It's finally over.....those who use Norton Internet Security are now being forced over to Norton 360 Premium

[UsandThem]

Over the last 12 months or so, Norton offered the "opportunity" to move over to their 360 product at no cost. I was even able to renew my old subscription directly from Norton about 2 months ago without having to move over to the new product.

However, I received an email from them today saying I will be automatically moved to the new product within a few days. Some will say "But there's no charge, why are whining?". The answer to that being the Norton 360 products take up more system resources, and from the various reviews (e.g. AV Test and AV Comparatives) I've seen over the last 12 months, it is in many ways an inferior product compared to what I now use. However, the new version gives Norton the chance to make more money by nagging me to pay extra for things like VPN, Cloud Backup, and their Life Lock monitoring services.

 

[Captante]

Got an unusual email today from Norton stating: "Your default payment method failed" ....

My subscription is good for awhile yet and I didn't authorize any charges. I'm not happy.


Any thoughts as to whose AV I should switch to?

 

[UsandThem]

Got an unusual email today from Norton stating: "Your default payment method failed" ....

My subscription is good for awhile yet and I didn't authorize any charges. I'm not happy.


Any thoughts as to whose AV I should switch to?

Bitdefender and Kaspersky consistently rate high as well. However, Kaspersky is often priced high compared to their competition, and depending on your viewpoint, could be a cause for concern based on their location.

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/

https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/real-world-protection-test-february-may-2020/

Depending on the price when my current Norton subscription is up (194 days left), those are likely the three I will decide between. If renewing Norton directly through them is too expensive, I'll move on since I can't buy a license from other retailers anymore.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Bit Defender plays the same game.
Order now at some *inflated price* or bad things will happen
Ignore it and a month or two later
LAST CHANCE to purchase *at some inflated price*
Then YOU WILL BE UNPROTECTED AND AT RISK order now *at a less inflated price*
2 weeks before it expires renew now at *normal retail cost*
Expires YOU ARE NO LONGER GETTING UPDATES!!! Oh noes!
Shortly after that
Buy now for the sale price 4 PCs for *regular sale price*
Wait a month
You’ve been selected for a special discount $10 3 PCs covered for two years!
Note: If I remember correctly the cost of covering 3 PCs went from $240 on the first renewal offer to literally $10 on the final special promo email. I find insulting. 1/24th the cost for not being a sucker, suckers pay 24 times the lowest price.
That fear selling and obvious price padding made me opt out of anti virus.
I have been running my machine with a regular windows firewall and regular default windows defender for around 10 years. No problems, occasional weird stuff gets installed in the browser bar but even that hasn’t happened in around 6 years give or take.
PC hasnt slowed with age or encountered weird stuff or super slow startup times.
I firmly believe even the best anti virus has similar effects on your PC as the viruses it is trying to protect you from.
Don’t download suspicious stuff, be weary of porn sites and review what is running on your machine occasionally and all will be fine.

 

[Captante]

Same annoying prompt on both Win 10 PC's today ... I may be uninstalling early.

Too bad ... I would have kept using the AV/firewall and password vault but no way am I paying for all the crappy bloatware in the new version of 360.

 

[UsandThem]

Same annoying prompt on both Win 10 PC's today ... I may be uninstalling early.

Too bad ... I would have kept using the AV/firewall and password vault but no way am I paying for all the crappy bloatware in the new version of 360.

If you have time remaining on your subscription, you can turn off auto renew in your Norton account online, and disable special offers within the program to not get bugged again about it.

I really don't get any kind of notice until the subscription is about to expire.

 

[Captante]

Couple updates ... first that setting in 360 WAS disabled or at least it appeared to be. I enabled and then disabled it again so far no more notification fingers crossed.

Just for kicks I went and checked the price to renew (I need the 10-device license) and HOLY DOG-POOP $100 a year + tax and half of it paying for stuff I don't use like "Parental Control" and "Lifelock" and that only nets you 5 devices covered? So what ... $200+ for 10?




I snagged my first copy of Norton AV at a place called Egghead software in a bright yellow box with Peter Norton himself on the front sometime in the mid-1990's I think (5 or 6 3.5 in floppies!) and I've used their AV on at least one or two PC's pretty much ever since.

Looks like this is the end of the line.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Couple updates ... first that setting in 360 WAS disabled or at least it appeared to be. I enabled and then disabled it again so far no more notification fingers crossed.

