Two weeks ago a computer tech said Norton slows your PC down drastically. Removed it and installed AVG free but wondered if it was sufficient. Removed it and re-installed Norton as it is free if you have Comcast. My laptop now seems much slower again loading and changing web pages. Win. vista home pro. What are your opinions on this? Thanks bunches in advance.
I am an IT Tech and agree Norton makes computers run slow, not just on the web but the whole system gets slowed down as Norton is a system resource hog…FYI McAfee is no better…
I recommend Avast!. It’s free, works great and updates itself at least once a day.
Me too and I agree. Everytime I see it I am astounded at the degree to which Norton mucks up a system.
Be aware that if you have Norton and wish to remove it from a PC, the normal add/remove function of the O/S will not remove it all. You have to take secondary, even tertiary steps to completely remove its tentacles from the system.
This guys says to follow the normal uninstall procedure, then gives a link to the Norton site to use a Norton tool to really clean house. This site offers a similar process. Since Symantec itself offers a secondary tool to remove its own software should tell you something.
If the above two-step process fails to work, you are left with the tertiary option, … wipe the hard drive and reinstall the O/S along with all of your applications.
Microsoft Security Essentials is the most performant anti-virus, IMO. Whether its detection rate is as good, I really don’t know.
Norton 360 absolutely killed two of my computers. I had to uninstall it. I now have a watered down version of Norton. I’ve also used the free AVG with no problems.
Huh. I’ve been running Norton for almost a decade (XP, then Vista), not run into any problems. Can’t speak to speed, though.
You can’t really use the provider as a reliable indicator anymore (heck, McAfee doesn’t own McAfee - they’re owned by Intel now). The problem with AV solutions is that 99% (made up statistic) is that they’re generally signature based, which means ever-growing databases of virus signatures. And viruses, worms, malware, etc… have an ever-growing number of variants. Just like real-life viruses.
Most of the large companies advertise that they include heuristics engines, which is largely BS. Remember that computers don’t think - they follow instructions. While it’s true that there are some excellent anomaly detection engines out there, they’re still just following marching orders and if you know those orders they can be defeated fairly easily.
On my 3 personal machines, I use free AV solutions. On the corporate machines, of course, I’m stuck with whatever the vendor sold to some sucker at the C-level. AVG is good (although it didn’t play nicely with Win7 during the initial roll-out). Clam is the best-of-breed for *nix platforms (and I don’t need to be flamed with the *nix is invincible thing, cause it ain’t so), MS Sec Essentials is good and easy to maintain (hands off, for the novice user). The list goes on. The trick is having something that works fairly well and doesn’t turn your computer into a 286.
I consider Norton a virus, I always remove it from a client’s PC.
I use Norton 360.
Earlier versions used to slow down the computer. But I do not find any speed related issue now with the latest version.
I may be biased.
I use Norton 360 as well.
The only issues I’ve had with performance is the fact that if I leave my computer idle for any length of time it starts a background scan which can suck up a lot of my CPU. As far as i can tell there is no way to stop the scan short of restarting my computer or just waiting for it to finish (its usually done within 5 or ten minutes).
This minor issue is worth the protection it offers in my opinion. Every time someone I know mentions they have a virus on their computer I ask them what antivirus software they use. It’s some free one off the internet every time.
I have used Norton and it’s just so bloated. You can customize it to get rid of a lot of the bloat on it so it runs faster. It’s a lot easier just to use AVG or MSE, I found AVG (since v.11) is full of bloat too and I had to turn off a bunch of AVG features as well.
I’ve been a computer user for nearly 20 years. Over the years I’ve tried several different AV softwares and suites. (None of them free.) I’ve never run my computers without active AV protection up and running at all times.
About six years ago I experienced my first and only virus. Don’t know where I caught it. The AV software that let it through was Norton, which didn’t alert me to it- I manually ran a scan when things began acting suspiciously, and that’s when Norton told me I was infected. When I ok’d Norton’s request for permission to remove/quarantine the virus, it chugged along for a half hour or so, then gave me a message box that said “Norton was unable” to remove the virus.
Nothing else. What to do now, steps to take, NOTHING else, except an “OK” button.
So I clicked the OK button, and instantly received a cheerful message box from Norton telling me my computer was now virus free.
Which of course wasn’t accurate, because I immediately ran a second scan yielded exactly the same results.
My spyware program found and identified the virus, but eventually I needed an professional debugging to get rid of it.
That was the last time I ever used Norton.
Edit: BTW-- Windows XP.
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