Hey Freak!

Fucking Norton.

OK, say that you purchase Norton AV in 2005. You update your virus descriptions religiously. A year passes, and they ask you to renew your subscription. You want LiveUpdate to work, right? You want the most current virus defs, right? So you update your subscription, and continue with your regular downloads of updates.

Now, say that, oh.... say that your hard drive was re-formatted. Say that you don't have the original Norton AV file you used, because, well... it was on your hard drive. You know, the one that got wiped.

But but... but I've kept up with my subscription. I should be able to get a replacement copy of the install, right? Right?

You know where this is going.

I have to purchase a fucking upgrade. Oh, but it's for the low low cost of [whatever]. Nice.

But there's a discount for returning customers! I shouldn't complain, right? Yeah. Nevermind the fact that in order to purchase an upgrade, you must first have the original install. Which I don't have. Because my hard drive was wiped. Which is why I need a new install file.

Fuck it. I'll just call customer service. Norton is a fucking huge, worldwide company. Surely they'd have a crack support team (or at least a couple of guys in India) ready to take calls, 24-7, right?

Alas, no.

But still, they're open M-F from 9am to 5pm. Perfect! I mean, so what if I have to wait two extra days. That's nothing compared to the strain of having to take a sick or vacation day just to take care of this. Wait, that's bad, isn't it?

So. What's my point? (Besides "Norton sucks.") Eh, I don't really have one.

But I do have a question... Anyone have any recommendations for a good AV product?

(I don't like McAfee, either. Just so's you know.)

I've been using AVG from grisoft.com for a while and *knocks wood* have not seen any viruses on my home computer. I'm not sure if they still offer it for free, though. My version is the free one.

Good luck getting everything reconfigured dude. I know what a huge pain in the nuts this is...

I have been pretty happy with TrendMicro's PC-Cillin.

I use AVG Free and am pretty happy with it, too. The free version is still available here.

I also use the free version of AVG and haven't had a problem with it at all.

If you're considering getting a different firewall program as well, I would suggest the free version of ZoneAlarm available here.

I, too, use Trend Micro's PC-cillin and I loves it. No more Norton for me. Plus, it is less than half the cost.

Fucking pricey no good Norton that downloaded a trojan horse for me. How's that for anti-virus protection??

Dude, that sucks hardcore.

Yeah, we used to have a HP and it crashed eventually. It sucked ass beyond all beleif. Now we have some sort of cheapo computer that gets the job done. It has Norton on it and it asks for the registration shit and for money. When I got my computer, I got a Mac. I said fuck Microsoft (or M$ as Mac users call it) and bought me a dandy new MacBook. Greedy motherfuckers at Microsoft...

i like the AVG free. the local computer guy recommends it highly and uses it on his computer network where he hooks up other computers. no problems yet on my desk or laptop! i also make use of the windows firewall...

I use nod32. Lightweight program that does not slow down your system. It is updated several times a day. Norton puts too much crap in their product.

You can try Avast, too. The free version is excellent.

Err I use Symantec but AVG the free version was good too. I had that in my previous laptop.

Oh yeah Happy Belated Birthday Mikey! Say hi to Joelle

Bitdefender
www.bitdefender.com

we had a bit of the same problem with Norton on one of our old computers at home. we tried avira, but it wasn't very helpful when the viruses it found were in german. i'm not sure if my dad installed the wrong version or what. i think we gave AVG a brief try too. in the end, we ended up putting Norton back on because it was clearly the best of the bunch. sorry this whole thing has been such a pain for you.

I use Nod32.
Can be found at http://www.nod32-anti-virus.com/products/
I like it.

My co. just bought BitDefender for all the PCs, and I have to say it pretty much rocks so far. No annoying messages, and it found a crapload of stuff that Norton missed.

So I second that recommendation!

PS - Man, your security word thing HATES ME. Fifth try? I'm going to lose my mind.

I've been using AVG Free Edition for about four years now. Also, any computer I've worked on for friends and family I installed it on as well. It has caught and quarantined viruses I've picked up in that time. The nicest thing about it is that it has a small footprint. It seems that Symantec/Norton and McAfee both want to take up a lot of system RAM and a lot of hard drive space.

One nice feature of the free version of AVG is that it can be set up to get updates daily and after getting the updates it can scan your hard drive for viruses. Yeah, a lot of programs can do this, but this program is FREE and the updates are FREE.

I'm a little slow on this, but I use Avast. I had a similar experience to you, SORTA. A few months ago I got a virus but my antivirus was out of date and expired. So I tried to manually delete it, but managed to mess up my computer more (started WAY lagging). SO I figured I'd repair windows, only instead it wiped out a bunch of data, including files for some work clients.

Lost everything on my desktop (just days after my laptop died). There are tools out there to help you recover deleted data, but it's pretty tedious, and maybe too late if you reinstalled all that stuff again (once it gets overwritten it's too late).

So anyway, now I use Avast, which is free, so I'll always be up to date, and it is a lot less annoying and intrusive than Norton.

HEYYyyy!!! I use that phrase tooooo!!! When I'm fired up, it's all about slapping them with a DAMN IT SUCK MY ASS!!!! hahaha

I was just going to post about this myself the other day!!! I have been updating my Norton and then on one of my recent updates it wouldn't go through. So I went to the help web site and blah blah blah, they basically said they don't support my version anymore even though I have renewed this year. So now I have to pay for an upgrade - fucking bullshit I tell ya. I'm really pissed.

Alright, I held out as long as I could stand it with Norton AV. After three years of their crap I dumped the SOB's today and downloaded AVG Freeware.
The catalyst for this came after I called for the upteenth time to complain about Norton for allowing a common trojan into my PC. I ended up talking to some poor asshole in Bangladesh who tried to argue that I was at fault, that I didn't understand the software. After ten minutes of listening to this little creep and his 'bad English' doubletalk I asked him his name and he said 'Rasheed', so I said; "Rasheed, listen to this"...then I slammed the phone down hard. I imagine 'Rasheed' must have jumped out of his recycled cardboard cubicle. I certainly hope so. Wherever I am, whoever I meet, I will implore them to dump Norton AV and download AVG.

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