Norton Virus - Norton PC Checkup

My nephew was over today playing some games and the latest version of Shockwave was not installed. Ye go ahead click i tell him... After he leves I get presented with this:



Now I don't know if there was check box that I had to uncheck but I didn't notice it. So now I got some Norton crap on my computer that I don't want. This irritates me to no end. I keep my machine as clean as possible and don't install *censored* I don't need. Now I have to go find out how to uninstall this piece of *censored*.

I hate Norton crap! I'll remove Anything I see from Symantec on any computer I buy. (years ago I had a Norton security suite that screwed up my computer with a bad update, Since then, I don't trust any Norton crap! (all the new computers come preloaded with a trial version of it...Just uninstall it)

Norton "security" products can be a cure that is worse than the disease.

In case you need it here's the link to the NRT. Note it usually leaves LiveUpdate for you to remove on your own.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_u ... l_Tool.exe

Site content filter doesn't catch the more common word for fecal matter?

Norton sucks!! My parents had the security suite on their computer that was put on by my brother in-law. All it did was cause me many many headaches. I took it off and put AVG on for them. My brother in-law got mad at me. I told him that he was not around to figure out the problems and to shut his mouth. I think he got over it but, I really don't care. He is one of those self proclaimed computer wizards that screws things up and then leaves it for someone else (me) to fix.

Loves "A V G" but ya gotta wonder about a "free" product coming from what was a former "behind the iron curtain soviet block country" (Romai nia)

Richard S. wrote:My nephew was over today playing some games...

That's where it all starts, letting others use YOUR computer. I know it makes you into a rotten mean SOB but I don't let strange fingers on my keyboard.

Richard S. wrote: This irritates me to no end. I keep my machine as clean as possible and don't install *censored* I don't need. Now I have to go find out how to uninstall this piece of *censored*.

I bought my current computer from a "Computer Shop" place where I told him what I wanted and he put it together for me. I said just install Windows and any necessary drivers, nothing else. This is the best computer I have used. The store bought branded computers are so full of crap it's not funny.

Well he's a good kid and and knows the "Law" when using his Uncles computer that he's not to install anything or click on any pop-ups etc. I can't blame him because I was sitting right here. I bought him a domain last year and I've been teaching how to make web pages. He wanted to embed some free games on it and I didn't have the latest plug-in to play them. Uncle goes "Sure you can install that...."

Either there was a checkbox I missed because I wasn't right in front of the computer or it did drive by install. There's quite a few other web pages with complaints about it if you check around including ones that it keeps coming back. I've uninstalled it from the "Remove programs" panel but I'm skeptical it's gone or hasn't screwed something up. I'll find out when I reboot but I have too much stuff open that I'm working on and don't want to at the moment.

TimV wrote:Loves "A V G" but ya gotta wonder about a "free" product coming from what was a former "behind the iron curtain soviet block country" (Romai nia)

AVG is based out of Czechosalvakia (sp?) I've reasoned that they are closer to where a lot of the threats are coming from (Eastern Europe) and maybe more "embedded" in the hacker community there.

With that said, I don't know if you'd ever get me to trust a Chinese antivirus company.... (is that an oxymoron?)

We have several hundred seats of AVG in corporate installs. Only problem I've seen lately with AVG is that they are having some growing pains, support replies aren't 15 minutes at 1am Czech time on Friday anymore. Upgrading the corporate (AVG Network Edition) from 7.5 to 8 was a little rocky. Single user installs were painless.

Have seen AVG have trouble removing "winantiviruspro2008/9" fake a/v infections but it's due to not being able to close all the open IE windows. It does block the install, which is the most important part.

Before windows 98 came out, Norton was "the" utilities software to have. It has been all downhill since then with the bloated crap and trail stuff they install on new computers. One of the Dell laptops we run i found a program called dell-decrapifier that gets rid of all the extra stuff and trial versions. As a gov. employee, we get to download free versions of firewalls, antiviruses, and spyware stuff. They don't want anybody bringing in viruses to work so they offer us free stuff (taxpayer funded)for our home computers.

When someone brings me a computer that is "running slow" nine times out of ten it has some sort of Nortan software on it that is consuming a ton of resources. Mcafee can be just as bad, and what a job to remove it...in the past you had to download a separate utility from them to remove the virus software; I think they designed it that way so the average user could never switch to anything else.

I'm sure some of you have me beat, but I've been computing since 95 and I am convinced that ESET is the way to go for virus and firewall protection. After years of having performance slowly deteriorate I went with ESET on my latest computer and it has never hiccuped for over a year now. I think I've tried them all but this is the only one I would recommend.

http://www.eset.com/

I agree SAU, I have been using NOD32 for a long time. Great product. I am always on the newsgroups downloading and NOD has saved me many times. Does not use the pc resources like others. I also run Webroot for spyware. You can DEMO many products for free (or crack them just to find the right one for you of course).

Interesting, because I've just had a scare with my laptop (on which I rely daily). It runs a McAfee AV setup through AOL which is constantly updated (it seems every few days). But it's been running slower and slower in the past few months and last week wouldn't boot for me for a few days. Then, when I took it to the local "mechanic" yesterday, lo and behold, it booted -- albeit VERY slowly.

So I brought it home and backed up all my data on this giant Iomega peripheral hard drive I got when it started running slow. So at least I'm not screwed now if it craps again.

But I haven't kept up on "utility" programs and such like over the years. On one hand, it sure seems to make sense to have some AV program running and updated these days, but nobody wants the cure to be worse than the disease.

So the questions then become, (1) is it possible to be protected and stay fast at the same time, and (2) if so, how?

AOL software used to be a terrible resource hog as well, I haven't used it in a few years so I can't comment on their current offerings. I have been running Avast antivirus software for about one year on our desktop, so far I have been very happy with it. Works great and doesn't noticeably slow down the computer.

As for your laptop slowing down, it may have some sort of program (spyware/adware) running in the backround and consuming a lot of resources. If you already have all your data backed up on that external harddrive I would just do a fresh install of windows and go from there.

ESET NOD 32, I'm telling ya. Do away with all of the "utilities" and go with nothing more than a fire wall and AV. File 13 the big names because they wreck more than the fix. JMHO