Thank you to everyone who responded with advice.
I read the review from PC Mag and it has a pretty decent review. But he comments below the review were all extremely negative. It looks like it does a “free check” and then requires a purchase to fix what it finds. I suspect that I opened/installed it the other day when I was doing some “cleaning” on my laptop while I was tired (just like Riley mentioned).
I have been using Norton 360 for a couple of years now (and been pretty happy with it). The Norton seems to have been pretty good about blocking and screening most intrusions. I have not gotten any warning screens on it.
All things considered, I will uninstall it and will definitely check out the malwarebytes.org to clean up the registry.
Thanks again, everyone.
V/R
Bill
” It looks like it does a “free check” and then requires a purchase to fix what it finds.”
OK Good to know. I didn’t read the reviews, just checked the 4 star or whatever rating. Didn’t have a lot of time. I’d be inclined to pay attention to the predominance of negative comments.
I’m not a fan of Norton, it was very good at one time until they, like McAffee, started trying to do everything, rather than doing one thing and doing it well. That and starting to charge for antivirus database updates, when they became a huge corporation offering them free (and made huge profits) for several years. With no notice.
Someone else mentioned Kapersky, they have a very good reputation, I used their free version on this laptop since it came with it, and had no trouble, but switched back to AVG once they wanted to make me pay for it. Those of us with no income have a hard time coming up with a yearly or twice yearly fee...and AVG has served me well since about 1998 or so. Just before XP came out anyway, which was 99 or 2000 can’t remember.
Malwarebytes should do well, watch the installation screens, I Can’t remember if they try to install anyone’s toolbar, and stick to the free version, not the Pro or Premium trial version. Look for it, there’s a box you have to uncheck if I remember correctly, been a few months since I installed it. Be sure to watch every install screen closely. Many software outfits have been sneaking in trial versions you didn’t intend, (AVG does that) and toolbars. AVG will expire in 3 months, you have to start over. I started watching closer...