Musida Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 I just got a notification in my email that my norton subscription expires in 14 days. It came free with the laptop, and I'll be honest, I don't know a whole lot about this sort of thing. What's the best version of the norton anti virus for a laptop? I get so confused when I see all the different options. My laptops a toshiba if that makes a difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cube Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 Step 1: Remove Norton using the Removal Tool. Step 2: Install AVG Free. It's miles better than the most expensive Norton software and completely free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolan Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 Another free and better alternative to Norton is Avast. But really, Norton is terrible, and personally I can't abide by anything that won't let me uninstall is without it's own special tool, that just infuriates me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbob Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 Norton is the worst AV program known to the techno world. I can recommend the following. This can be put into 2 or 3 stages really. Stage 1 Take a large hammer and your copy of Norton. Proceed to smash it up into as many bits as possible. Stage 2 Remove it from your laptop using the Norton removal tool, we don't want that virus on the laptop do we. Stage 3 Install a free AV program, the above are all good ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 (edited) Norton is actually one of the best, but it's a bit overkill for a home computer. Personally I use MSE: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ Decent detection rate, low resource use and the lowest number of false positives of any free AV software. Basically it's a case of install it and forget about it. On the down side it's not good with malware (so it's a good idea to have something like Spybot installed as well) and virus scans are slow (due to the low resource use). Avast is better, but it's also more invasive and uses more system resources. AVG doesn't stack up to either. Edited March 28, 2010 by McPhee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 Norton is a resource-hogging app from a money hungry brand. Even if you're finding it useful and enjoying it, eventually you will find it invasive and ultimately it will request a subscription top-up fee. It is the AOL of the Antivirus world. I personally think Avast! is great. It used to suffer from a fairly hefty startup time and resource hogging background scans, as well as a fairly ugly GUI, but all those things seem to have been solved in the latest version (although I've also improved my PC significantly, so that's not a very fair benchmark). Although as Odwin always says, the best virus protection is a bit of common sense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 There is not a best type of Norton, they're all rank. As many have said, you can't go wrong with Avast or AVG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 No anti-virus all the way! Just a scan of Spybot every so often does me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten10 Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 A great free complete antivirus solution is comodo internet security Antivirus, Antimalware, Firewall, and Active defense all in one. If you want to pay for something then Vipre does essentially the same thing, but has very low CPU usage in comparison to other AV's. ( I actually prefer comodo to vipre ) And as everyone else has said so far, norton sucks. And you may find that if you get a new pc / laptop with it installed it will protect the crapware on it from being deleted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 (edited) Pretty much every site that looks at AV software rates Norton highly, usually top 5. The reason it's hated isn't because it isn't good, it's because it's a proper, professional-level AV program. It's resource-heavy. You're a lot less likely to get a virus with it installed vs most other AV programs though, one of the highest detection rates in the business (and unlike McAfee it doesn't throw up false positives all the time), however it is overkill for a home system. A light, free AV package and some common sense are good enough. Edited March 29, 2010 by McPhee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Do you work for Norton or something? The reason I hate Norton is because it made a mess of one of my old PCs and was very, very difficult to remove. It caused a mountain of problems and lag, slowed down my computer, drained resources, pop-ups used to appear for everything crashing me out of full screen videos etc. And then a few months after buying it, I was prompted to renew my subscription. Even thousand pound products like Adobe Creative Suite don't force you to pay again a year later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbob Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Do you work for Norton or something? I sure hope he doesn't. The reason I hate Norton is because it made a mess of one of my old PCs and was very, very difficult to remove. It caused a mountain of problems and lag, slowed down my computer, drained resources, pop-ups used to appear for everything crashing me out of full screen videos etc. And then a few months after buying it, I was prompted to renew my subscription. Even thousand pound products like Adobe Creative Suite don't force you to pay again a year later. And even some of the cheap pay-stuff (inc Real-player) doesn't require yearly updating. Norton charges well over the top for what it does, which is hog the system resources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raining_again Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Pretty much every site that looks at AV software rates Norton highly, usually top 5. The reason it's hated isn't because it isn't good, it's because it's a proper, professional-level AV program. It's resource-heavy. You're a lot less likely to get a virus with it installed vs most other AV programs though, one of the highest detection rates in the business (and unlike McAfee it doesn't throw up false positives all the time), however it is overkill for a home system. A light, free AV package and some common sense are good enough. agreed with it all - its a good system but its not really suitable for the majority of the market we have with cheap, not very fast or efficient systems. Do you work for Norton or something? The reason I hate Norton is because it made a mess of one of my old PCs and was very, very difficult to remove. It caused a mountain of problems and lag, slowed down my computer, drained resources, pop-ups used to appear for everything crashing me out of full screen videos etc. And then a few months after buying it, I was prompted to renew my subscription. Even thousand pound products like Adobe Creative Suite don't force you to pay again a year later. I think it really is a hardware/o.s lottery as to compatibility. I installed Panda onto my laptop and it didn't even get near scanning. the whole thing BSOd'd and wouldn't boot after i did the install tbh, its best to have one protection system and stick with it. fannying around with uninstalls is a dangerous business because virus scanning n whatnot has to be installed so deeply into your operating system, and for whatever reason it isn't removed well. I'd rather do a format than have to try to change a virus scan on an existing o.s (from many bad experiences with multiple software) I'm against the idea of pre-installed anything - consumers should have the choice especially when it comes to protection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musida Posted April 1, 2010 Author Share Posted April 1, 2010 Great! You definitely helped to make up my mind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Posted April 30, 2010 Share Posted April 30, 2010 I hope no one's running McAfee on and XP machine... http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/21/mcafee-update--shutting-down-xp-machines/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted June 9, 2010 Share Posted June 9, 2010 Just saw this article up on Giz, thought it might help anyone trying to decide what AV software to install; http://lifehacker.com/5559102/microsoft-security-essentials-finds-unknown-malware-but-avoids-false-positives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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