worms and viruses, I definately think they are using them to their advantage in order to propogate paranoia that sells their products.
 
Both Mcfee and Norton suck. The rule on the net is: Never pay for what you can get equally as good, and sometimes better. Ditch Norton and Mcfee and get AVG.
 
Does AVG take up much space? Because I had zonealarm and spybot and when I uninstalled them it increased the space on my hard drive by about 50%.
 
50 percent?????????????????????????????????

The programs are tiny. No offence, but I don't think that's possible :)

SPYBOT: 16 meg.
ZONE ALARM: 9.1 megs

What is your hard drive and OS?
 
As a popup blocker the Google toolbar is *brilliant*. It's also easy to see when a popup is blocked (big yellow star appears in the toolbar), and you just click it to allow the popup.
 
Wabbit said:
It does contain spyware tho :) Google tracks you. I prefer not to use it... call me Mr Paranoid :D
Click to expand...
:eek: Really? What kind? My last experience with spyware resulted in my laptop being useless. My old roomate downloaded Kazaa onto it and the whole thing just slowed down to next to nothing because of spyware and processing-stealing bots. But the Google toolbar has caused me nothing by pleasure... what's the problem with it?
 
Kookamoor said:
As a popup blocker the Google toolbar is *brilliant*. It's also easy to see when a popup is blocked (big yellow star appears in the toolbar), and you just click it to allow the popup.
Click to expand...

get rid of the Google toolbar and use the popup blocker in Firefox.
 
Yup :)

Firefox with java script extention means I NEVER get a pop up unless I want to see it! Ditch google bar, kook!
 
geneviv said:
Does AVG take up much space? Because I had zonealarm and spybot and when I uninstalled them it increased the space on my hard drive by about 50%.
Click to expand...

Doesn't sound quite right. Something up there.

BTW - what happened to your old avatar? I liked it because I have an arm fetish, see.
 
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