Internet security like Norton. What are you paying for?

[neorichieb1971]

I must admit i've always taken the easy route on PC's. Get me up and going and i'm happy. Out of all my friends i'm the only person paying for protection. Everyone else is AVG or whatever.

So what am I paying for? What are they not getting that I am?

Cheers.

[Necronopticous]

Support? That's pretty much it at this point, I believe.

[ROBOTRON]

I used to pay for Norton and once paid for Macafee...until I found Avira on CNET. Very good protection free of charge and coupled with spybot, I haven't had any problems.

[Slump]

Intrusive, resource-hogging, overbearing software nah, just kidding. But I've always found Norton a sore subject for most techs as that is a common comment. I think Norton's spyware and phishing protection is probably better than most free security programs though. Especially since some of them don't even offer those services for free. I guess it really depends on what your comparing it to. I use Linux (Arch) now and don't really bother with anti-virus at all but in the past I was pretty satisfied with AVG. Antivir was nice for a while too but I switch to AVG since it seemed to hassle my computer's resources a lot less and I use a lot of old recycled system hardware.

But yeah, I'd say if you're using Norton and it doesn't bother you at all stick with it. Otherwise AVG is certainly a decent choice going to free route.

[antron]

My ISP (ATT) provides free McAfee.

But I'm glad I don't have to sacrifice the resources since I use Ubuntu.

[kengou]

AFAIK just support. Norton, the actual software, is pretty shitty. McAfee isn't a ton better. Honestly most of the free ones work great.

[Mortificator]

You could look at av-comparatives.org.

[GaijinPunch]

Zero: b/c it's for pussies.

[Khan]

I used to pay for Norton and once paid for Macafee...until I found Avira on CNET. Very good protection free of charge and coupled with spybot, I haven't had any problems.

bang on, Avira has been really reliable for me before that I used Zonealarm illegally I wont go into too much detail but it worked quite well until I decided to try something else and Avira is free so I made the jump and glad I did my system feels so much more smoother than it did with ZA.

[Slump]

Zero: b/c it's for pussies.

*Raises Eyebrows...*

20 zombie computers heading your way...

[Warp_Rattler]

I've got a feeling he wasn't suggesting he runs without AV software on a Windows system...

I've had viruses that were easier to remove than both Norton and McAfee. I suppose, as everyone else said, you pay for the support, but a well-supported turd is still a turd at the end of the day. Norton is bloated and resource-heavy, for very little gain as far as actual AV/security functionality goes.

BTW all of the less shitty AV programs--Avira, AVG, Avast, any additional alliterative titles--offer paid, supported versions as well. They're cheaper than Norton, and you don't have to pry them from your system with a special uninstall tool when you want to move on, either.

If you're a Windows user, Microsoft's own Security Essentials has been working wonderfully for me since it left beta. I was initially pretty skeptical about it, but a few glowing reports from AV-Comparatives (here and more recently here) convinced me to try it in place of Avira's free offering (which was all right except for the obnoxious ad that would always pop up as I was in the middle of a game; I know you can disable it with a simple hack but I didn't feel quite right doing so). I've since installed it on all the Windows computers at home and not looked back. It's light on resources and integrates well within Windows (definitions through Windows Update, etc.). I'm not sure what sort of support you can expect for it from Microsoft, but I doubt I'd be using the paid support of any other program either.

[Ed Oscuro]

In a pinch you can download Microsoft Defender, if you're using a WinOS. I get Norton's corporate-style thing through my uni.

[Matsunaga]

I have Avast and Malwarebytes, takes care of everything for free.

[brentsg]

I love NOD32. I pay a modest fee, get good protection... and I own a license so I can move about to different OS' or whatever.

[brokenhalo]

I have Avast and Malwarebytes, takes care of everything for free.

same here. no complaints at all.

[linko9]

I also use avast, seems like it's the most popular choice. As for a firewall, I used ZoneAlarm for a while, but then it started causing weird problems, so then I switched to Comodo about a year ago, which is pretty good, though a bit overbearing.

[GaijinPunch]

I've got a feeling he wasn't suggesting he runs without AV software on a Windows system...

Well, actually I was. My only Windows system now is for MAME, so it's rarely online (and I don't use the browser or mail) but even when I was using a lot of Windows machines I never had anti-virus. I'd run a few anti-spyware things from time to time but in my experience (which is a lot) Norton and the like do a far better job of fist-fucking your computer than the malware.

Ghost w/ some type of incremental backup (w/ data stored elsewhere) is far more worth the time. Then again, using Linux almost exclusively is far more worth the time as well.

[Davey]

I've got a feeling he wasn't suggesting he runs without AV software on a Windows system...

Well, actually I was.

I reinstalled Vista on my laptop about a year ago (which is what I mainly use at home), and at first I was too lazy to install Avast. Then I realized the computer was faster without it, so I figured I'd not put it on there as sort of an experiment. I run online virus scans once in a while, and they find nothing. Although I rarely install anything, and the Firefox/NoScript/run as regular user setup prevents a lot of exploits, I'd assume. Plus this isn't 2003, where simply connecting a Windows machine to the internet results in instant pwnage.

