I made the mistake of installing Norton AntiVirus as part of Google Pack. I guess I thought I would be nice to my new employer and try out the Pack.
I’ve tried Norton a few times in the past – each time I uninstall it due to being a total system hog. Once again, I’ve had the same experience.
My laptop is a few years old; its only got 256MB of RAM, but it runs fine. But today, the first time booting since installing Norton, it took me 15 minutes to regain control of the system (this is not an exaggeration!! I couldn’t get control of the mouse, the task manager, nothing for 15 minutes!). Norton just completely monopolizes the disk and CPU.
It’s no wonder viruses spread so easily. Norton has turned into the same bloatware you’d expect from Adobe or Microsoft, so of course users disable it. It sucks. Yes, Norton, we want you to scan for viruses. But no, this is not permission to completely rape and pillage our hardware and prevent us from getting our work done.
Well, the uninstall of Norton is just about done now, so I’m done with this blog entry. I hope the numbskull PM at Norton that thought that “well, if users can’t see that it is scanning we won’t get brand recognition” dies a cruel and horrible death. I’ll be working hard within my company to make sure we get Norton out of the Google Pack. It just isn’t Googley.
Norton is evil, it’s always been evil and bloated and always will be. My ISP recently “upgraded” to Norton Antivirus from CA Antivirus and I’d never used CA for more than a day or so (it didn’t detect much) and went back to NOD32 but it was still a hell of a lot better than Norton.
When I get a virus my computer is slow, but it keeps the computer alive so it can go on with it’s evil business, when I install Norton my computer is even slower and stops the computer from working at all. Given a choice between the two and I’d take the virus every time.
And don’t think Norton’s uninstaller does a good job, it doesn’t your computer probably still has enough Norton crap in it to require a re-install in a few days. Personally I remove Norton’s software using their own SymNRT tool that does a thorough job, you can get it here http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039
Norton antivirus that came with my HP laptop is the single most pain in the butt that I ever had to deal with on computers.
I can’t wait until Win 7 so I can do a clean install and be rid of them for good. My subscription with Norton expired and now they intstalled something that they want me to give them my Vista password. Keeps popping up with flashes and all kinds of junk.
If and when you ever get a computer do not ever activate Norton AV on it. You will be sorry at how deep it gets into your computer. I will put up with closing the Norton window thousands of time until Win 7 comes out no doubt. Please hurry MS.
Norton needs to sort out the many “glitches” within its software. Norton overreacts and blocks perfectly good files that are totally harmless. (false positive detection) Unfortunately, it also ignores many files that are definitely dodgy. Why can’t Norton understand that their product simply isn’t “fit for purpose?”