Customer Reviews

PC-cillin AntiVirus 11.0

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've gone the Norton and McAffee route for over 10 years the most recent of which have been with Norton's bloated memory busting System Works 2005. Since the 2003 version I have noticed a significant slowing of my computing but have been unable to identify the source.

I ran four different anti-spyware programs, I "cleansed" the system using all of Norton's utilities and still my computer was painfully slow hanging up on startup and shutdown. I even ran Hijack This and scrupulously followed the tutorial on MajorGeeks. My problems grew progressively worse until I read somewhere that Norton might well be causing my problems.

At first I discounted this possibility out of hand - I mean, after all, this was a premier program that had been around for years! Their new CEO is touted as the second coming by all of the business magazines and newspapers. Surely, IT couldn't be the source of my problems. But out of frustration I took Norton off of my computer and VOILÀ my problems went away! I couldn't believe it. No more computer crashes, no more slovenly performance, no more hanging up on shutdown and interminable startup times.

I was then confronted with finding another program to supplant Norton. I searched Cnet and came up with PC-Cillin! This program works great. I does not degrade performance one iota! No hanging up on shutdown or interminable startup times. This program works silently in the background and is literally updated daily in 3 - 5 seconds. I couldn't possibly be more pleased.

For the life of me I cannot understand how a company as distinguished as Symantec could fritter away all their goodwill and reputation by putting out a program that is quite simply awful.

Do yourself a favor. Forget Norton and McAffee. PC-Cillin is incomparably better. My computer, for the first time in 18 months, works like it was brand new.

I am a casual pc user who gave up using Norton and Macafee 3 years ago because of persistent problems I encountered with both programs - interminible running times and poor tech support to mention but 2. After reading PC Mags review of PC-cillin, I purchased the disc and have never regretted the choice since. Yes there are some problems from time to time but, I have always been able to either resolve them myself or get help from their tech support. They get my vote.

Slim "westsideb, there's a reason why programs have things called "requirements" that need to be payed attention to. I've been in the pc world for 20+ years and this program works flawlessly for me.

The good news is that it didn't trash my operating system like NAV did! (...) The product itself seems to work as well as other AV software. Every time I go online it downloads an update. With a dialup connection and no other internet activity, these downloads take 10 to 20 minutes, regardless of the fact that it was just updated the previous day! If you actually have something to do online, cancel the download operation because everything slows down to a crawl. On two separate occasions, an update plus 10 minutes of internet productivity took me over an hour! After three months it has found one virus downloading to my computer. The results were exactly the same as I have had with other AV software. The virus is detected while being downloaded, the AV software allows the download, attempts to delete the file, fails, and then tells you if you want to delete it, you'll have to do it manually. Can't someone create a product that doesn't download the virus and appends the virus definition file rather than downloading a complete list every time?

I had this installed by Geek Squad to replace Norton 2006 since the Norton reviews were so poor. I now cannot access any java-based applications, Outlook 2003 is not sluggish and freezing up, and IE7 tabs no longer work for favorites. I cannot login to brockerage accounts and look at basic charts. I also use SPysweeper which is fine. I wish this has 0 stars. It's a mess.

I was unhappy with Norton AV because when it got corrupted, the problem could not be resolved by uninstalling it and reinstalling it. Then contacting NAV tech support put me on one wild goose chase after another. I decided to ditch NAV and purchase the top rated PC-Cillin Anti-Virus 11. As soon as I installed it my computer (Pentium III, 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Windows ME) slowed to a crawl. 30 seconds to get into MS Word, Over a minute to open Quicken or get into Internet Explorer, etc. If I turned the PC-CIllin real time scan off, everything was at its normal speed. Turn the real time scan back on,and everthing was back to a crawl. Contacted tech support by phone. They complained that I had ONLY 512 MB RAM, even though they require only 64 MB. We took everything off the Windows startup folder that was not needed. This had little effect. Then I emailed Trend Micro's tech support. They asked me to send them files. I did. A few days later they asked me to send them the same files. I did. A few days later they asked me to send them the same files for a third time. I did. To date I have not received a single constructive piece of advice from them. I called tech support again. He asked me to send the same files directly to him and he would escalate my case to level II support. I did, and again have not heard a single word back. Now I decided to see if uninstalling and reinstalling PC-CIllin would have any benefit. It uninstalled but will not reinstall. I have given up on PC-Cillin and on the advice of a friend have gone to the free Grisoft AVG Anti-virus. It seems to work well with no noticable slow down of my computer.

I'd read reports of how NAV is a resource hog and decided to research other AV software. After a lot of research I decided to try Trend PC-Cillin due to the reports of what a great AV program it is and how few resources it uses. First I tried downloading their evaluation copy of their security suite. That should have been a tip off. The AV scans were slow and trying to pull up a browser screen or Outlook were almost impossible while the scan was running. I considered it may have been due to the other programs in the suite also running in the background. I went out and purchased Trend's standalone version-PC-cilling AntiVirus 11. Even as a standalone program, it was excessively slow, with all the same problems I experienced in the security suite. I want to emphasize, I do not have a slow system (P4 2.8Ghz, 1GB DDR RAM), I was scrupulous removing the prior version of NAV before installing the Trend products, including using NAV's program removal tools to clean up the system before installation. I was able to put up with this for 24 hours but have now removed it and reinstalled NAV 2005 on my system and it's running a full system scan in the background while I type this review. While Trend may produce a good product, it didn't work for me and I've wasted $40.00 in the process.