Funkii Munkii

Hi Guys

I was wondering which Norton "Product" I should buy, I have just finished in stalling XP Pro and Office XP Pro, and now want to protect our home PC, we have broadband and use the Net a lot, for surfing, banking, buying and so on. Looking on the net Norton have a multitude of products , antivirus, firewall, internet protection, system works and so on, what would you recomend and is it true that Symantec now charges a yearly subscription for their products??

Any advice welcome.

Cheers
Dave

JackClark

More Subaru drivers work for McAfee.

Jack Clark
McAfee

Funkii Munkii

Look out its helpful Jack......

JackClark

Pretty helpfull with McAfee products. I'd buy a Symantec bundle from PC World, they drop their pants to stop people buying our products in there.

Funkii Munkii

So Jack, explain why i should buy Mcafee instead.

If it is a better product, of which I have no idea, then i'd be better off buying that

Cheers

djuk

Personally I rate the mcafee kit over the norton in terms of day to day ease of use and the amount of system resources they use, never failed me yet virus detection wise either!

Funkii Munkii

So can anyone recomend which McAfee or Norton package is my best bet

djuk

For anti-virus i use McAfee VirusScan Home Edition 8.0.

In addition to that you will probably want the mcafee firewall product Firewall plus 5.0 if you're looking to do the whole lot.

dba

I used Norton,until they brought out 2004 edition,which is just utter shyte,so I went to McAfee and its infinately better,and their website is easier to use and the updates are easier to get,just better all round really (and i dont get the multitude of error messages i got with Norton)

boomer

As per dba,

i installed Norton Internet Security (NPS + NAV) 2004, and is is terrible. Resource hog, massive downloads of patches to itself, regular system crashes, update failures, crap interface, loss of log-files etc.

I have a brand new McAffee (anti-virus and firewall) 2004 sitting waiting for installation - either when Norton hits the last straw, or its free subscriiption ends!

mb

Eagle7

if you want AV and virus norton internet security is the product. However, you can get this protection for free (for home use) by using kerio firewall and a free virus killer such as AVG.

Iain Young

Strange. I've found 2004 to be the most stable version yet. Not noticed any resource hogging, never had any crashes, no update failures, no loss of log files etc etc..... The interface seems pretty strightforward to use as well

Sounds as though there is something funny with your machine configuration if you are having as many problems as that with it. (Note we use Norton AV products at work on hundreds of machines, and have never had a problem).

I did try McAfee on a different machine, and it did let a couple of viruses through. I suspect that this was possibly because the updates hadn't finished applying before the virus worked it's way in, but it was enough to persuade me to try something else....

Iain

Steve Perriam

i'm trying to decide on the same thing.

just had telewest cable installed.

in the past 3/4 days keep getting told i have a phone dialler trojan virus ?????

i have the free AVG 6 program which searches my C drive and finds NO virus ???? !!!!

wot should i buy asap.............

Iain Young

Despite what people might tell you, AVG is not a good virus checker. It works ok on the viruses it knows about, but its virus database is not as big as either the McAffee or Norton products, and it is not updated as frequently. I've heard of numerous cases where AVG has let viruses through.

It's the old case of you get what you pay for I'm afraid.

As far as choosing between McAffee and Norton goes, they actually seem pretty similar. Both have flaws, but both seem to do a good job...

Iain

Funkii Munkii

Thanks for all the replies
I bought Mcafee Internet Security Suite 2004, thus keeping Jack Clark in a job

Cheers

Dave

Steve Perriam

how much was it m8?

dba

Iain

I had problems after a clean XP install,but i downloaded the product,and i think thats where there problems are,rather than the cd

boomer

Iain

Resource hog - well ATM, i have CCVEVTMGR (31 threads), CCSETMGR.EXE (14 threads), CCPROXY (19 threads), Sndsrvc.exe (16 threads), CCAPP.EXE (41 threads), symlcsvc.exe (1 thread), etc. all NIS related, and running on my W98 machine. Even if i disable 'em (not de-install), the processes still exist. Thats a lot of resource

Massive downloads - gotta be circa 150MB (over dialup) in 6 months. Thats a heck of a lot of virus signatures (or more likely, massive code updates to poorly written applications).

