Crusade against Norton
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I'm sure many of you, as I am, are called upon by friends and family to fix their flaky computers and otherwise provide advice. In the last month or so I have "fixed" three computers that were acting horribly unresponsive and were all but unusable. The solution was the same in each case, the last one solved just this weekend: I uninstalled everything that had the word "Norton" in it. About a year ago I fixed a couple of computers by uninstalling McAfee. These are both very popular software packages that people believe they "need." Unfortunately, both act as if the entire reason you purchased a computer was so that you could run their antivirus software. They take complete control of the PC and are, I believe, fundamentally broken. They do more harm than the average virus or spyware and most would be better off with nothing (given they are running XP SP2) than running these steaming piles of user obstruction. Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter. Make the computing world a better place!
David Kentley wrote:
you purchased a computer was so that you could run their antivirus software
That's the same for Creative soundcards, most Graphics card makers, cheap Printer brands, did I forget some accessory?
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I'm sure many of you, as I am, are called upon by friends and family to fix their flaky computers and otherwise provide advice. In the last month or so I have "fixed" three computers that were acting horribly unresponsive and were all but unusable. The solution was the same in each case, the last one solved just this weekend: I uninstalled everything that had the word "Norton" in it. About a year ago I fixed a couple of computers by uninstalling McAfee. These are both very popular software packages that people believe they "need." Unfortunately, both act as if the entire reason you purchased a computer was so that you could run their antivirus software. They take complete control of the PC and are, I believe, fundamentally broken. They do more harm than the average virus or spyware and most would be better off with nothing (given they are running XP SP2) than running these steaming piles of user obstruction. Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter. Make the computing world a better place!
Nothing new there - both products are so invasive that they destroy the hosts. I gave up on McAfee early on, but persisted in trying to fix Norton victims simply because so many PCs arrive with it preinstalled. But with a 50% death rate for new installs I'm giving up on Norton, too. Both products suck, and there's no excuse for buying either with so many other, equally effective but far less destructive products available.
"...a photo album is like Life, but flat and stuck to pages." - Shog9
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I'm sure many of you, as I am, are called upon by friends and family to fix their flaky computers and otherwise provide advice. In the last month or so I have "fixed" three computers that were acting horribly unresponsive and were all but unusable. The solution was the same in each case, the last one solved just this weekend: I uninstalled everything that had the word "Norton" in it. About a year ago I fixed a couple of computers by uninstalling McAfee. These are both very popular software packages that people believe they "need." Unfortunately, both act as if the entire reason you purchased a computer was so that you could run their antivirus software. They take complete control of the PC and are, I believe, fundamentally broken. They do more harm than the average virus or spyware and most would be better off with nothing (given they are running XP SP2) than running these steaming piles of user obstruction. Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter. Make the computing world a better place!
Sign me up for that crusade.:-D
Arthur Dent - "That would explain it. All my life I've had this strange feeling that there's something big and sinister going on in the world." Slartibartfast - "No. That's perfectly normal paranoia. Everybody in the universe gets that." Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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I'm sure many of you, as I am, are called upon by friends and family to fix their flaky computers and otherwise provide advice. In the last month or so I have "fixed" three computers that were acting horribly unresponsive and were all but unusable. The solution was the same in each case, the last one solved just this weekend: I uninstalled everything that had the word "Norton" in it. About a year ago I fixed a couple of computers by uninstalling McAfee. These are both very popular software packages that people believe they "need." Unfortunately, both act as if the entire reason you purchased a computer was so that you could run their antivirus software. They take complete control of the PC and are, I believe, fundamentally broken. They do more harm than the average virus or spyware and most would be better off with nothing (given they are running XP SP2) than running these steaming piles of user obstruction. Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter. Make the computing world a better place!
i had 2 hrs of fixing a broken mcafee install over the phone talking last week. I couldn't agree more. On top of the fact that these apps consume all system resources on the machine they bombrad the user with so many messages that they don't fully understand that they become trained to click the OK button. AVG stands out from the crowd because it doesn't feel the need to show you how clever it is all the time, it just tells you about stuff when it needs your attention. Also i have never had an upgrade of AVG fail on me, something that happens with Norton / AVG on a far too frequent basis. Russ
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David Kentley wrote:
Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter.
