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

[akugami]

Is everyone unable to read this line in my previous post?...

...I've fully acknowledged if you had shitty experiences you may not want to use it. I'm saying people are bloody fools if they've had shitty experiences, therefore all future Symantec products are shitty too.

Anyone should be able to acknowledge NIS 2011 is a damn good product, even if they choose not to use it because Symantec was shitty in the past (and it was).

We read you loud and clear. A lot of people just don't care if it's a good product because it is at best equal to the other leading anti-virus programs. It is not better. There are other options on the market as good as anything Norton has out and in the case of MSE also free. If it was substantially better than anything out there we will see some of the "haters" come back. But that's not the case, so we don't care.

A lot of the folks who despise Norton and hate it with a passion have a reason for doing so. They had to fix the problems Norton created. It wasn't just that it was bloatware, it caused problems on people's computers. Many of these techie people who now hate Norton with a passion had to fix computer issues caused by Norton. These were systems that Norton was suppose to protect, not screw up. In short, it not only slowed the computer down, it was as bad as the virii it was suppose to be protecting you from.

I've had to fix plenty of computers back in the day with Norton on them. Many of them still had viruses in them. Granted it's the user's fault in most cases for visiting questionable web sites or downloading questionable files but an anti-virus program is suppose to be the gatekeeper and lock out malware. I've personally handled computers where you could not uninstall Norton with the uninstaller. I've had to go in and delete files manually in other cases. Even needing to clear out the registry in some cases.

I won't lie. I haven't used Norton in years. From all reports, Norton has cleaned up their act and it is a much faster and sleeker product. But that doesn't erase the crappy software and support from Norton over the years. Considering it wasn't just one version of Norton but a succession of versions over a period of many years that aggravated a lot of folks you can't really blame them for being hesitant to try Norton again. Norton used to be the number one anti-virus program. Norton took advantage of the users. Now the users are giving the finger to Norton. Can you blame the users?

 

[HeXen]

I use Norton 11 and 360 last year. Their fast, light and solid unlike history shows.
However it sounds like the OP is trying to convince. i see no point in that...just use whatever the fark you want to use and leave others to do the same. Whats "better" is a state of mind more than anything in this case. #1 security is the user anyway.

 

[coloumb]

Old Norton was extremely bloated and slowed down my system.

Comcast's Norton Security Suite ver 5.1.0.29 seems to be a bit paranoid for my tastes - it will Quarantine a legitimate installation file because it uses up a lot of resources during installation. And it seems to cause installation of legitimate installs to corrupt [either corrupt the downloaded file or during installation].

I had to switch it off to install The Witcher 2 and I suspect it's contributing to installation errors of SWTOR [2 other machines not running Norton have zero issues]. And after downloading a game from Gamersgate - the installation won't finish due to a corrupted file. I've checked the hard drives / memory which report no issues.

 

[silentmemories]

I'm building a new desktop and I haven't actively used Windows for roughly half a decade already. I do use Vista though sometimes but not much, and when I do, my AV is MSE, but I'm not sure whether that is enough nowadays. (Haven't researched into much.)

What are the best/most recommended AV suites nowadays?

I've heard recommendations about Vipre, some about Hitman Pro, ..., but never heard about them before. Are they any good, or should it be fine to stick with MSE?

 

[sourceninja]

Yep but you get what you pay for.

Which is why I wish my CIO would listen to me and let me migrate these 30+ linux servers to windows 2008.....

 

[midwestfisherman]

I didn't realize the CEO of Norton posted here!