Customer Reviews

Norton 360 Version 2.0 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(60)

 

 

This is my revised review of Norton 360 version 2.0. I previously had given a positive review and my review was rated as "The most helpful favorable review". However, after extended use of the product I have to remove my first review and mark this product as DEFECTIVE. I believe that if the professional review sites that have given this product positive reviews were to run extended trials and followed a policy of revising their initial ratings that they also would drop their ratings after they find that the product starts failing after extended use.

I installed the Norton 360 version 2.0 trial edition downloaded from Norton's website and ran it for 13 days on my Windows Vista SP1 PC before activating it. During that time my system did not have any noticeable computer slowdowns and it ran in the background without any need for intervention. It also ran just fine for another 7 days after purchasing a license and activating it.

Sounds great, right? Well, in my second week of owning it, Norton 360 v2 suddenly started having "Service Framework" failures and told me I should reboot my PC to ensure stable operation. I found that I better heed the warning and reboot, because my Quad core PC with 3 GB of RAM would turn into a brick that barely functioned. This is really, really annoying when you are in the middle of doing something and suddenly you have to interrupt your work to reboot the computer... oh and saving your work takes about 10 times as long since the computer suddenly doesn't want to function.

I went through tech support and they had me try a lot of different fixes, including doing a complete uninstall and reinstall of the product. Doing a reinstall actually seemed to make things better for a few days and then suddenly Norton 360 decided it was time to start failing at random intervals again. I looked on message boards and found that some people claimed that there might be a corrupt file on your system that Norton was scanning and failing on. The problem with that claim is that is 1) Reinstalling the product and doing a "comprehensive" scan didn't cause a failure so I don't think that is really the root cause and 2) even if that was the root cause, if a security product like Norton is going to crash when it finds a corrupt file, then exactly what value does the product provide? Do you really want to go on a witch hunt for corrupt files on your computer every few days when Norton starts failing on you?

BOTTOM LINE: I wish I could recommend the product, but I CANNOT RECOMMEND. It simply is DEFECTIVE. When it works, it works great, but it is NOT STABLE and I believe that any installation of it WILL EVENTUALLY START CRASHING EVEN IF IT SEEMS TO WORK AT FIRST.

If you decide to buy anyway, here are a few notes:

- By default eavesdropping protection is turned off. You can enable it via the settings page. I saw in a professional review that they really recommended turning this feature on.

- You need to ensure that any other virus or firewall programs that you have installed are fully uninstalled before installing this product. Having multiple competing products installed can really mess up your system. I used the Norton removal tool from their web site to fully remove the trial version of Norton Internet Security that I was using prior to installing this software.

- If you are uncertain about this product, download the free trial from symantec first, but note that my problems with the product didn't show up until about day 20 of having it installed.

- If you choose to download the full version of the software from symantec, they place a copy of the full version under C:\ProgramData\Symantec Temporary Files on Windows Vista. Just grab a copy of the software and back it up. This way you don't have to pay to have an "extended download period". Or just keep a copy of the trial version around since it allows you to activate it using the product key that the symantec store gives you.

- If you are deciding between purchasing the shipped package from Amazon or Symantec, I would choose Amazon in a heart beat. Amazon customer service rocks. You also could probably download the trial version from symantec, buy the package from Amazon, and then just enter the product code from the Amazon package in the trial software once the Amazon package arrives.

While I can review a computer game after "beating it" - often a week or two after purchase - with Norton 360 I waited several months after installing it to come to any judgement. There is always a learning curve with any serious software product where you tweak the settings, learn what combination works well for you, and so on. I really feel a serious package like this should be tested out for many weeks - not days - before a decision is made about it.

I run Norton 360 on my main home PC, from which I run several websites. This means I am running database development software, graphic editing software, video editing software, logging software and much more on this machine. Plus I'm a game reviewer, so I'm running some pretty intensive games on it as well. My machine does a great variety of things. You would think if an issue was going to trigger, that I'd probably trigger it.

