Why do so many people dislike Norton Antivirus/Norton Internet Security?

996GT2

Diamond Member
Jun 23, 2005
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Judging from many reviews and independent tests, it seems like Norton actually performs better than most of the alternatives frequently recommended. However, tech enthusiasts in general seem to have something against Norton and will often go out of their way to suggest Nod32, Kaspersky, etc.

Is it because Norton used to be pretty bad before the 2007 version came out? I remember having Norton 2006 back in the day, and it was really heavy on system resource use. But the later versions (2007+) have remedied that problem. It seems like Norton 2011 performs really well, as evidenced by the results below:

niso.jpg


http://www.dennistechnologylabs.com/reports/s/a-m/symantec/DTL_PCVP2011_SYMC.pdf

PC Mag also gave it very positive reviews:
nis2s.jpg
 
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Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
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The only answer I can give our OP, is that Norton and Symantec spent better than a decade of vending crapware and resting on their laurels. Not mention their arrogance in refusing tech support to anyone unless they were willing to get totally gouged.

Oddly Norton was a half way useful product in the days of win98, but for win95 and XP, it was totally worthless. And after Norton spent a decade pissing the knowledgeable off, its somewhat absurd to assume that many will ever be willing to forgive Norton so soon.
 

WildW

Senior member
Oct 3, 2008
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evilpicard.com
Agreed, it is difficult to disassociate that old "Norton = bloatware" thing that is lodged in my brain.

The real problem for any paid-for antivirus software now is that I'm so used to using the free ones, and I've never been interested or paranoid enough to go looking for reviews to convince myself that AVG Free isn't enough.

I've also only ever bothered with Antivirus. All the "Internet Security" bits ever seemed to do was give me extra firewall headaches. I used to run Zone Alarm for years before eventually not bothering any more.
 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,706
430
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Look at lingering reputation of ECS due to the affiliation with PC CHIPS, just because of the relatively short period that it produced a lot of craptacular products over a three or four year period beginning around 1997 or 1998.
 

jadinolf

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
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I think it has to do with previous versions.

I would die before a Norton anything is installed on any of my computers.
 

Thetech

Senior member
Mar 12, 2005
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IMHO most of those studies are inaccurate. And PC magazine just like PC world... Is worthless. The problems with Norton have to do with it's business model of paying for definitions for an old version of Norton and not getting the latest "engine" unless you pay for it.

Also the fact that even if it does protect from viruses the built in firewall and other components of the program cause various OS issues. A common one is disabling internet connections and other odd issues. And I've never found it to be very user friendly and by default Norton "nags" a lot.
 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
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IMHO most of those studies are inaccurate. And PC magazine just like PC world... Is worthless. The problems with Norton have to do with it's business model of paying for definitions for an old version of Norton and not getting the latest "engine" unless you pay for it.
Norton's problem is that it uses the same business model as every other commercial software on earth, including every other commercial antivirus software (i.e. they require you to pay for using it)?
 

billyb0b

Golden Member
Nov 8, 2009
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norton is bloat, always has been. last norton product i used was in 2001 and have never touched them since

KIS has been my choice for over 6 yrs now
 

Thetech

Senior member
Mar 12, 2005
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Norton's problem is that it uses the same business model as every other commercial software on earth, including every other commercial antivirus software (i.e. they require you to pay for using it)?

No, Norton works like this as I last recall. Say you bought Norton 2009,
each year you are paying for the definition updates for the 2009 engine. If you want
the 2010 or 2011 engine you need to pay MORE to upgrade to that version.

Most people don't even realize this. I've seen people running Norton 2005 thinking that they are paying for "up to date" antivirus software.

Some vendors, such as ESET don't work this way. If they release a new version/engine and you are a current subscriber to their software, you get the upgrade for no additional cost.
 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,706
430
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No, Norton works like this as I last recall. Say you bought Norton 2009, each year you are paying for the definition updates for the 2009 engine. If you want the 2010 or 2011 engine you need to pay MORE to upgrade to that version.
You got the engine updates via LiveUpdate for as long as Norton updated the engine for any given product version, which was typically at least two years. It was possible to reach end-of-life for engine updates while continuing to pay for a subscription to virus definitions but it wasn't just the following year. It was more like two or three years.

But that hasn't been true for the past three or four years. Norton allows you to update to newer versions now as long as you have a valid subscription. Been that way since 2008 or 2009, although in these product versions, you may need to manually check for the free update (IIRC, version 2010 and 2011 products will notify you automatically).

Since 2002 or 2003, you can also use any valid subscription key with the next version of Norton products if you had the install source. e.g. you could use a 2002 key to install 2003 version, or 2003 key to install 2004 version, etc.
 