Just for kicks I went and checked the price to renew (I need the 10-device license) and HOLY DOG-POOP $100 a year + tax and half of it paying for stuff I don't use like "Parental Control" and "Lifelock" and that only nets you 5 devices covered? So what ... $200+ for 10?




I snagged my first copy of Norton AV at a place called Egghead software in a bright yellow box with Peter Norton himself on the front sometime in the mid-1990's I think (5 or 6 3.5 in floppies!) and I've used their AV on at least one or two PC's pretty much ever since.

Looks like this is the end of the line.

Per my earlier post
Either wait for it to expire then get some kind of “sale” offer that is a lot cheaper
or
Don’t bother with Anti Virus. Assuming you have machines that will be patched by Microsoft and are able to use reasonably safe browsing habits all will be fine or maybe better than fine since no AV will be slowing your machines down.

 

[Captante]

The "AV/no AV" argument is in the same class as "does the plane take off" around these parts far as I'm concerned lol. I'll pass.



I'm sure you are correct and there will be some kind of price reduction offer but considering around $50 is the MOST I'm willing to spend for a 10-device year of 360 subscription my expectations are low. (they want around 4x that much full-price)

 

[Fanatical Meat]

The "AV/no AV" argument is in the same class as "does the plane take off" around these parts far as I'm concerned lol. I'll pass.



I'm sure you are correct and there will be some kind of price reduction offer but considering around $50 is the MOST I'm willing to spend for a 10-device year of 360 subscription my expectations are low. (they want around 4x that much full-price)

Now previous numbers may be off a little but I specifically remember my final "Over stock sale" offer from bitdefender or whatever it was called was $10 3PCs two years. Starting renew offer was greater than $200 for 4 PCs and ONE year.
BTW what is wrong with the built in Windows Defender AV?

 

[UsandThem]

Now previous numbers may be off a little but I specifically remember my final "Over stock sale" offer from bitdefender or whatever it was called was $10 3PCs two years. Starting renew offer was greater than $200 for 4 PCs and ONE year.

That reminded of the deal from Bitdefender/Newegg had a really good sale in July: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...ear-15-devices-download-newegg-39-99.2583029/

2 years/ 15 devices / $39.99

If I see that deal again before my Norton subscription runs out, I will snag one of those.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

That reminded of the deal from Bitdefender/Newegg had a really good sale in July: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...ear-15-devices-download-newegg-39-99.2583029/

2 years/ 15 devices / $39.99

If I see that deal again before my Norton subscription runs out, I will snag one of those.

Warning I want to give on bitdefender and this is old but I must say it.
Bitdefender consistently slowed machines down toward the end of the service time for some unknown reason. I mean it slowed start up and shut down a lot, like several minutes.

 

[Captante]

Despite decent results on the AV test sites I still don't trust MS Defender and my personal experience on work-related/customer PC's has been mostly negative.

Seems like 90% of machines with only Defender are a mess, although to be fair I'm sure a lot of this is user-apathy/laziness.

 

[PlanetJosh]

I forgot they made the change mandatory. I saw 360 in the message and just went ahead with it and paid whatever the sum was some months ago.

 

[mindless1]

Two words:
Un
Install

I'm against any company taking away what you paid for but with a security suite, it is always just a matter of time until they make some decision that errs towards more secure and less usable, where you are forced to accept that because the nature of the product is it has to continually be updated to offer contemporary protection.

I abandoned all such security suites years ago with no regrets. I do have Defender, and tools I can run on command, and a system backup, nuke it from orbit strategy. This guards against not only malware but also the OS itself or a hardware implosion.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I agree with @mindless1 . For all the money that people spend on "Security Suites", they could invest in a decent NAS and some backup software like Macrium that can backup to NAS.

 

[Steltek]

I just use free antivirus versions on machines that are used by other family members and have had no problems whatsoever. Mainly Bitdefender free now (used to use Avast free, but they had one too many data breaches, and Kaspersky as I didn't have anything the Russian government would possibly want on the machines... ). In the distant past, I also used to use paid suites, but found over time they weren't worth paying for over the free versions for home use.

On my own personal systems that nobody else is allowed to use, I just run Malwarebytes Premium (I have a half dozen lifetime licenses that I purchased like 10 years ago and recycle among my own machines). I honestly wouldn't even use that, but on occasion it still does catch an occasional drive by download attempt from otherwise regular commercial websites.