Crashes, re: the OS - well things have got better in the last few months, but recently IE has been blowing up for no apparant reason - and the only changes to my system have been LiveUpdates!

Update failures - well for over a month (Jan/Feb) i couldn't liveupdate. Despite following the "maze of twisty passages all alike" Norton support web-site, and downloading (5MB) new LiveUpdate.exes, clearing caches, download folders, temp folders, DLLs - it still didn't work. But then it suddenly did - with no changes my end, so it must have been a "bug-fix" upstream.

Interface - why do different options need to be accessed in different ways? Right-clicks and buttons and tabs etc. give the impression of multiple separate applications that have been packaged "as one", even when they are not!

Log-files - when my system crashed or hung, not only did the log-files lose all the latest data, but they reset to the minimum filesize (e.g. 64KB instead of 512KB)

Oh, and why does a standard install default certain web-sites to ACCEPT ads (e.g. Lord of the Rings). I bought a firewall to control what i see - not be told what i can!!!

Norton - never, ever, again

mb

Iain Young

Just because it has a lot of threads running doesn't necessarily mean it's hogging resources. One single thread can use a lot more cpu bandwidth than multiple threads. It all depends on how it's been programmed and what each thread is doing. I've got Norton installed and can still run Far cry at high detail level etc with no slowdown. I suppose it might be an issue with slower machines, but they would have to be slow (it runs fine with no noticeable slowdown on my P3 700mhz laptop and I could probably provide you with benchmark figures to back that up if you really wanted them).

As far as reliability goes, I could (if you had access to my offices) show you well over 500 pcs all running it with absolutely no problems at all. If it doesn't work for you, then fine, buy something else. But there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the product itself. Perhaps it just doesn't like your machine for some bizarre reason...

Iain

Funkii Munkii

Steve it was £49.99 Currys

I didnt have time to surf the net to save a fiver

Steve Perriam

do norton offer upgrade routes ?

my fiancee has a copy of norton anti virus version 5 for her old win 98 pc which is no longer in use.

we now need summat for my xp pro pc ?

JackClark

Yes they do, upgrade packages are available in stores and online.

Steve Perriam

cheers i'll take a surf around and see the best prices i can find................

Nixon

I have all my business computers & laptops out in the field running with Norton Internet Security 2003/04 which includes the Anti-Virus package. Have never had any problems with it at home or in an enterprise enviornment.

As far as I'm aware you can download it for about £40 online at Symantec's website or try http://www.ebuyer.com

Steve Perriam

just bought the mcafee interent security suite 2004 ver 6 for £25 in town

seems a reasonable bargain ?

JackClark

Very much so Steve. Quality product as well. Plus, more Subaru drivers work for McAfee than any other Antivirus vendor.

Steve Perriam

cheers jack, thats wot i thought.

and it was from WH 'we'll rip you off if we can' Smiths

least i know who to PM Jack if i need some 'advice' or assistance with it

ie : just installing etc and i note that already its 'lost' me loads of e-mails in the poast couple of weeks on my BT webmail ???? uh ! arghhhhhhhh i hate pc's

is that a bit like 8 out 10 subaru drivers would prefer to work for McAfee than any other vendor. lol

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

I have XP home and Office 2003 XP, the ANti-virus i have is NORTON SYSTEMWORS 2004 Professional.
it inculdes:
Norton
Antivirus,
Utilities
Password Manager
Cleansweap
Ghost


hope this helps

Steve Perriam

i have obviously configured summat wrong cos the last month of my BT webmail has disappeared since yesterday !

got a few e-mails today but then nothing since bout April 1st !!!

JackClark

Webmail as in you go to a webpage to collect it?