I just did both on a friend's PC on Saturday. She had McAfee Antivirus, and its virus definitions hadn't been updated since she got the computer, so far as I could tell. At any rate, the subscription had definitely expired a while back. I knew that there were viruses on her computer, because some files had been damaged and ZoneAlarm kept saying that "Fast.exe" and several other suspicious programs were trying to access the internet. When I go to fix someone's computer, I always take a CD with diagnostics and maintenance tools on it, which includes the latest AVG Antivirus installer. I installed AVG, and lo and behold, over 450 infected files that McAfee never recognized!
I've got a nice screenshot of AVG popping up during a Sophos AV scan. The Sophos AV (our corporate standard - updated at least once a day) is showing completed ("No viruses found") while the AVG states that it detected a virus in a file that was being accessed by Sophos. Doh!:doh:
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I'm sure many of you, as I am, are called upon by friends and family to fix their flaky computers and otherwise provide advice. In the last month or so I have "fixed" three computers that were acting horribly unresponsive and were all but unusable. The solution was the same in each case, the last one solved just this weekend: I uninstalled everything that had the word "Norton" in it. About a year ago I fixed a couple of computers by uninstalling McAfee. These are both very popular software packages that people believe they "need." Unfortunately, both act as if the entire reason you purchased a computer was so that you could run their antivirus software. They take complete control of the PC and are, I believe, fundamentally broken. They do more harm than the average virus or spyware and most would be better off with nothing (given they are running XP SP2) than running these steaming piles of user obstruction. Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter. Make the computing world a better place!
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I'm sure many of you, as I am, are called upon by friends and family to fix their flaky computers and otherwise provide advice. In the last month or so I have "fixed" three computers that were acting horribly unresponsive and were all but unusable. The solution was the same in each case, the last one solved just this weekend: I uninstalled everything that had the word "Norton" in it. About a year ago I fixed a couple of computers by uninstalling McAfee. These are both very popular software packages that people believe they "need." Unfortunately, both act as if the entire reason you purchased a computer was so that you could run their antivirus software. They take complete control of the PC and are, I believe, fundamentally broken. They do more harm than the average virus or spyware and most would be better off with nothing (given they are running XP SP2) than running these steaming piles of user obstruction. Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter. Make the computing world a better place!
Interesting that everyone has a problem with Nortan. Mine had (it is before I destroyed it) the overwhelming urge to scan my PC for virusses on a Friday evening at 8 (my personal peak hour favourite). Beware the one trying to stop it! A friend at work came to my rescue with AVG. Now I wondered why I paid so much for a virus?
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David Kentley wrote:
Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter.
I just did both on a friend's PC on Saturday. She had McAfee Antivirus, and its virus definitions hadn't been updated since she got the computer, so far as I could tell. At any rate, the subscription had definitely expired a while back. I knew that there were viruses on her computer, because some files had been damaged and ZoneAlarm kept saying that "Fast.exe" and several other suspicious programs were trying to access the internet. When I go to fix someone's computer, I always take a CD with diagnostics and maintenance tools on it, which includes the latest AVG Antivirus installer. I installed AVG, and lo and behold, over 450 infected files that McAfee never recognized!
J. Dunlap wrote:
I installed AVG, and lo and behold, over 450 infected files that McAfee never recognized!
Which is not McAfee's fault if it had not ever been updated. If it had been updated and still missed those 450 files, that would be bad.
"Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed" - 2 Timothy 2:15
"Judge not by the eye but by the heart." - Native American Proverb
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J. Dunlap wrote:
I installed AVG, and lo and behold, over 450 infected files that McAfee never recognized!
Which is not McAfee's fault if it had not ever been updated. If it had been updated and still missed those 450 files, that would be bad.
"Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed" - 2 Timothy 2:15
"Judge not by the eye but by the heart." - Native American Proverb
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I'm sure many of you, as I am, are called upon by friends and family to fix their flaky computers and otherwise provide advice. In the last month or so I have "fixed" three computers that were acting horribly unresponsive and were all but unusable. The solution was the same in each case, the last one solved just this weekend: I uninstalled everything that had the word "Norton" in it. About a year ago I fixed a couple of computers by uninstalling McAfee. These are both very popular software packages that people believe they "need." Unfortunately, both act as if the entire reason you purchased a computer was so that you could run their antivirus software. They take complete control of the PC and are, I believe, fundamentally broken. They do more harm than the average virus or spyware and most would be better off with nothing (given they are running XP SP2) than running these steaming piles of user obstruction. Install the free version of AVG if they need to be protected from themselves, but I encourage everyone here to remove all traces of Norton and McAfee from every system they encounter. Make the computing world a better place!