Norton 2010 Problems

[ritzchef]

I downloaded Norton 2010 a few months ago and it worked fine. A few weeks ago it crashed, blue background with white letters so I restored it back three weeks and it worked ok but Norton wasn't working, so I put the disk back into the tower to try downloading it again, but it would tell me that I should remove recent downloads or that something wasn't updated recently. This happened twice.

I use Windows XP and my computer is a Dell Dimension E310. I was using the safe mode for awhile.

Jim Grucza Email: jgrucza1@msn.com this is the person who sent me this problem. I suggested using the Norton Removal tool and do a clean install. The only other option I would use, format the hard drive and start fresh.

I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

[DigeratiPrime]

Norton software has a history of causing performance problems and system instability. I would reccomend removing it and using a free alternative like Microsoft Security Essentials.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

[jbm]

In their Jan issue CPU mag gived Norton 2010 five stars.

They said it was the best of all the ones they tested.

But I've used Norton antivirus before. Actually I've only used trial

versions and have always removed them after a few days.

Anyway I went to download the trial for Norton 2010 and they

want a credit card number so after 30 days they can bill your card

if you don't opt out. I didn't download it.

[CoffeeFiend]

In their Jan issue CPU mag gived Norton 2010 five stars.

They said it was the best of all the ones they tested.

Does anyone really think they'd give it a bad review, when that very same company likely gives them boatloads of money for advertising? 99% of computer magazines are totally worthless.

Norton has been pretty awful for a number of years. From unimpressive detection rates (according to independant tests such as VB100), not being good at removing existing infections, breaking systems routinely (e.g. TCP/IP stack) especially while uninstalling, it causes BSODs, and it has a long history of being worthless in general (too easily pwned by virus makers i.e. turn off its services using WMI; or even used by script kiddies to disconnect people's connections simply by sending "start keylogger" messages). The bloat and performance reduction however have been rather impressive. They'd give it away and I still wouldn't want of it. So 2 years for $115, per PC? They gotta be kidding -- there's far better out there for free.

As far as I'm concerned, the only good Norton products ever are Norton Utilities (for MS-DOS), and Ghost (but that was bought from Binary Research so it doesn't really count and TrueImage is better too; they also bought Veritas which also had some decent stuff). Well, SymNRT is good too, so that's 2 decent products in ~30 years.

[PC_LOAD_LETTER]

yeah given the choice of either using Norton for AV or not using any at all, I would have to use none at all because that way at least i could disinfect the machine without Norton giving false positives on my anti-malware utilities

and add me as a +1 on the MSE recommendation.

[nitroshift]

[...]Well, SymNRT is good too, so that's 2 decent products in ~30 years.

That is actually the only tool I use from Norton. I can't believe we still get pc's with Norton preinstalled MSE has been installed on almost all of the ~5000 pc's from the company I work at and it saved me A LOT of hassle. And it's free too.

[jaclaz]

As far as I'm concerned, the only good Norton products ever are Norton Utilities (for MS-DOS), and Ghost (but that was bought from Binary Research so it doesn't really count and TrueImage is better too; they also bought Veritas which also had some decent stuff). Well, SymNRT is good too, so that's 2 decent products in ~30 years.

Just for the record different versions of Symantec Ghost appear like being "more derivatives" from Powerquest's Drive Image than from Binary Research:

http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_alternatives.htm

http://ghost.radified.com/norton_ghost_90.htm

jaclaz

Edited December 19, 2009 by jaclaz