Customer Reviews

Norton Internet Security 2003

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(60)

 

 

Ealier this year I downloaded the 30-day trial package for the 2002 edition of Norton anti-virus and later Norton Internet Security. Had no problems whatsoever.

So today I finally purchased the 2003 edition (of the full Internet Security bundle), and I feel like Norton just stole a wad of cash out of my pocket. This after 3 installation attempts and 3 removals of the product.

On the first attempt, the installer offered the option of including "Accounts and Parental Controls", or not. I opted not to include. Big mistake. It later turns out that nothing works if you don't have a supervisor account created, but the installer never mentions this.

Then when you try to remove the product, it won't let you because you have to be logged in as supervisor to make any changes!!! This after the installer completes (so to speak) the installation without creating *any* accounts.

I finally got arount this by going into the Windows 2000 Services dialog and shutting down the Norton Internet Security Accounts Manager service.

After installing again, this time opting not to have the installer scan my hard drives looking for Internet-enabled apps (so the program would just ask me in real time as needed), I had to remove the program because it was blocking all Internet access.

So I installed it a third time, and again, as in the other two attempts, the entire Internet Security feature showed shows up as disabled in the configuration utility, and clicking the command to enable it had no effect. In addition, I could not access any secure Web sites (https://...) so finally I had to remove the package, again.

And Norton expects you to pay if you want tech support from a live human. So, no thanks.

My advice ? If you can get a copy of the 2002 edition, great. Otherwise, consider another product, such as McAfee or even a hardware firewall (Netgear, Linksys, etc). Good luck.

I purchased this item with trepidation due to all the bad reviews I had read prior to purchasing it. I decided to purchase it anyway due to expiration of my Norton NIS 2002. I installed the product on my Windows XP system without any trouble whatsoever-except that I forgot to remove the Norton Internet Security 2002 and Norton Antivirus 2002 prior to loading this program. The program will not load if it finds a previous version of the programs already installed. I removed the two products by going into the add/remove programs from the control panel tab. After this was done, the software loaded flawlessly. I have been using it for almost a week and it is working fine. I have not noticed any slowdown when searching the net. It has caught several intrusion attempts and some that were not intrusive so I added the one I knew not to be intrusive to the list of computers not to warn me about. The add blocker is working great blocking both pop-up ads and banner adds on web-sites. I have noticed occasionally some pictures will not load correctly, so I turn the add blocker off and then back on after the page loads, but this is rare. I recommend it if you need a software firewall and antivirus protection.

Being a long time user of Norton products on other PC's, when my new PC, running XP Pro, arrived with Norton AV pre-installed with a free 30-day subscription, I was quite pleased. When the subscription ran out, I decided upon NIS 2003 product, as I was also running Zonelabs as my firewall. My first install attempt was a disaster, almost everything locked up and no applications would launch. Finally, after about 2-3 hours of fiddling and research, thankfully, a safe mode reboot and the usage of the XP System Restore facility (run msconfig), I was able to back out my system to prior to the install. Then it took another 3 reboots to fully get rid of the NAV 2003 install, including having to go into the Services function to stop the system portion of the product. After that, the re-install of the NIS product went fine.

The Firewall configuration was a breeze as well.

So, if you are running any Norton product at all, be sure to uninstall EVERYTHING and check your task lists that everything is really uninstalled. If you don't, your will run into problems --- which will be very daunting to a novice user.

All in all, a good product --- just be very careful if you are currently running ANY anti-virus or firewall product.

While Norton products were generally good in the past, the overall quality has continued a steep decline in recent years. Norton Internet Security is certainly no exception and has proven to be an extremely fragile collection of applications. The new "tamper detection" system attempts to determine if either Norton Internet Security or Norton AntiVirus files or settings have been altered by external applications and immediately shuts down when "tampering" has been detected.

Unfortunately this "tamper detection" can be triggered by the most common of operations, such as defragmenting the registry or certain "key" files. After puzzling over why neither Norton Internet Security or Norton AntiVirus are no longer operational, you might decide to reboot your computer only to be greeted with error 1001,5 alerting you that its files have been tampered by an external application and that it will now restore the original settings. This is immediately followed by error 1003, 5 alerting you that the restore operation failed and that you should uninstall Norton Internet Security and reinstall again. This is where your nightmare begins.

After performing an uninstall of Norton Internet Security and rebooting the computer, a quick inspection reveals that Norton AntiVirus is not uninstalled and there is no option in Add/Remove programs to uninstall it. Reinstalling Norton Internet Security at this point is an exercise in futility. Not only does it not install Norton AntiVirus (because it thinks it is already properly installed), it does not install "clean" settings so both Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus continue finding the "tampered" data.

