Gotta love Norton anti-virus

[BunduBasher]

Had an old laptop from work which had Norton installed, and would do a live update once in a while, worked well and never got any viruses. Anyway with the 'new job' I had to return that and ordered me a new Dell Inspiron 8200. On installation decided to once again subscribe to Norton and now do a weekly update for viruses. Will have to start paying subscription in 6 months, but it looks to be worth it.

Just had some dipstick send me mail with the klez virus, and as it arrived, before I even read it Norton had identified it and stuck it in quarantine. Also when I send mail, especially with attachments Norton does a scan and makes sure I am not sending out mail with a virus attached, this to me is one of the best features of this software.

So if you are getting attacked, destroying your system, or at worst sending out email with viruses attached, better get some protection ... eh !

you can try symantecs free trialware at http://nct.digitalriver.com/0001/
Also they have a $20 rebate right now, so the cost to you for the software is $29

BTW, thought more than one virus was virii or something like that, spellchecker says viruses !!?

 

[yzeater]

Thanks for that link, my computer has been pretty screwey recently!

 

[KTA]

i love norton.. . its awesome ..

 

[smb_racing]

when I upgraded my computer and installed Win XP I installed Norton Anti-Virus, it's good stuff. I've used the whole system works in the past but thought it a bit of a nuisance but I'm still keeping the anti-virus, it does automatic live updates and downloads new files about once weekly :)

 

[BunduBasher]

Gotta add, if you can afford to spend $50 on a new XBox game or PC game, you can't not afford to protect your computer, and save yourself from sending me the next virus !

 

[VintageDirt]

I don't not got no xbox, but do got's Norton. :)

 

[JWW]

I got it this morning. I had a problem with my zip program but once I disabled it Norton installed fine.

Thanks

 

[DangerGirl]

UGH.

Forgive me, but I hate all things Norton. I used it before I knew any better and find that the only thing that it really did was add like a year to the time it took to start up and make my computer run like *ss.

Granted, it's all subjective, but if you are careful about that which you download and your email, there is little cause for concern. (downloading from warez sites increases this risk - lol - not that I would suggest or advocate such practice)

I used Black Ice for a while, which is a firewall as opposed to anti virus, and ironically enough, got a virus from some guy that I p*ssed off that sent the virus as a sub program of Black Ice. The best bet is a hardware firewall which can sometimes be more trouble than it is worth. So is a software firewall, for that matter.

Bottom line is, unless you have confidential information on your computer, p*ss someone off that is smart enough, or get an *ssload of forwarded email, you don't really need an antivirus program.

I am also a big advocate of regular reformatting. There is no disk clean up utility that is better than wiping the harddrive completely and reinstalling the operating system. It may be a little tedious, but worth the effort.

And, yes sir, the plural of virus is indeed viruses. Granted it does come directly from Latin and one would assume that ending in "-us" the plural would be "-i" as is the usual, but it is not always the case. As a matter of fact, there is no verification as to a Latin plural virus!

 

[CC_RIDER]

Originally posted by DangerGirl
UGH.

Forgive me, but I hate all things Norton. I used it before I knew any better and find that the only thing that it really did was add like a year to the time it took to start up and make my computer run like *ss.

I run Norton full time and the only time it slows anything down is while checking income/outgoing email. What Mhz processor are you running?

Bottom line is, unless you have confidential information on your computer, p*ss someone off that is smart enough, or get an *ssload of forwarded email, you don't really need an antivirus program.

WRONG!

I am also a big advocate of regular reformatting. There is no disk clean up utility that is better than wiping the harddrive completely and reinstalling the operating system. It may be a little tedious, but worth the effort.

Yeah, if your OS is on its' own partition, which mine is not. If would be very tedious and time consuming for me to reformat my 100 gig harddrive and reinstall 59 gig of programs, data, mp3's etc.

I like Norton Antivirus, or any antivirus program, because I HATE Viruses!


..

 

[smb_racing]

double partition your drive, that way you can format the OS partition yet keep your important documentation, although I do think that you can keep your drive clean without formatting if you know that you're doing.

 

[DangerGirl]

To answer the question in regards to my CPU, the computer which I originally installed Norton had an AMD 750 MHz CPU. Norton products are not currently installed on my 1.7GHZ (P4), 1.4 GHz (AMD), 300 MHz (P2), 750 MHz (AMD), or the 1 GHz (P4), and never will be.

