If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 10/24/2006 6:47:46 PM PDT by Swordmaker
"When you have a few minutes," my father asked me on the phone last night, "could you help me with my antivirus stuff?" The trial version of Norton AntiVirus 2006 on his three-month-old Lenovo laptop was expiring, and he was bit confused by the upgrade warning, so he wanted me to help him through the transition. One of the options was to upgrade to Norton AntiVirus 2007, for $39 (after the $10 promotional coupon he got in e-mail). Sounded good to me.
"Sure," I said. "It should only take a few minutes." I took control of his computer via LogMeIn and set to work.
Nearly an hour and a half later, hungry and irritated, I hung up and disconnected. The upgrade was complete. My father said, "I could not have done this without you." He was right, and that's why I was mad.
The upgrade required a complete uninstallation of the the 2006 product, which took a good 10 or 15 minutes and required a reboot. The download and installation of the 2007 version took nearly an hour itself and required its own reboot. It also asked for registration information that duplicated the info my father had given when he bought the new software online, leading him to think he was starting over. There were choices to make that he didn't understand and offers for products he didn't need. At several times during the process the computer appeared to be locked, and my father was tempted to turn it off and reboot. Before we said our good-byes, my bewildered father said to me, "Can't you write something about this? Make them change?"
So this is for you, Dad.
For everyone else: Nobody should have to deal with this. When the antivirus subscription that came with your PC expires, don't immediately jump to renew or upgrade what you have. There may be a better product out there. Also, the next time you're thinking of getting a new computer, take a serious look at the Macintosh.
Rafe Needleman has been covering technology and business since 1988. He started at InfoWorld as a reviews editor. Following that, he launched Corporate Computing magazine, and then moved on to become manager of advanced technologies for ZD Labs. In 1995, Needleman became editor-in-chief of Byte magazine. He joined CNET as editor of CNET.com, shortly after it started in 1997. In 1998 Needleman moved to Red Herring and is now back at CNET.
If HE has trouble and frustrations with this stuff, what does that say about all the rest of the poor, benighted Windows users?
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
I use AVG-free.
It's free for non-business users, and very effective.
When the Norton subscription was drawing to a close on my daughter's laptop, I gleefully un-installed the hideous Norton bloatware and installed the trim and every-bit-as-effective AVG-free.
.
Kaspersky anti-virus is excellent.
Actually the best way to avoid computer viruses is to avoid using computers at all. Why don't we all just shut our computs down, sell them on Ebay and go take a walk or read a good book.
When I upgraded my OS, Disk Doctor no longer worked properly.
I was breowsing the support discussion forums on the Apple site and ran across several posts to the effect that Norton anti-virus slowed down a computers performance.
I uninstalled System Works — no small feat — and sure enough my computer worked better.
The difference wasn't huge, but it was noticable.
In my estimation, Norton sucks.
Your role is to submit to my will. I download when I choose, I lock up your computer when I choose, I only let you know as much as I think you should know. And because I am all-knowing and almost as smart as Rush Limbaugh, I am damn near impossible to uninstall.
Wait, in that last aspect, they're more like vampires. You invite them in and you are in deep trouble.
This year they tell me that my Norton 2002 anti-virus will no longer be supported, please submit 39.95.
As I have never had a problem with Zone-Alarm I will be now using their suite!
PS I bought Norton 2002 security suite. And the only thing I had to use was Go-Back. But I can only keep it if I allow Norton 2002 to stay on my PC!
The best way to avoid food poisoning is to not eat. And you'd probably only need to brush your teeth once a week or so.
Regarding Norton antivirus software, which I have used in the past, I usually found that a virus infection was preferable.
I've got an old junker of a PC (came with Windows ME) that I used to surf the internet for about two months with no antivirus stuff whatsoever. I installed the latest Norton on it last week and expected it to be totally overun with viruses and spyware. But you know what? I ran the scan and it came up perfectly clean. A few years ago I had another old PC that I ran "bareback" on the Net, this time for about two years. And again, no viruses (actually I can't say this with total certainty -- I never scanned it -- but it never acted like it was infected with anything.).
You hear stories about computers being targeted within seconds when they're connected to the internet unprotected. I'm starting to think this is mostly fearmongering by outfits like Norton trying to sell antivirus products.
Well actually you ought to brush your teeth twice a day - whether you eat or not. This is because through the simple act of breathing, you are inhaling a lot of germs in the air that can get in between your teeth and cause decay.
A client of mine purchased a new Dell a few months ago for his home... and the Norton that was installed on it was popping up reminders about renewing. He called me in to "fix" it because he's all thumbs where tech things are concerned (He's an optometrist). It also had McAfees installed on it... Dell installs both on the system before shipping and the new owner is supposed to select one... the good doctor selected both. It took me 40 minutes to remove Norton and all its pieces (Except, of course, for the stuff the uninstaller leaves behind) and about 7 minutes to uninstall the McAfee... which was much better behaved... and install AVG.
But how would we get our Freerepublic fix?
I suggest you take a look at Avast http://www.avast.com Again, this is an excellent antivirus program, daily updates and like AVG...it's a freebie also.
Norton is the absolute worst. When we resubscribed, we found that the only way we could get our emails was to disconnect from their program...rather ludicrous, to pay for something that never worked. We will never have another Norton product.
what a great idea!....you first.
Germs in the air
It's nice to have a platform to write a hit piece because you were dumb enough to upgrade an entire software release remotely (hogging up a good chunk of the available bandwidth no doubt) and you chose the download option rather than getting a CD in the mail. Of coarse, he could have just updated the 065 subscription (which is what the warning is all about) and been done in 5 minutes. But hey, then what would he have written about today?