I'll be reinstalling XP on my desktop shortly (just ordered an SSD ), and I'm not yet sure if I'm going to bother with anti-virus. The only thing I remember it "catching" in recent years was a false positive. And my girlfriend just got some trojan that Avast doesn't detect, which needed some manual steps to remove. Makes me question the value of it eating up all my resources when I first log in everyday.

[emphatic]

Norton AV is like installing a virus. Good bye, system resources. I just use Avast + Windows built in firewall in Win 7 and it's all good.

[Jockel]

I use Linux to protect my computer.

[drunkninja24]

I downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials and it works great. Lightweight, doesn't hog resources, and is simple to remove if you want to use something else for whatever reason. Plus it's free.

[GaijinPunch]

Norton AV is like installing a virus. Good bye, system resources.

This is true of almost any large commercial product. Where are all the *good* programmers? I love Mac's standard of leaving everything running after you hit the "X" button. So gay.

[Ex-Cyber]

Norton AV is like installing a virus. Good bye, system resources.

This is true of almost any large commercial product.

Except that Norton (and generally other AV packages with "active protection" as well) actually hooks the syscall table so that it can fuck around with anything trying to use certain OS functions. Okay, maybe that's more trojan-like than virus-like, but you get the idea.

[GaijinPunch]

Yeah --- was fully aware of the idea 12 years ago when I quit using that crap.

[Warp_Rattler]

I've got a feeling he wasn't suggesting he runs without AV software on a Windows system...

Well, actually I was.

Ah, I was thinking more in the Linux direction, but I suppose rarely going online is a pretty effective means of staying virus-free.

[Ed Oscuro]

I tried the anti-malware thing a while ago; it's a better idea not to install shit in the first place. A good hosts file helps in that direction - I've been using the one at MVPS for a few years now, don't know of any better ones.

[jonny5]

avast free and windows firewall....no worries

[neorichieb1971]

Well, I don't know if norton is to blame but doing a vista healthcheck I get a red alert on my average disc queue time which = 7.

In the past 3 months I think system resources are clashing like dodgem cars because my HDD C: drive stays constantly on. I have investigated lots of things and I've had a norton specialist remote in on my computer but all he did was change the startup programs and do a disk cleanup, all things i'm accustomed to doing myself.

I can't seem to win actually. When all services are running my computer runs like a moped pulling a bus up a 45 degree incline.

If I turn off

Superfetch
Windows Search
Windows live update

I get semi good performance. But what baffles me most is that 1 year ago I never had any issues with this computer with ALL those turned on. Why has my HDD decided to stay on? About 2 weeks ago it took 30 minutes from boot up before I had control of my PC simply because whatever it did during boot up was so intensive I couldn't even left click anything. Even then I had miserable performance. Disk access was through the roof hence turning off the above. Superfetch is the biggest culprit, the HDD almost stops dead as soon as I turn that off. CPU never goes higher than 30%.

What really throws me is that I rebuilt the PC from scratch using the restore partition 2 months ago for this very reason, but its still doing it. GRRRR.

Could this be hardware related? Like for example is my system paging a lot due to malfunctioning HDD or memory?

My system score is 2.6, which is the base line score for Aero system graphics. It is a laptop running vista with 2gb memory. All checks apart from avg disk queue time are passing tests. I am using 25gb of a 60gb drive.

Strangely enough windows mail cripples my pc when receiving mail. Lately youtubes are stuttering, but its not a buffer issue in the normal sense.. The sound sort of reverberates out of the speaker like a bottle neck is happening somewhere.

[Vexorg]

I used to use AVG Free on my systems, but ultimately I found that it caused too many stability issues, so I just use the MS stuff now. I could get Norton from my Comcast service, but haven't bothered doing so. I also used to use McAfee, but they progressively started getting more obtrusive (things like "you are not protected" popups for things that were basically selling stuff, and unwanted tinkering with settings) and I had billing issues with them as well.

[Ed Oscuro]

I am using 25gb of a 60gb drive.

Well, there's part of the problem. Either it's solid state, a technology not known for rounded performance characteristics, or it's really old (new drives get considerably more than 60GB per platter, so even if it's a one-platter design it's got to be older than say 2007, when I had a 160GB model).

But of course that doesn't explain the constant write characteristic. Just a guess, but it seems like something is constantly indexing.

On the other hand, I understand that Vista and Win7 attempt to load everything they can into memory for quicker startup of commonly used programs and so on. Empty memory is wasted memory is the new mantra, and while if you load up something that's not been prefetched into memory, it might feel slower, when it works it makes things quicker by preempting your clicks. (Of course, there is also the question of: When are enough CPU cycles freed up that I can start using my computer? But Win7 reportedly is better about this, and it was my feeling that Vista was better than XP also.)

When all else fails, reinstall the OS and then treat it nice by not downloading a bunch of shit, especially the kind that runs all the time.