Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Experienced Review, April 29, 2007
I have read all the customer reviews on this product and as a veteran IT Engineer see that they all have one thing in common that seems to cause all the problems. The "Personal Firewall"
I have run CA's consumer and commercial products for nearly 10 years now and for the most part they do a fine job with a small caveat.
First of all if you have a hardware router such as a LinkSys or D-Link you really don't need a software "Personal Firewall". Simply install this product without this feature or disable it after the installtion finishes. Most average computer users will find that software based "Personal Firewalls" are an incredible nuisance, not to mention to technical to understand. These software "Personal Firewalls" are universally bad....ie Norton,McAfee,Trend Micro,etc... are just as annoying and troublesome for the average computer user.
The key here is to adjust your behavior when on the internet not the software. Installing cumbersome, memory intensive,overly technical software will only slow,crash, or cause irritating problems to your PC albeit all resolveable if you are a computer geek and fully understand all of this(Most people are not).
My point is don't buy an Internet Security Suite (All in one product)no matter who makes it, but if you must due to the great deal they are offering,simply don't install the "Personal Firewall" or just disable it after the installation completes.
CA makes great AV and Anti-Spyware products so just enjoy the benefits that they provide and forget about the other stuff.
For all you that had worst case problems consider this:
Your prior security software may have still been on your PC(Yes even after you uninstalled it)and causing problems with the new install(very common with prior owners of Norton)also your PC may have had other issues to begin with, such as spyware,driver issues,hardware problems,etc...
Did you know that Windows needs to be wiped out and reloaded on your PC every 2 to 3 years to run smoothly ??????? I can almost gurantee that if you wiped and reloaded your PC that the CA software would work fine. I know...what a pain. The upside to wiping and reloading Windows is that your PC will run as fast and dependable as the day you bought it.
The problem is that absolutely no software that was ever created guarantees that it will be 100% compatible and trouble free with any combination of other software that you might have installed on your system. The number of possibilities here are infinite as you can imagine. So to conclude:
Keep in mind it is human nature to say something negative before saying something positive.
PS. CA is hands down better than Norton or McAfee consumer products.
This comes from 10 years in the trenches.
Some other good security products to try are Trend Micro and NOD32.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Do NOT Buy This Software! Junk Junk Junk!, January 17, 2007
I had been using the PREVIOUS version of Computer Associates EZ-Trust Anti-Virus for 2 years - and it worked like a charm! Never any issues, or slow performance on my PC or surfing the web.
Based on such a positive experience, I purchased the new 2007 suite, multi-user version with the plan of installing it not only on my desktop, but also on my laptop which runs a FREE version from Avast! (which is Excellent). I consider myself to be a somewhat advanced computer user, so I am aware of the typical safeguards one uses when installing any software.
I installed the software - and it had TECHNICAL ERRORS before it even finished installing itself! If a major computer firm can't get bugs out of the installation portion, what chance does the rest of the software have?
Problems Since Installation:
Parser Errors - every day, every time you turn on the computer, everytime the software attempts to do something.
Slow to shut down, and slow to start up the PC
I had to turn OFF the Firewall that comes with the suite; it won't let you do anything (so it seems) and the user interface is poor. When you install the product, it AUTOMATICALLY disables the Windows Firewall and installs it's own. So after disabling the firewall, I had to go back and turn on the Windows Firewall.
I went to the company web site for tech support on the Parser Errors (which specify lines in the Computer Associates software program), and there is NOTHING with the word parser in the support forum. Of course I searched the web, and a Parser Error deals with Registry --- and I digress. NO ONE after installing software they PAID for should have to start troubleshooting problems CREATED by the software itself - let alone software you purchase to protect your PC.
I then contacted Tech Support via the web site - and 3 days later I don't even have a reply.
In the meantime, I will try a program like Spybot to fix the registry; but eventually, I expect to uninstall the product, and once again, find another. At this point, that will be Avast!
FEBRUARY 2007 UPDATE:
Things were getting so bad (memory errors running other programs that once worked flawlessly now failed on a regular basis), so I uninstalled the entire product. The memory issues still occurred even after uninstalling and reinstalling the good software programs. Finally I did what I hate doing: using Windows XP Restore, I restored my entire computer to a date BEFORE I ever installed the CA suite. SUCCESS. With the computer now in early January, all my programs ran as they did before, without crashing, without errors, and at normal speed. I will give Kudos to CA for 1 thing: after uninstalling, it brings up a comment form, which I filled out and sent to CA. They immediately replied, and even sent me a link to a file with a registration code to ONLY install the Anti-Virus portion of their software, which always worked fine. I did that, and everything is still normal. Hence, the spyware and firewall part of this software are flawed.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Worst Software Experience Ever!!!!, January 28, 2007
This was the worst software experience I've ever had. I had many of the same issues listed in the other reviews - including the windows installer going nuts and my computer rebooting itself every 2 minutes. I contacted support by web (They charge for phone support) on a different computer. Support gave me some things to try - when I did try them they did not work. I finally was able to disable the software - but it would not even let me uninstall it or delete it in windows explorer.
I was able to get online with it after I disabled it, but support was worse than before. I spent more than 1 hour online with a person who was obviously running a number of support windows at the same time (5-10 minute delays in responses to questions). The support person couldn't even spell or put together full sentences - and was very rude. At one point she gave me a link to download a "fix". When I asked what the difference between the fix and my software was she replied, "nothing".
After that she was nasty (I still have my copy of the weblog that I'm sending to CA) and then cut off the support window without warning.
I finally had to restore my computer to a prior day and redo everything I had done in the meantime.
In short - this is not only the worst software I've ever had - but the support is even worse. I will never - NEVER - deal with this company again!!
Beware!!
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