Use Caution When Uninstallig and Installing Norton Internet Security.

Just curious...a message from the system itself?

 

Hello Bruce,

I would be extremley extremely reluctant to ever go near Norton Anti Virus ever again. I used to use it before I switched to Apple, when I used to run a Pentium with Win 98. It gave me nothing but problems, constantly slowed down my system, and I wasnt actually convinced that it was the no 1 anti virus that you can get after I heard of Norton protected machines being scanned by McAffe or others, and viruses being found.

The straw that broke the camels back for me was when I had a problem, and rang them, and their customer service would not talk to me unless I made them an over the phone payment of $59 to get technical advice! I said to them that I would rather just go out and pay for their competitors product than do that.

A friend put me onto AVG anti virus which is one of the best available and is free of charge for the anti virus and the firewall, if you like it you can upgrade to a version that you pay for, yet the free one is usually more than enough to do the job, well worth a look!

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

 

A freind of mine who does the graphics for movies such as Jaws and works for Apple does not recommend Norton and he uses McAfee. McAfee and Norton work very differently.

Many times I have had viruses on my computer when using Norton but never once when using McAfee.

Before I went to McAfee I had some troubles with Norton much like you. I eventually reformatted my hard drive and got rid of everything and reinstalled all my programs. Then installed McAfee. The computer has been fine ever since and without one problem. The McAfee I bought allows me to use it on two computers and updates automatically. They now have a license for three computers too.

 

I use Norton anti-virus 2003, & have had minor problems when re-doing my whole system. But nothing major. My subscription runs out this summer though & they went up on their upgrade rates so I'll probaly give the AVG a try. It's already downloaded & reserved on a backup disk I have of free programs.
Another decent Firewall thats free is Zone Alarm.

 

I've run Norton on three or four computers at a time for a number of years with very little problem.

When McA found some Norton didn't did they identify what the virus was by name? They may have been picking up code similar to a virus and misidendifing it it as a virus??? just a thought. Ran McAff. a time or two as well few years ago.

I have downloaded the freebie mentioned above since this puter's norton was up yesterday Will do a full scan and see if it finds anything Norton missed.

 

Actually I did that as well last night & ran a scan. It found 4 trojans that apparently have been tucked away for a time! Also it doesn't use a third of the space as Nortons. I also ran into a problem with Norton removal I'm hoping someone might help with.
The program rmoved fine, but I always go through the registry cause the cleaners I use won't remove all instances of an item. I found some Keys for Symantec that I can neither delete, or change the values for to make them null. Any ideas what, if anything I can do? There are about 10-12 items remaining that I would like to clear out.

 

Did you reboot before trying to delete them, Norton might have been hanging onto them till it was cleared out with a reboot??? Just a thought.

 

I used Norton for years, because there were several major bug releases that they beat McAfee to.

However, my system was corrputed by my last Norton upgrade (Norton AV told me that I had been attacked by a trojan horse, and that norton WOULD NOT fix the problem until I had upgraded). I am limping along until I have the time to probably do a re-install.

 

Ex, Yes I did a reboot, try to remember to do that with any uninstall. This is the first time I've been unable to at least change a value, thats what has me baffled. I never mess with OS values, but I remove items all the time.

El Guero, You might want to try the AVG we've been speaking of. It found 4 trojans in my system(2000Pro), & a couple of'em were even in the microsoft anti-spyware quarentine folder. Its a 15Mb download & even with my dialup connection it upgraded itself in about 15min.You can't seem to beat it for free. Also in the min. requirements it said 450+Mhg processing, I only have 300 & it's running smooth.

 

For a product that you pay for, check out Computer Associates eTrust® Internet Security Suite.
http://tinyurl.com/9wynp

The price sounds steep at $69.99, but this is what it entails:

You can download a 30-day free trial.

I use CA's eTrust® EZ Antivirus & eTrust® Personal Firewall.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

"Two things come to mind, I don't know what I'm doing or I have gremlins in my puter or a combination thereof."

None of us know what we are doing with these things. I've been computing and fixing computers since the days of Timex Sinclairs and Commodores and I still don't know what I'm doing.

We all have gremlins, called Micro Soft and Norton or fill in your software ________

 

I voting on the gremlins, Brother.!

Bill

 

I finally found the link I was looking for.

I am going to post this in this thread, as well as the other one about virii and malware.

Top 10 tips to keep that new computer spyware-free
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/?p=733

Plenty of good advice, as well as the links to go with it.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

I am voting that Norton corrupted your system like it did mine.

Regards

 

Interesting thread.

I used ZoneAlarm until I got hacked 5 years ago. I've been using Norton for AV and firewall ever since and have had no issues.