Customer Reviews

Norton AntiVirus 2003 [Old Version]

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(61)

 

 

Norton Antivirus 2003 is full of bugs. Unless you want a bunch of headaches stick with the proven version 2002. Norton Antivirus is still a much better product than McAfees (I experienced problems with them from the beginning, but never had problems with Norton 2001 or 2002.) Their rush to get a new product out by the new year has them releasing a poor product...perhaps they should simply name the product version6.whatever instead of by the year so they don't have to rush something that is clearly not ready to be placed out on the market yet!

Having happily purchased Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2003 at my local computer superstore, I slipeed the CD in and expected all to go well. No dice. I attempted to contact Norton (no weekend "live" help), so I posted a message on Norton's "Message Board." This, I gather, is Norton's way of having their customers fix their other customers' problems. On weekdays, one must PAY for telephone assistance, which I'd begrudgingly do, but the line's always busy, anyway. On Norton's message board I see that the identical problem is posted on an average of evry two minutes for the identical installation problem. (There are 841 customers waiting for an answer at this writing - (even from another cash customer.)

Bad experience throughout. Customer service is nonexistent and the product just won't work!

Sorry I did'nt purchase it through Amazon! I will next time, believe me!

I'd give Norton a "0" on this if it were possible.

The only difference from 2002 version is an updated GUI and the ability to scan IM attachments. I do not think this is worth the upgrade, but you can get it for 10 bucks if you already had the old version.
This is still the best antivirus solution

I just bought a copy of NAV 2003 & was looking forward to installing it...until I read the many negative reviews on this website!
I was rather nervous as I inserted the CD into my computer. (BTW, I have a DELL 4400 that is a little over a year old, Windows XP Pro, 256MB DDR & a 1.8GHz proc, & an OEM version of NAV 2002).
It recognized immediately that I had a previous version of NAV, & said it would do the uninstall & then install the 2003 version.
It took about 10 minutes & rebooted. Then, I did a full system scan with NAV, rebooted again, & (whew!) everything is fine. My IE still works, my email still works, no system slow down whatsoever.
SO....so far, I am a satified customer!

I tried unsuccessfully to install Norton 2003. I even hired someone to come over and install it because I had no idea why I couldn't. To make a long story short 3 of us couldn't install it. It just stopped after the rescue disk setup. Waited patiently for nothing to happen. Tried emailing Norton and they weren't quick enough. Tried calling and after having to pay for the long distance call the automated phone system said they had a lot of calls and to call back. I called to get a refund. I guess I go to another source now. Too bad because Norton 2000 worked great.

Releasing beta type software that is filled with bugs on an unsuspecting and paying public is not exactly what I'd call good business tactics.

NIS 2003 caused me to waste an inordinate amount of time trying to fix their problems with issues related to areas of my hard drive and registry that I was very leery of deleting files from.
I'm not a regedit queen, and felt a bit nervous rooting around in there. However, using their knowledge base information, I did so anyway, and in the end, after trying every fix they have there, nothing has changed, and the same runtime error messages come up, and NAV does not work at all.

I'm tired, just from installing, uninstalling, installing other small programs from their tech site to uninstall registry entries that their own software should have deleted but didn't, on and on and on, clean boots, reboots, safe mode, over and over and I'm finished with this product. What a piece of poo.

I am a Symantec shareholder, and as of next Monday morning, will not be any longer, due to this release of such utter rubbish to paying people like me.

Everything said on this site from those who had bad reviews is correct. I am computer literate and not someone who's never operated an OS before, and if I couldn't make it work, I doubt most anyone else will be able to, either. Those who did were lucky that they didn't have the conflicting issues already imbedded on their machines from past installs of NIS/NAV that should have been deleted by their own (Symantec's) uninstall programs, or if not deleted, then should be compatible with their latest, NIS 2003, but aren't.

Rots o ruck, folks. I've never tried McAfee's before, but I'm now off to purchase a copy of their latest, hoping against hope that it's not going to cause me to lose a LOT of productivity time as this useless program has done for me this past week.

If I could choose a negative amount of stars for this program, I'd do so without hesitation. Sad. Symantec, what happened???<PP>I've never used anything but Norton's on my machines before, and this is really not something I wanted to write about a company that I've had faith in since 1997 when I first became aware of their products. But this release is so bad, so useless and in fact aggravating, I had to speak up. Now I get to learn a new security system, via another company's product. Wheeeeeee! ....

I've been a fan of NAV for some time now. I'm fairly computer literate and I must say that I have NEVER seen a program that causes this amount of problems. It has thoroughly thrashed my operating system. Up until 2003 the software was stable and effective, but no more. Tons of problems have started up ever since I installed this piece of software,(not the word I wanted to use). About half the time my computer will not even start up! Experimentation has clearly shown that NAV is the culprit. I suspect that this is because of the three "cc" applications that Norton forces you to start in the startup menu, obviously poorly coded pieces ... that cause numerous boot problems, resulting in file corruption. Norton has caused steady file corruption ever since I've put it in, as a matter of fact. At this point I expect to have to wipe my drive and reinstall windows. I've done reinstallations of NAV too numerous to mention, and have had to do three system restores just to keep my system running! The complaints about this product have been LEGION, as I discovered upon reading reviews about this product in several different sources. No patches or fixes have been offered that solve the problems. Norton has obviously released a product that was not ready for prime time. It's off to McAffee for me, bye bye to a loyal customer.

I bought Norton AntiVirus because I had nothing but problems with McAfee. Well when I first installed Norton, everything seemed fine, that is until I tried to connect to the internet. For some reason this program kept blocking my internet connection, so I had to disable Norton in order to get online. Then I went to there so called user support web site, which is a total joke. They don't even have a place where you can e-mail them your questions, so you have to sort through a bunch of stuff just to find the answer to your problem. Then when Norton tries to update it claims that it can't find my internet connection, and then other times it will work just fine. I kept getting error messages with the subscription, and had to re-install this program several times. I don't know why McAfee and Norton can't make better programs that are hassle free, all I have to say is that I hope that they get their acts together because this is ridiculous. I buy these programs and I expect to get my money's worth, unfortunatley I don't think these companies care one way or another.

I've never had any problems with Norton software. It works great! I'll never go back to MacAfee. Their support is terrible. Their software caused numerous problems with my PC, and they were rude on the phone and suggested I contact Microsoft for support. The problem was related strictly to MacAfee products, but they did not care in the least. After re-installing windows and removing every trace of MacAfee software from my system, the problem was resolved. I changed to Norton and life has been great. Norton has never caused any problems with my computer, is very user friendly, and is an excellent resource for virus information.

As others who have expiring copies of NAV 2002 must now realize, Symantec has made it *impossible* to stop the renewal nag notices once your subscription to the update service expires. To be fair, they may have changed back to the old policy in this version.

Once per day, a box will pop up, warning you that you haven't paid your yearly fee to Symantec. Their tech support says the software was changed this year to prevent disabling the notice, and suggests uninstalling the software if you don't like the daily nags.

I'll uninstall it all right, and replace it with a competing product.