I definitely agree that you need to spend a little time setting up the software to work well with your surfing and net patterns. Someone who does a lot of networking operations might need ports more open than someone who just reads email and wants their computer locked up tightly. Now, that being said, the interface is rather straightforward to do this. Once you set it up, you're all set.

I haven't run into any issues with Norton 360 once it was set up well. Yes I had to do some tweaking to get my various POP mail accounts working - many of which are customized and using non-standard ports. It was a one time operation, and has been set since then.

In terms of the quality of the anti-virus software, I always give Norton very high marks. Our cable company provided free anti-virus software as part of our cable bill. Virusses got right through their "shield". When I put on Norton, Norton instantly spotted those virusses and eliminated them without any fuss.

I completely agree that some systems out there might have issues with this software package, just like some people are deathly allergic to peanuts. Where an XBox 360 is a perfect clone of every other XBox 360 out there, every PC is unique. Every person has different internet settings, different mail software, and perhaps most importantly, different virusses and spyware that have snuck on your system. Undoubtedly there is always going to be some unique blend of these things that causes a system to crash - with OR without Norton 360. In general, though, I really feel Norton 360 should work extremely well on most systems.

Well recommended - but as always, back up your system before beginning, and have your network documentation handy so you know which specific ports you happen to be personally using, to keep those open.

I am a Norton Utilities and Antivirus user from way back in the DOS days. I was actually more of a fan of Norton products. They were great. Reliable. Efficient. They did the job.

I migrated over time to many version of Norton products. I really liked that earlier version of Systemworks that ran on W95 and W98. With the Systemworks that was designed for XP, I noted a reduction of functionality. My last version of Systemworks was version 2003. An okay version, but not as useful as 2001.

I decided earlier this year to upgrade to Norton's latest utilities. After all, I was loyal and I trusted Norton. I went with Norton 360 2.0.

Prior to making my purchase decision, I did research the reviews on many sites. I saw mixed reviews that ranged from "works great" to "I had so many problems that I had to uninstall it". The reviews were for version 1. At the time there were no reviews for 2.0. I needed to upgrade to something and decided to take a plunge with 2.0. Remember, I was a loyal Norton user. I figured/hoped that Norton would have addressed the problems and criticisms on version 1. It was Norton after all!

My loyalty and blind faith in Norton was a blunder. This program is a pig. It uses enormous quantities of resources, When it runs scans you can just forget about doing anything else. It often will take a huge slices of CPU time just check the status of its components. It is not a good neighbor with your other applications. When it wants to run, it runs and takes everything with it. It acts like it is the most important application on your computer. Its just a utility and needs to accept that status and run in the background at a lower priority.

It is very difficult to minimize its impact your system. You can set some functions to manual including updates and scans. However, it is always trying to reset everything to automatic. Hit "fix" on one of the warning flags and all of the automatic settings are restored.

I had to go into Task Manager or Services on occasion to kill Norton 360 processes in order to get things done that I needed to do at that moment. If I didn't stop the offending Norton 360 process, some of my applications that did real work for me would not run properly (they would run excruciatingly slow). I can not imagine what users that did not have the systems background would do. They were/are just screwed.

I have decided to go elsewhere for my security needs. The Norton that I trusted and liked does not exist anymore. RIP.

-- August 18, 2008 addendum --

I tried to submit the next comment as a separate post. I can only have one post so I am adding this to my earlier review.

Are you a gambler?

There appears to be a segment that love the product and an equal or slightly greater segment that hate the product. While the numerical standing of the reviews are not necessarily statistically accurate, they do form a image of the level of satisfaction for the product. Any manufacturer that gets the responses that this product received should be very concerned.

It is believable that those that have had a good experience with the product had a system at the time that worked well with it. Was it the quantity of processes running on their system, their systems resources or any other particular quality that makes their system unique. It does not matter to them or us what it was since it worked acceptably. It should matter to the manufacturer so that they can determine what works. Hopefully for the happy users their experience will continue to be good.

Some of the unhappy customers reported good results after the initial install. However, things started to go in the wrong direction after a few days or weeks.