This is the third time I have installed Windows XP Professional from scratch only to run into the above problems after performing a full defragmentation (including defragmenting the registry) of my boot drive. But this time I've decided to use anti-virus and firewall software from another vendor.

If you are upgrading from past versions of NIS, be careful. Customers (including this one) are experiencing serious issues with installations of NIS 2003. Symantec tech support is expensive [$]..., so the cost of fixing installation problems may be many times the cost of the product. The on-line support for NIS2003 is useless, as they apparently have not yet sorted out the many issues users are having. My installation appeared to function well, until a series of issues rendered my system unstable and largely unusable. For example, the program installed so called "Parental Controls" without being prompted to do so, but did not allow me to set up the Supervisor account that can operate the program. As a result, I cannot uninstall or make any changes to the way the program functions. The re-installation of Norton Antivirus also created what is apparently a registry issue that causes the program (and my computer) to crash. Based on postings at the Symantec site, many other users have had these problems. Until Symantec can sort out these issues, I would not buy this product.

I'm using NIS for the first time and find it to be head and shoulders above the security system I had been using. Installation was quick and clean, and the user's guide was authoritative and easy to read. My expertise level is modest, but everything went very well. The product contains a Security Monitor feature that allows you to watch the system in operation. Default settings seem suitable for most people, but you can easily change them if you feel the need to. I've really not noticed any degradation in my computer's speed or performance.

I am surprised to see other users referring to problems with this software. I can speak only for myself (and, for the record, my operating system is Windows XP Home edition), but I made an exceedingly smooth transition from Norton AntiVirus 2002 and Norton Personal Firewall 2002 to Norton Internet Security 2003. All of my established settings came over without a hitch, I am having no problem at all scanning incoming and outgoing email messages, and the firewall would definitely appear to be doing its job. The AntiVirus program now has the added capability of scanning instant messages, which is a very big deal, in my opinion. The Spam Alert function is not quite perfect at distinguishing between true spam and valid messages, but it is a feature of at least some utility, and I am happy to see Symantec trying to incorporate it into their already excellent software package. The Privacy Control feature is not new, but it is certainly an important part of the deal, affording the user some protection from the accidental release of important personal and financial information across the Internet. I can't comment on the Parental Control feature because I do not use it, but certainly this is something parents will find appealing. Last and certainly not least, this software allows you to block a great number of those increasingly annoying pop-up ads proliferating online.

If this is your first time using the firewall software, you will have to go through some important steps in order to configure your security system for your own needs, but the system walks you through this pretty well, meaning you don't need to be a computer expert to do it. You will also have to specify any personal information (such as credit card numbers) you want to protect from accidental release via web forms and the like, but this is not hard to do. You can quickly and easily run a security check at any time to make sure your security settings are optimized and working properly. I would not surf online without knowing this great product is there to protect me from all the dangers lurking in cyberspace.

This is nuts. I had NIS 2002 installed, configured and running like a Swiss watch. Dead stable and it worked like a charm. I attemped to install NIS 2003 and I had to uninstall version 2002 first. When I installed this it was one gigantic headache. None of my settings stayed the same. It wouldn't allow me to configure an access rule for MSN messenger automatically or manually. I finally had to uninstall it AND Norton System Works 2003 and reinstall them both before I got it all to work. It sure was a pleasure wasting an entire day on this chain-yank. Symantec's tech support is the worst kind of bad joke. On the plus side, once I finally got everything up and running it seems (so far) to be dead stable and resistant to attacks.

Norton has again developed another outstanding upgrade to their software lines. I have had their products for years and experienced no problems. That cannot be said for McAfee. The negative comments submitted here baffle me. I removed my older Norton Internet Security and Personal Firewall and installed Internet Security 2003. Worked perfectly from the onset, to say the least. The install time was rather long, but the program is checking your puter for possible problems. It is well worth the investment of a few precious minutes. Just follow the instructions to the letter and you'll have no problems. Nothing unique about my system: Dell 8100 with all the goodies and Win ME..ISP is cable RoadRunner. Excellent products that will serve you well and definitely the best on the market. Don't fret about all the complaints you've read. You will be delighted with Internet Security 2003, rest assured.

Why am I laughing? Well, for all XP users, you should now be encountering a problem with NIS. The wonderfully intelligent people at Symantec created a software update that is NOT compatible with XP. So, for all XP users that ran a live update on or after June 9, 2003, will have a nice time trying to fix/repair the issue. I followed all instructions on the website to 'fix' the issue but in reality it has not made much of a difference. Since more and more computer users are using XP, one would think that the companies that create software would understand that the client (you and I) would like a program that WORKS with XP and not have to download patch after patch after patch.