I've heard that bullshit so many times now it's pretty damn lame.
...and it's STILL bullshit.
My reasons for having a dislike of Norton/Symantec products are because of personal experience.
The fact is that I've always used Norton or McAffee in the past on all my previous builds. McAffee for instance was a literal nightmare to recently remove from my laptop after receiving it as part of the bundled software when I first bought it. Eventually I did a complete reformat to rid my HD of all its little trails just so I could reinstall from scratch. It may not be the case for some folks but I thought to myself, who needs viruses when theres software like this?
As for Norton...
As software goes I believe in paying for quality software 100%. From personal experience many of Nortons past attempts to release multi-app Suites, failed miserably in that once installed, components were a bitch to uninstall even when you didn't want them all.
Norton 2005 Internet Security was my last purchase from Symantec, Heres a quick link detailing some of the fun and easy to use aspects of its "features". How about that from a company that posted a annual profit of over $500 million. My point is that "most" people choose the name brands because of their comfort while failing to realize that there are respectable free programs out there that are maintained and licensed by people who are not in it for profit. I have a hard time trusting giant companies that make record settings profits while leaving their customers picking up the tabs when they try to perform what should be simple, routine procedures.
My last word. I am sorry for making my post in a way that was inflammatory to people who do not choose the alternate routes like listed above when finding the software. I support quality products, I just don't like the idea of software giants that habitually release what are seemingly downgraded products at the expense of their own customers.
I use Ubuntu for my O/S. A solid open source Linux. No more Micro$oft.
Sins is a great game btw and I did purchase it. I even have the box and shit..
Did you bother to read the rest of my post at all before you decided to judge it "bullshit"?
Tell me, how does a copy of software among people who don't have money enough to buy it make you lose money? If they bought the software they use if/when they get the economy for it, you lost nothing while the poor bloke actually gained experience and a liking for your software (if it's a good product ofcourse, but not even a pirate use crappy commercial software)...
The money you lose is among people who copy the software that CAN pay for it...
And matter of fact is, if I hadn't pirated stardock software (among others) a few years back, I'd likely not be using computers as much today, and as a result I wouldn't have bought the 3 years of object desktop ultimate subscription I got. I'm hardly unique in that matter.
[quote who="CrowB@R" reply="17" id="1988763"]Norton 2005 Internet Security was my last purchase from Symantec, Heres a quick link detailing some of the fun and easy to use aspects of its "features". How about that from a company that posted a annual profit of over $500 million. My point is that "most" people choose the name brands because of their comfort while failing to realize that there are respectable free programs out there that are maintained and licensed by people who are not in it for profit. I have a hard time trusting giant companies that make record settings profits while leaving their customers picking up the tabs when they try to perform what should be simple, routine procedures.[/quote]
There's this company named Microsoft that makes an OS. An OS should be a simple, routine procedure too... With the same reasoning you really should be sitting with a linux/OSX computer now and yell on us to switch...
It's as foolish to judge any software by how it worked 4 years ago as it is to judge a new computer that way. It's a mistake ALOT of people do, both regular users and experts.
But Merry Christmas! It has been a good year (for me, I hope for you too), and may your next year be even better.
Merry Christmas to as well! I can come off as a bit of an asshole in my posts forgive me. Best Holiday wishes!
Yes.
However it's off-topic so if you wish to be yet another to attempt to debate it...start a thread.
The reason so many Norton/McAffee systems will be found to be compromised is their 'popularity' in the market place, so it'll be down to the greater likelihood of more people using their systems without due care.
Norton in particular had a history of being resource-hungry and also being a bitch to remove if wanted.... too much dross. When it also managed to disable BITS it was time to seek other/better AV proggies....my choice was BitDefender so I won't be going back.
...and my Drive Image 7 is PowerQuest....before it was bought by Symantec...
Can we go back to bashing Norton now?
Please?
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Considering I tried NIS 08 (after using NIS 07, even) and was very much less than impressed I'd be very surprised if they managed to slim it down while still ensuring that it does its job with NIS 09. But it may be worth a look, at that.
Also, for what it's worth, when I was up in Ohio this past year I visited a cemetery where some relatives are buried and discovered in the process that there are nearby both a Norton and a McAfee buried there-and in fact right next to each other. (I should've brought a camera.)
So, of course, I laughed, and no one else got it.
Those of you who knock Norton products do so in because of experiences in the past and what you've been told by other people.............forget the past...........re-evaluate.........bring an open mind to the table.......and go try NIS 2009 before you 'knock it'. Like many people, who kept an 'open mind', I have been really impressed by their 2009 product and if you look at some of the other 'tech' sites around the internet you'll find that I'm not the only one. Norton even found a pretty dormant dialer on one of my machines that the so called 'top guys' ESET and Kaspersky completely missed.
