Norton 360

[Fella]

I bought a new laptop which had vista installed. My desktop is 6 years old and runs XP home, so to get Norton protection on both windows systems I had to buy their 360 package. My laptop works fine, quite quick startup, but my desktop has got slower and slower to start up. Now takes nearly 20 minutes to let me access the net, and the hard drive souunds as if it is checking files all the time. Has Norton cause this slow down and is it checking every file each time on startup if so is there a way to switch this option off? Frustrated Fella

[DoubleTop]

Norton in my experience will do this, and especially to older machines. They seem to think that if you install Norton you have a great setup, and hence the actual footprint of the software is so big it is restrictive on the usability of the computer. I think you have to boot into safe mode to disable the startup scanner, there are so many version of Norton - every single one of them I would remove rather than use.

Personally, for home use either Avast or AVG free. Good reports from other TPR members come from many other free anti-virus products like Kaspersky.

In todays age, I really struggle with the business model of some of the anti-virus providers. I was one of the people quite upset when Microsoft were told they couldn't ship machines with the MS Live solution. I bet it would halve the number of PC's I get invitied to fix nearly all of them solved with a combination of anti-virus products.

Don't get loyal with AV, they all miss something. Apologies for the rant!!

DT.

[Admiral Huddy]

DoubleTop is right.

Norton is just a product that disconcerning users would find comforting behind it's brand power without really knowing that other cheaper or free products are available which are better. It's the same reason why people pay twice the going rate for PC repairs at a well known high street PC shop.

I normally offer to replace Norton with Avast FOC when performing PC health checks. If removing Norton, make sure to download the Norton Removal Tool. The standard uninstaller is not sufficient to remove all traces of the product.