Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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149 of 159 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
To catch a falling star, part 2., November 11, 2003
By A Customer
In late Oct. I wrote a review of this product based on my intitial impressions from around 2 weeks of use. I gave the product 3 stars after a number of hassles that seemed to be ending. Well, this weekend I uninstalled this piece of crap for the 4th and last time. And like virutally everything else about the product, even the uninstall didn't work correctly and I am still suffering from Norton's mess that they loaded onto my computer. Here's the lowdown on a worthless software program that will stay in memory as the single most destructive thing I have ever had around. It hogs memory. I went out and bought another 128mb which Norton instantly grabbed. 374mb and you would have thought I had an orignal antique computer from the 50s. Both the boot and shut down times lasted so long I could take a bathroom break and still get back before anything had finished. While the computer was on I continually heard my hard drives doing something almost nonstop. The program often misdownloads during startup. You are suppose to see icons for the virus and firewall in your bottom tray. No icons means you can't open the program. It is runing in the background but will not open a window regardless of what you do. The only solution is to completely shut down and then restart your computer. Do this 2 or 3 times a day and things get tiring real fast. Norton's excellent online help site mentions that changing the order in which it is loaded may solve this problem. Part way into a major rewrite of my set up, and I'm not a computer geek, convinced me that I didn't buy a program to learn how to write software. The program often refuses to let you on the Internet. This is what did it for me in the end. I got so sick of being unable to connect. It would take a complete uninstall, and I mean complete, to solve the problem. Just using your start/settings/control panel/uninstall was not enough. You had to also do a start/find/norton&symantec and delete every darn thing before whatever mess they created was finally removed. The last and final time I did this Norton must have realized I was dumping them forever because the Uninstall refused to start. :) Haha. I kid you not. 4, count them, 4 complete shutdowns and startups on the computer were needed before the Uninstall would finally begin to work. And then I had to manually delete anything I could find with their name on it. I have a sneaking hunch there is still stuff on the hard drive but several hidden files I tried to change are somehow producted by Windows so I decided to leave them as they are. I am running a free version of ZoneAlarm at the moment and shopping for a new virus program. I had Norton AntiVirus before and was happy with it but I'm frankly scared to install anything with their name on it after what happened. I don't like buggy software and I hate stuff that digs into your system and hides itself everywhere and then refuses to leave.
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159 of 173 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Overpriced and Underpowered, November 5, 2003
I bought Norton Internet Security years ago when it first came out. While it didn't have all the features I would have liked, it was better than anything else I could find at the time.Unfortunately, Symantec has since chosen to follow McAfee's lead in selling unbundled programs (It's better to sell 10 programs at $30 each than one integrated suite at $100), with conflicts between the programs, lots of bugs, no customer service, and a $30/year per program charge for updates. The only way we can show our dissatisfaction with this sort of foolishness is to vote with our feet. So I'm offering the following alternative, hoping that other reviewers will suggest others. Trend Micro has just come out with "PC-cillin Internet Security 2004," an upgrade of "PC-cillin 2003" (a top-rated anti-virus program---see Amazon user reviews), which offers a personal firewall providing protection from network viruses, spam email, inappropriate web content, and Spyware programs. If you do decide to move away from Symantec, you should be aware that the normal uninstall process will not remove all Symantec files from your computer (this has been a serious problem with Symantec from the beginning). In the case of Norton Anti-Virus and Norton Internet Security, the remaining files are likely to conflict with replacement software (they definitely do conflict with Trend Micro's products). To remove them, go to Symantec's website and download a file named "RnisUPG.exe". Run it, and it will remove the offending files.
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141 of 154 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Full featured but heavy running, September 23, 2003
This is a very full featured product. It checks every 5 minutes for virus and spam definition updates. Also, with one click you can help train your spam killer. And the firewall came with a wizard which made it effortless to configure it to my LAN.So it is with deep regrets that I uninstalled this program. I think I would have loved it if it did not slow down my machine so much. Relatedly, the burden on Windows 98 resources is huge. Unfortunately, one of my older programs necessary to my business would not even run. (It requires a high percent of windows resources to operate.) I'm going back to just running Norton Antivirus, and using my router software for a firewall, google to block pop-ups, and dealing with spam the best I can with my ISP. Maybe at some time in the future I will be able to run this program, but Windows 98 resource limitations, my computer, and my existing software make doing so now impossible.
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