I find that the overall apparent level of technical expertise was on the higher end for the unhappy customers. Most likely, these customers have tried various approaches to remedy the poor performance that they experienced. Reinstalls. Calls to customer service. Tweaking the system settings in Windows. More calls to customer service. These are not the steps that should be undertaken by any user except for very specific or rare situations. As mentioned earlier, the manufacturer should be very concerned about this product and the effect that it may have on their reputation.

This is a product advertised for mainstream distribution and usage. As such, it should install easily and run without conflict with the majority of other applications. It is a utility and should be in the background 99% of the time. If a productivity application is actively running, the utility should release resources and assume a lower priority. It should be able to detect idle periods and run resource consuming processes at those times.

So what do you do if you are considering purchasing this product and you reading these reviews? Are you going to be one of the lucky and happy customers or are you going to have problems? How much of a gambler are you?

I recently upgraded from Norton 360 version 1.0 to Norton 360 version 2.0. I never had any problems with version 1. Since installing version 2, I have received this error message several times: "A Norton 360 process has stopped running. To ensure stable operation, please restart your PC." I contacted Symantec's Tech Support Team via live chat and a support tech completely uninstalled and then reinstalled this program. Today, the same problem resurfaced. I checked several chat boards and other Norton users are experiencing the same problem with this program. Norton 360 version 2 has a bug. Doing a clean install will not fix it. Symantec is playing stupid. Don't buy this program until the bug is fixed.

from Norton Works 2003. This version sounded like a dream come true, from fixing and cleaning PC issues up to anti-virus protection and firewall. Well, things seemed great until I turned the computer off--and it didn't go off, which I didn't discover until the next day. seems one CCsvchst.exe file couldn't shut down properly so the computer didn't shut down at all. Turns out everyone is having this problem (it's all over the norton message boards) and the norton people are working on a fix, but in the meantime, people who try to uninstall the program are discovering that this is corrupting or completely wiping out their files on their computers. So now I'm terrified to uninstall the program and simply have to make sure I manually shut down the .exe file every time I try to turn off my computer.

Does Norton not TEST their own programs on everyday user computers before they release them to the public? This problem begins from moment one of installation, so I don't know how they didn't realize this problem existed.

First, let me just say to those that already don't know: Before even thinking about buying this, visit Norton's website and download a 15-day trial, to see if it works well with your system.

It seems to me that Norton 360 is a program with a huge ego: If installed on a new clean, freshly-reformatted PC, it will serve you well. As advertised, these are the features you get with the pacakge:


Antivirus
Antispyware
Email scanning
Antiphishing
Rootkit detection
Identity protection
Web site authentication
Network monitoring
Firewall protection
Automatic backup and restore
2GB secured online storage
PC performance tuneups
Automatic updates*
Embedded support
Optional antispam and parental controls

One aspect that I noticed is its no longer a system hog like it used to be. It even scans, defragments and mantains your system while your computer is idle.


However, if your machine is no longer in the "new, fresh" state, get ready to face some problems. It seems like it complicates things with other utility programs that may have already be installed on your machine(thats why I said "Big Ego.")

I had problems with Norton 360 when I installed it on a PC that was reformatted half a year ago and it didn't run too well: freezing, hang-ups and Live Update complete stopped working. It was also difficult to uninstall.

However, on a newly bought PC it worked pretty smoothly so far with no complications.

But don't take my word for it. PC Magazine has an extensive review on it. EDIT: Amazon took the link off...I guess we're not allowed to post 3rd party links. However, if you google "Norton 360 review" it will be one of the top links.

If I had read the reviews at AMAZON or EPinions before I shelled out 59.99, my blood pressure would be normal and I wouldn't be suffering from an everwhelming urge to throw my computer monitor thru the wall because of my frustration with the Norton 360 software I downloaded and purchased from their site. This is a complete and utter rip-off of consumer dollars. After three days I have yet to even to get the software to activate. Nothing works, and customer support is a joke. Less than none. It's as if NORTON moved to India and disconected the internet and took the phone off the hook. They seem to be in business only to charge credit cards without providing the service that's been paid for. Based on the number of bad reviews, it's almost a RICO statute court case waiting in the wings....