Some of Norton's utilities can found in the System Tools (if you are running a Windows OS - fragmenter, clean up, recovery). (Norton's Ghost is better than anything that is out there currently, I will give them that.) All this is still not on a par with reformatting. Installing and uninstalling programs and all the things you do over the course of time on your computer takes it's toll on the OS after a while and you will find that it doesn't run quite right. Reformatting installs the OS in it's entirety, assuring that there are no broken, corrupt, or orphaned files that may have been missed to possibly create a problem somewhere down the line. I agree with smb in the regards that if you know what you are doing, you probably run a cleaner system to begin with, and have the ability to run clean longer. But reformatting certainly has it's place in the heirarchy.

It can be very easy get around an antivirus program in the case of viruses that use VB Script. Written in VB, they do not need to be run as an executable to be able to infect your system (the type of virus with which the general populace is familiar). If you really want to keep from getting a virus, do not download executables from the internet and/or emails and run netscape whose mail program does not use VB script in email, which is the most common method for trasmitting viruses today.

With a 100 GB harddrive I would assume that you would partition or have an additional harddrive expressly for data storage. I do agree that having to reinstall programs is a pain in the butt. But I would prefer to load programs to a clean install rather than deal with error messages, jumpy gaming, losing hours of recorded tracks, crashing programs and the like. I will not assume that everyone has their original OS disk, as in my line of work I have run into quite a few clients that need this disk and either do not have it because they purchased/received it secondhand, don't know where it is or don't know what it is.

I stand my my statement that the typical home PC user does not really need an antivirus program if one is wary of the obvious risks.

 

[Treejumper]

Only problem i have with Norton's is for the last 3 months it doesnt catch any viruses while downloading the emails. Only catches it as if i try to open the email. Dont know why it started doing it this way? Either way it still catches it before doing damage.

 

[justql]

I've had a problem with my home page being changed by a website. It happens about three times week or more. I've got Nortons but unistalled because of some problems. If I reinstall it will it stop my home page from being change?

 

[Treejumper]

It doesnt stop mine from being changed once in awhile.

 

[Hucker]

Bah Windows and its viruses. I'll stick with Linux thanks :)

 

[BunduBasher]

Hucker you may have a point, I have spent the last day trying to set up a home network, just so that I can share a printer, and 12 hours later, I have yet to get it right ... hate this winblows stuff :mad:

 

[yzeater]

Bundu, what OS are you using? I got a home network with a printer set up in like 2 hours, and I'm not a computer wiz or anything

 

[BunduBasher]

The printer is on a Windows98 machine, and I am trying to connect with a wireless based XP laptop. I finally managed to get the network working, and can share the drives/folders etc, but have no luck communicating with the printer, set it to sharing, and everything looks fine, it just wont print - very frustrating, I think if I had a mac I would have been done in 10 minutes and in 11 if I had Linux !!!

 

[evilswfo]

Last week i received about 5 email's from my mom i thought an she recieved a bunch from me the thing is neither one of us sent them. Icalled aol and the said it sounded like a password scam so i changed my password and tryed to run the norton anti virus scan which up until then had always worked fine. For some reason it would not work , as soon as i would try to run it it would say that it failed and it needed to be updated.I don't know much about these thing's ,anybody have any idea what the deal is?

 

[Jasle]

I stand my my statement that the typical home PC user does not really need an antivirus program if one is wary of the obvious risks. [/B]

Thats just it. The TYPICAL home user doesn't know squat about their computer other than how to turn it on and surf the web. If your pretty computer savvy then you can most likely be ok but most, 99.9% absoloutley NEED it.
I work in the Semiconductor industry and only about 1/2 of our employee's know more than running Office programs and E-mail. Thats why we need antivirus programs. Studies have shown that long after companies have cleaned viruses from their systems the small time user is still infected for quite a long time. If they had an updated antivirus they wouldn't have the poblem.

 

[DangerGirl]

Fair enough, Jasle. I guess that I assume that because something seems like a big DUH to me, it would be obvious to everyone.

 

[Jasle]

Yeah I have found out a few times lately that common sense isn't all that common. 8*)