Piracy IS bad mmmmkay? There's really no denying that. Very few people copy software because it's the only option, it's mostly only because they can... 'nuff said.
Norton Internet Security 2009 is good. Bash as much as you like, it doesn't change the fact.
As has been suggested previously, run the trial... Try it... It's YOUR computer. I've never listened to what "I hear", specielly on the internet. It would be as foolish as listening to some mysterious voice in the head telling you to use an abacus rather than a calculator.
And to everyone saying "I use software X and have never had a virus" let me tell you this; If you get a virus, it'll be one that software X (which could be norton, NOD32 or granddaddys homebrew) doesn't detect... So it's possible you're infected with something your current AV doesn't find. It doesn't mean your software is worse or better than something else, it's just fact. No software find every virus available. Personally, I run a random available (from the major AV companies) free webased AV scan every now and then to make sure I've not got something Norton misses. I haven't run into anything yet with norton, but it's definetely worth the trouble to make sure. Don't use the same online scanner every time, they might miss things too. To be safer you COULD run several different scans every time, but it's not something I do...
I've been using AVG for years..never had a problem and find it very easy to use. For work, I supported them and picked up the multi license for my business.
Bottom line is, 99 percent of it is being a smart end user, knowing what sites you're going to and what you are downloading , as well as being careful with email. DO NOT OPEN attachments unless you are absolutley sure of it's contents, like a work email that you are waiting on etc..and make sure the definitions are up to date. In all honesty, new viruses(they are getting less common if anyone has noticed) will usually get by AV software, even with decent detection capabilities, this is where being a smart end user comes in...
I've been around a long time. I started with norton AVB and liked it, until it got to be such a resource hog. Then I switched to McAffee and ran into the same problem. Then I got Panda. It might not cathc quite as many as the best, but by the same token, it didn't slow my system down to a crawl. I'm now shopping for another suite. I am still happy with the Panda product, but I do really hate it when a company decides to automatically renew.
Thank you very much but I want to decide when you get money out of my bank account. And don't even try to get it straightened out with their "customer service"!!
If you do decide to go with Panda, make sure that they have autorenewal turned off, and that it stays off.
With that said the best AV is intelligent computing. Don't download and install anything that you don't understand fully and also make sure that you trust the source. I also run Firefox for my browser. It is not quite the target that IE is.
Unfortunately, a manufacturer's own site tends to be very biased. After all, they are trying to sell their own product.
Please ignore, sorry, missread "suite" as "site".
My 2 cents . I've pretty much tried all of them over the years, between my own pc's (main pc, and a "media center" hooked to the living room tv), doing some IT work at my job, and helping out friends.
First, you get what you pay for. Rarely will a free version protect you as much as a paid for one. Though I have found Avast to be my favorite in that area. Paid for, thats like asking some to choose between a Ford or a Chevy.
I'm not going to go name by name. Some are better at virus, and some stronger at catching malware, though I'll skip to my personal favorite at the moment. Norton 2009. I know the OP says he doesnt like Norton, and neither did I (the older version are resource heavy, updater sucked, etc.), but if you try 2009 I promise you will be suprised. It has a high protection rate of catching virus, a little on the low end for malware though. Very low on resources, and they seemed to of fixed the updating issues. Plus, a lot more control over it than previous versions. I'd say if you already have Norton, go ahead and upgrade to 2009, it would be cheaper than buying a new suite anyway. Plus, since you already have an account, you could even just try it out before buying it.
Just make sure you fully uninstall the old version before the upgrade.
My opinon, and it will propably change by next year, lol, but for now it is what it is.
Actually he didn't say that. He just said "from what I hear norton sucks"... There's no reason to change a suite if you're happy with it, as long as you are sure it does its job. Read unbiased info on how efficient the suite is at keeping your system clean, if you think it's good enough, keep it. "What you hear" is good for pointing out possible problems with your setup, it's NOT a reliable source for facts. When it comes to managing your computer, blindly acting on everything someone tell you WILL cause problems.
Always make sure you know what you're doing, and make sure facts you get are accurate and applies to the current version of whatever you intend to get by checking it with several sources.
Never trust a plain statement that "it sucks". If you can't find any REAL fact (real life tests, statistical comparisons and such) backing the statement, there's no reason to trust it. - You should ofcourse make sure you have REAL fact on the performance of your security suite before you buy it...
Comments like "I wouldn't use that ****" is very common, but they are entirely USELESS without information on why, when and how. So just ignore those remarks.
It's really a perfect example of why I have "don't believe everything that's true" as my all time favorite quote. Just because it WAS true, 99% of people out there still quote that as a still valid fact. So my suggestion is to only trust sources that actually present RECENT facts, along with references to sources. Also make sure you read reviews on the version you have/intend to get!