Norton Alternative?

[Parkbandit]

I'm disliking Norton Utilities more and more every day. It's a huge program that seems to take up large amounts of resources.

So today, I get an email saying it couldn't auto-renew my subscription because the CC on it is an old one. So I have about a week before my subscriptoin is up... is there a good alternative out there? I use Windows firewall (which Norton seems to hate) but use Norton's anti-virus and daily system scan.

[Blud]

I have been using Windows Live One Care. It was written by Microsoft for Windows (obviously) and it doesn't seem to take up a pheominal amount of resources and is transparent (for the most part) to me.

I got a bad taste in my mouth for Norton a couple of years ago when I bought the latest anti-virus software from them to renew an older version I had and it caused my computer all kinds of grief (i.e., IE quit working, and e-mail messages were flagged as viruses when they weren't). I called Norton about the problem I was having, and the response I got was, "Oh, yeah...That is a known bug we are having. We don't have a solution yet for it." I asked if I could return the product to the store I bought it from and they told me to check with the store.

I went back to the store I bought it from and they told me they did not refund opened software. After much bitching and moaning and referring them to Norton for this "known problem", they finally refunded my money.

Been using Windows Live One Care for two years now, and not a single problem.

[Blud]

Thought I would also mention that One Care is a utility software too. Firewall, antivirus, sceduled backups, etc. I think it even updates through the Windows update manager, not separately, so as I said it has been transparent to me. I don't even know it's running unless I get a message to take some sort of action, which is rare.

[Bobmuhthol]

AVG.

[Celephais]

I've been using Kaspersky lately and I love it... Normally I hate anti-virus and I like flying free, but I've had no issues with their product so far; you can usually get it free after rebate if you keep an eye out.

[Gan]

I dropped Norton for Trend Micro. Its less of a resource hog, but running one license on multiple machines, while not impossible, is a pain in the ass.

[El Burro]

avast.com is free for home use and works nicely with windows firewall. It also does auto updates. I give it two thumbs up!

[crazymage]

AVG.

^

[Stretch]

Could just set the date back on your PC whenever you want to scan.

[Gan]

AVG.



Antivirus is for suckers. Enjoy the reduced CPU capacity.


:whistle:

[Bobmuhthol]

Okay. I still don't use a firewall or antivirus software. I gave a Norton alternative. I can choose not to use it and still not be completely ignorant.

[Parkbandit]

I went with Windows OneCare. I could do 3 computers (I have 3) for only $50 and it's all 3 on one account. I had Norton on all 3 previously.. which obviously cost me 3x this amount... plus it was a pain in the ass to renew it every year.

I like that it's Windows.. and that I can actually make backups of the other 2 systems onto my external HD of my main computer.

HOPEFULLY, it won't be the resource hog that NU is.

[Celephais]

HOPEFULLY, it won't be the resource hog that NU is.
Let us know.

[Blud]

I think you'll be happy with it.

Renewal was a pain in the butt for me, but it's probably because I tend to make things more difficult than they should be. In the end, all I had to do was go to the web site it directed me to, enter my .NET information (you should have been prompted to set that up when you got the software) and renew it online. The problem I had was that it wasn't real intuitive on how to renew, but the customer service center was actually helpful in this regard.

[BigWorm]

Use Linux or Mac OSX. Viruses and worms are a Windows problem, not a computer problem.

[Nieninque]

Kaspersky

Best AV program I ever had.

[kheldarin]

Haha, Windows Live Onecare is one of the worst AV programs out there when it comes to actually FINDING viruses/spyware. Google it up.

I remember doing a virus removal on a customer's computer and for some reason, explorer.exe was missing completely. Turns out Kaspersky thought it was a virus and quarantined it.

Personally I like NOD32..fast, thorough, and cheap. The only downfall is you still have to pay for it. Hence, I'm using a pirated version of Norton 360. 11 years subscription FTW.