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Internet security - ditch Norton?

Rolfe

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Rolfe
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Last year when I got my new PC, I took Dell's option of a Norton subscription. Afterwards several geeks here remarked that Norton was rubbish.

I haven't had any real trouble with it, to be honest, but they now want more money to renew the subscription.

Do I take the line of least resistance and pay them, or if not, what should I get instead? I've got about 10 days to make up my mind.

Rolfe.
 
I say this as ..edit.. an IT professional familiar with Norton:

Go with Microsoft Security Essentials. Google it for download from Microsoft's site. Uninstall and forget Norton.
 
Norton 2009 and 2010 are very good products, it's the versions before them that were bloated rubbish. That being said, I wouldn't pay for it when there's a free AV product like Avast that does the job about as well.
 
Phoenix said:
<snip> I wouldn't pay for it when there's a free AV product like Avast that does the job about as well.
Click to expand...

This. Avast, MSE, AVG all perform similarly. Preferences aside, they all do the job well enough.
 
Phoenix said:
Norton 2009 and 2010 are very good products, it's the versions before them that were bloated rubbish. That being said, I wouldn't pay for it when there's a free AV product like Avast that does the job about as well.
Click to expand...

Ditto. I believe Norton 2009/2010 is the best rated security suite. But it is probably not worth it to pay for it when there are very good free alternatives. I prefer MSE.
 
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Ducky said:
This. Avast, MSE, AVG all perform similarly. Preferences aside, they all do the job well enough.
Click to expand...

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AVG user here, and no virus hits in a couple of years on many different machines. AVG has a free version with basic features, and you can upgrade to paid versions with more.

Only "downsides" to AVG that I know are: It consumes 30MB+ RAM so make sure you have sufficient (most modern PCs certainly do), and there is no longer any support for it on Windows 98 (don't ask! :)).

Other products have similar offerings. Shop around!

Finally, I have always found that Nortons was bloatware that sucked the life out of a PC (heavy memory and CPU overheads). My work PC is a current HP desktop with dual 3.6GHz CPU and 4GB RAM - it is slower than the 2GHz P4 with 1GB it replaced, due to Nortons on Vista... :eek:
 
Well I got rid of norton on advice from ducky and others in the chat room. And my computer is a lot faster and generally less frustrating
 
What are you using, Fiona?

I may need my hand held to make sure I do this downloading and uninstalling bit right, mind you.

Rolfe.
 
Zep said:
...snip...

Finally, I have always found that Nortons was bloatware that sucked the life out of a PC (heavy memory and CPU overheads). My work PC is a current HP desktop with dual 3.6GHz CPU and 4GB RAM - it is slower than the 2GHz P4 with 1GB it replaced, due to Nortons on Vista... :eek:
Click to expand...

That certainly was the case but as others have mentioned the company really has turned that around and it is now (again) a very good, tight utility.
 
Rolfe said:
What are you using, Fiona?

I may need my hand held to make sure I do this downloading and uninstalling bit right, mind you.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

Getting rid of Norton was not as easy as it should have been but I managed, so anyone can. And there is a lot less annoyance from the new one as well: Norton used to nag me

I have Avast now and that was really easy to get and install :)
 
Darat said:
That certainly was the case but as others have mentioned the company really has turned that around and it is now (again) a very good, tight utility.
Click to expand...
My company is using the latest versions of Nortons Corporate continuously - it's "policy"...

We proved the point for some people by installing an identical new power-machine with Vista and Kaspersky, then running the same processing load on each. The Nortons-based machine was significantly slower.

I still have my old 2005-vintage PC as described above, which I re-imaged with XP SP3 and AVG Free. Again, same load, and again, the Nortons/Vista combination was slower overall.

Slowest combo was the old PC with XP & Nortons (i.e. my original desktop config). Pathetically slow. Torture. I could literally go make myself a cup of coffee while waiting for it to do a couple of pages of Visio-to-PDF publishing. :hypnotize :mad:

Out of interest, I re-imaged the old beast with Windows 7 and AVG. Slightly slower than the XP/AVG combo but still a bit ahead of the speed-demon platform with Vista/Nortons. (Which is why we have been begging and hanging out for a Windows 7-based corporate image!).

And yes, all the disks were defragged too.

Didn't change any corporate minds, though! :D

NB. This was in no way a dig at Nortons antivirus ability. That still appears to be very good.
 
I don't know about Norton's corporate product's, but I have used Norton Internet Security 2009. It literally had no impact whatsoever on the computer's performance - the computer felt exactly the same with it as without it. On idle CPU usage was usually around 1-2%.
 
dtugg said:
I haven't had a single virus with MSE. Plus I didn't overpay for the hardware.
Click to expand...
I haven't had a single virus I'm aware of, and I've beed using the internet since the days of gopher. Perhaps it's my natural paranoia and/or distaste for adversiting.

I've generally used the big name bloatware products. Comcast customers get Norton free, and previously McAfee. If I were concerned about performance, or didn't have the free option, I would look for something else, MSE probably, but I've usually kept up a pretty good machine, so a little performance hit hasn't been noticed.
 
I am using MS Live OneCare which is going away in 6 months if I remember correctly from the email(which gave me a free extention until it is gone). In the notification MS never mentioned MSE. OneCare seemed like a decent product. What is the difference?
 
often mrunderstood said:
I am using MS Live OneCare which is going away in 6 months if I remember correctly from the email(which gave me a free extention until it is gone). In the notification MS never mentioned MSE. OneCare seemed like a decent product. What is the difference?
Click to expand...

MSE is just an antivirus, I believe OneCare has additional features. Also, MSE is free.
 
I'm a big believer in the old adage 'you get what you pay for', and in my experience, Norton antivirus has been stellar in its relevance, its updates, and its solutions to viral infestations.
I cannot speak for other types of I/S or Antivirus systems. I share the opinion that Norton is a bit of a performance sucker, though.
 
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