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lowrider69

Senior member
Aug 26, 2004
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Last version of Norton I used was Norton 2003 which was the last decent version IMO up until recently. They turned themselves around a bit in the past two years and their products are not as bloated. Most people associated their products with the resource heavy crap they produced prior to 2009.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
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No, Norton works like this as I last recall. Say you bought Norton 2009,
each year you are paying for the definition updates for the 2009 engine. If you want
the 2010 or 2011 engine you need to pay MORE to upgrade to that version.

Most people don't even realize this. I've seen people running Norton 2005 thinking that they are paying for "up to date" antivirus software.

Some vendors, such as ESET don't work this way. If they release a new version/engine and you are a current subscriber to their software, you get the upgrade for no additional cost.

Yet, if you are able to obtain, say, Norton IS 2011, and install that on your machine, then it will accept a NIS 2010 key to activate. Boom! 2011 engine, with 2010 key. Yes, I've done this personally, it works.
 

vegal

Member
May 7, 2011
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I hate Norton because it slows down my PC. It uses too much RAM and has a rubbish interface. The scan also takes ages.
 

readymix

Senior member
Jan 3, 2007
357
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prior experience or more likely preconcieved notions.

For me it is what i've stuck with since 2005, the dawn of my broadband age. Except for one particular version that gave me repeated firewall warnings i've had no complaints and no infections. Does it slow down my pc? maybe but the few times curiousity got to me, i'd say the difference with it on and with it off is less than the deffernce between a good 7200 rpm hard drive and a mediocre one. Did demo kaspersky once and quickly concluded NIS was better suited for me or something off puting about KIS, idk.

I never really seriously tried any freecommercial versions except as a on demand scanner and in most cases i got what i paid for. plus i can usually find NIS cheap and sometimes dirt cheap sometimes not.
 
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Thetech

Senior member
Mar 12, 2005
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You got the engine updates via LiveUpdate for as long as Norton updated the engine for any given product version, which was typically at least two years. It was possible to reach end-of-life for engine updates while continuing to pay for a subscription to virus definitions but it wasn't just the following year. It was more like two or three years.

But that hasn't been true for the past three or four years. Norton allows you to update to newer versions now as long as you have a valid subscription. Been that way since 2008 or 2009, although in these product versions, you may need to manually check for the free update (IIRC, version 2010 and 2011 products will notify you automatically).

Since 2002 or 2003, you can also use any valid subscription key with the next version of Norton products if you had the install source. e.g. you could use a 2002 key to install 2003 version, or 2003 key to install 2004 version, etc.

Traditionally no, not with the older 2003,04, 05, versions.

Even if I'm wrong, how many home users do you think know to even do that?
If it wasn't for the big name, tradition and marketing, no one would use Norton.
 

dennilfloss

Past Lifer 1957-2014 In Memoriam
Oct 21, 1999
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norton is bloat, always has been. last norton product i used was in 2001 and have never touched them since

This s like saying "Microsoft is bloat, always has been. Last Microsoft product i used was in 2001 and have never touched them since..." :hmm:

Maybe if you had looked at a recent Norton, you wouldn't have said that. It sure doesn't feel bloated to me. It's got quite a small footprint and its use of CPU & RAM resources is quite modest for an excellent AV accuracy in recent AV Comparative tests.
 

dennilfloss

Past Lifer 1957-2014 In Memoriam
Oct 21, 1999
30,509
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No, Norton works like this as I last recall. Say you bought Norton 2009,
each year you are paying for the definition updates for the 2009 engine. If you want
the 2010 or 2011 engine you need to pay MORE to upgrade to that version.
.

Yet I somehow got the upgrade to the newer NAV engine automatically when I renewed my subscription in November.
 

jadinolf

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
20,952
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We used to joke that the best software Norton ever developed was their uninstaller. :D
 

Bryf50

Golden Member
Nov 11, 2006
1,429
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rton Internet Security 11 is an awesome AV. It uses less memory than MSE on my laptop, it has a fast an slick ui, and I mostly forget its even running. Prior to trying it out I was a staunch norton hater because of years uninstalling it and watching it bring PCs to their knees but it changed my perception.
 

Venom20

Senior member
Apr 12, 2011
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Last time I used Norton it was 2001 or 2003, I can't remember. I can't say much about their newer stuff, but for me it the remembrance of bloated software. I'm sure it's much better now, but it's stuck in my head as not being.
 

wheresmybacon

Diamond Member
Sep 10, 2004
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I used Norton for a while, about 10 years ago I used it as my main AV software. My issue with it was it was a huge resource hog.

Once work started supplying us with PC Cillin for free I never used it again. I haven't used Trend for a few years - favoring MSE currently - but it was a nice change from Norton back then due to resource considerations alone.