Norton sux ... big time
Guess what genius? Norton keeps your credit card on file and automatically charges you again in another 12 months, unless you fill out a form and FAX it in to them.
There are approximately 22,000,000 Mac users out there.
Last quarter, Apple Mac computer sales were between 5.8% and 6.1% (depending on which report you accept) of all computers sold in the United States.
If it were so easy for the authors of malware to create malware for the Mac, they would have done so by now.
If we merely accept the lower 5.8% reported as market share (ignoring the other reports that show that actual Mac installed user base may be as high as 18% of users - i.e. 18% of all software sold is Mac software according to the Software and Information Industry Association) then one would expect that 5.8% of the over 200,000 (McAfee's number) computer malware, or about 11,600, would be found on Macintoshes. The actual number is ZERO.
OS X - Six years with no malware in the wild and still counting.
Incidentally, Norton got started on pre-OSX Macs. It was a pretty good app back then.
I've alays wondered why Mac users always seem so concerned with what brand of computer I use. Similar to Linux users, they're always trying to get me to come over to the dark side..
You say it's better? Good for you. I use both on a fairly regular basis and I prefer the PC.. running Windows. So at home, that's what I use. Deal with it.
If you prefer Macs, great. I can see why some folks would. But why do some people feel the need to run around trying to 'convert' us poor downtrodden PC/Windows users? Getting a kickback from Apple?
And anyway, IMO, if you're dumb enough to install anything Norton/Symantic, you deserve what you get. :)
If anyone else is using it tell me how to get the anti-spam to hook up with Thunderbird.
Dreaming of a Mac Pro......
so do I but im thinking about actually purchasing the program so that the rest of the options are available.
ex. right now it will scan the complete system at a set time, if you buy it you can set the time of th scan and what drives it checks also i was wanting to take a look at that AVG internet security(would be nice to have an all-in-one again)
I'm in the middle of Norton hell at the moment myself, with my wife's laptop. She's got the Internet Security 2006 suite, which was an upgrade from what came with her P5000 Lifebook (nice lil box).
Being the nice guy that I am, I bought her a 7200 rpm drive to speed up her box. Got a good deal on an 80G for $99. Good so far. Get a copy of Norton Ghost ( unfortunately Norton bought PQMagic and killed Drive Image) for $69. Put the new drive in a USB2 enclosure, and Ghosted it - straight clone, I didn't even expand it to use all the space (due to a secondary partition for factory restore).
Popped the new cloned drive into her laptop and booted it up. No problemo!
About 10 minutes later, Norton calls the mother ship and deactivates her Internet Security suite saying it's been activated on too many computers! #&^Q&*^*@!!!!!
What really pisses me off is that it was their own product used to clone the drive. Ever look up what's involved with disputing their omnicious activation policy? Fill out forms, send in the form with original cd's and sleeves, then wait 3 weeks for them to review the case. Unreal!
hmmm, does that comodo combine into one? I'm currently using comodo firewall, but AVG free antivirus... if i uninstall avg free and install comodo anti-virus will it combine into the firewall or will i get a separate icon in the taskbar 1 for firewall and 1 for anti-virus? thanks in advance...
AVG Free from Grisoft
SPYBOT
ADAWARE
All free, and effective.
I installed norton internet Security 2006 on 3 different computers at the same time with the same license and they all worked with updates do problem. norton is a bit funky and causes some problems with WinXP(trust me, its NOT the XP its the Norton)
I use AVG too. A Freeper told me about it two years ago.
Maybe it was you.
he can try the PC De-Crapifier 1.6
take a look seriously! no joke!
Admin Tools | PC De-Crapifier 1.6
The PC De-Crapifier is designed to remove a specific list unwanted software in an unattended fashion. Before running, the user may select exactly what software should be removed. Currently, it is targeted for use on most Dell machines; however it will theoretically run on anything that has the software listed below.
The user can select exactly what is uninstalled from the list below
Go to link to see the list its long.
Can you explain with a link to a source, please?
I go with Allah. Norton had declared jihad on my system resources until I wiped my system and reinstalled. A few reinstalls later, and Norton still will go nowhere near my computer.
Too bad, they were indispensable in the early 90s.
The only time any of my machines ecer got hit and hit hard was through a current version of Norton, Never again.
Thanks, Echo, that would help a lot. Certainly easier than doing a dis-in-pest by hand, which I've had to do in the past.
" I use AVG-free."
Thanks. i'll look into decrapifier too.
Sounds like a name my brother gives hes software.
Three seperate programs each with its own icons in the task bar. Anti-virus and Firewall both start automatically with WinXP but the Anti-spam put an icon in the startup folder.(?)
The anti-spam has defaults for Outlook, Outlook Express and Netscape. Euduro and Opera have options but are blanked out. I directed it to Mozilla Thunderbird but I can tell it isnt working 100% yet.
Im gettin upwards of 20 spam e-mails a day. Its the worst its been this century!
How do you sell your computer on Ebay if it is turned off?
like can you set the time of day of the full system scan/what drives are scaned or is that automatically set unless you buy it?
$39 sounds good?!
AVG Free!
AVG Free!
AVG Free!
AVG Free!
AVG Free!
This isn't a PC/ Mac thing, this is a Norton utilities has been going downhill since Peter sold the company days. Sh!tty software is sh!tty software is sh!tty software, and the Norton utilities crossed the line to be irredemably sh!tty software around 98 or so (at least that was the last version I could tolerate anymore, really all the 32-bit versions were crap), and 8 years later they just keep getting worse. If Needleman has been at the game so long he should know the first (last and only) thing to say when someone asks you for help with Norton is "I'll uninstall it and buy you something better".
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