Again, stay away from Norton. It's better to have a virus and have your identity stolen on-line that to have to deal with both the anger and regret that comes from purchasing a Norton product.

After using Norton products for years, I'm going to have to start looking for alternate solutions. Symantec's move into the "360" product line has been awful - each version tries to do it all as the name implies, but fails to do anything very well.

From the tedious installation to its uneven (and often wasteful) consumption of system resources to a baffling and inflexible user interface to the harsh subscription terms, Norton 360 sets a new standard for bad software. It's not even worth going into further specifics because there is no counterbalancing argument, i.e. after using both versions of 360 for months now, there is no reason to recommend it.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I actually left a copy of 360 v.2.0 running on one of my PCs and it quietly let the "sagispul.com" virus through with no questions asked. One morning, that desktop was subject to an endless stream of pop-up after pop-up with every address that I entered. And, that particular virus blocked all access to any Norton controls or websites. So, I couldn't launch 360, run any scans, update via the web or even look up the virus on their website. I eventually had to scrub the disk clean with a series of separate anti-virus and malware tools. These uncovered dozens of resident problems that had been sitting on that PC while 360 was supposedly safeguarding it. 360 never raised a single alarm. What a dangerous crock this product is! Beware!

I have this product on three computers, all running Windows XP with SP3. I've been using it for almost 10 months now and it has performed nicely. When one of my hard disks crashed and I had to replace it, the auto back-up feature was extremely convienient. I use an external hard drive for backing up and once it's set up you don't have to give it any thought - just tell it what you want it to save and it does it. Retreiving data from the backup is easy as well and you can pick and choose from the saved data that you want to recover. Some of the features are not as good as they could be. I still prefer to use XPs "Disk Cleanup" over the 360 version and I prefer "RegCure" for my registry clean up tool over 360. But at least 360 has put these feature into their program and I can only hope that they improve them to the point that I don't feel the need to subscribe to other developer's utility programs. Being able to run 360 on three computers is very economical as well. 360 has intercepted or prevented any spyware, trojans or viruses that I've encountered. If you use this product I would recommend giving it time, maybe 20-30 minutes, after you start up the computer to do its auto-update and any scans that are scheduled to avoid problems with other programs that may be running. Before buying the external hard drive I found the auto back-up feature annoying as I was using rewritable CDs. I plan on renewing the license when my current subscription is up, but to prevent any mix-ups I am going to purchase a hard copy and install it on the three computers I want to protect as they won't be all the same ones I am using it on now. I prefer this product to McAfee's as it has had fewer problems and the "Fix-Me" and "Support" features have always worked well. Not perfect but a good value if you need to protect three computers.

At first I was enthusiastic about Norton 360, Version 2. I installed it on computers with both Microsoft XP and Vista Home Premium operating systems. I previously had Norton Internet Security installed on both, so I thought it was just an upgrade. For this reason I gave the program 4 stars. Now I'm not sure.

After two months the XP operating system ran without any problems either on Visa or XP. But then the new computer running on Vista crashed. I lost all my files and had to access the recovery portion of the hard drive to get the computer to boot. Then I had to download all the security downloads. I have only dial-up so this has taken many hours. And I have to reinstall all the programs I use - and delete the junk programs that came with the HP computer. What a mess, and what a lot of work. Even the backup disk, created with Norton 360 didn't work as I hoped. I do have all the files on the disk, but they did not all reload after I fixed the crash.

Update 3/1/09: Maybe the problem was with the operating system, Vista Home Premium; or maybe it was Norton 360. And maybe the glitch was repaired with a later update I download. Anyway, the problem hasn't manifested itself since I reinstalled everything. Furthermore, I must admit, the problem never did occur with the WinXP operating system. Also, it should be noted that the program I'm using has been updated with a new version.

Update 6/7/09: I have continued to use Norton 360, Ver. 2.0, for another three months with Vista and WinXP and have had no new problems. Actually, I have grown to like Norton 360 and now rely on it with confidence. It has reported stopping over a hundred threats and has stopped me cold when I accidentally entered several attack sites.