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.
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.
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