Norton 360 v4.0 Premiere

I wanted to get an original internet security program again, so I checked out some of the recent companies releases. I didn't want to get G-Data or Kaspersky anymore, didn't have the best experiences with them.

In the very beginning I always used software from Norton, and never had any problems with it, despite people sometimes complaining.

I now saw that the newest Norton software got only good reviews so far, and I thought myself why not getting it again, after owning the 2002 version.

The Premiere version also comes with the ability to back up your stuff online, and gives you 25GB of webspace.

I would get the whole package for about 60£, though subscription only being for 1 year. But that would be for 3 PCs (exactly what I would need).

So what do you think, would it be an opportunity to eventually buy one again?

The Norton 2010 suite had been getting good reviews, and they are saying the hooror stories of past versions are now a thing of the past and it is now a good product worth buying.

However, I would still avoid Norton because of the huge footprint it installs into the PC and the amount of resources it uses when running. Not nice. I still like Kaspersky the most and use it, but you said you don't like that due to a bad experience... so maybe if you do want a commercial security suite you could try it again.

Kaspersky was annoying me too much with messages popping up all the time, like 3 in one minute. Perhaps it was configured to be too secure, didn't alter a lot after the install. I have to say that I didn't really go through the settings, as I didn't know what to switch on or off to keep it still secure enough. Otherwise it ran just fine, I cannot complain. Norton just ran smoother, I didn't even notice the slowdowns due to using too many resources everybody seemed to have.

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I saw that the BitDefender Internet Security Software also gets good reviews on every site, even slightly better than Kaspersky or Norton.

I don't know why people have complained so much about Norton, I've been using it since I connected to the net in the late 90s and I really haven't noticed any slow downs? When my PC starts getting really slow, I just do a format and start again. Not the quickest way to solve slowdowns, but it does work.

As a PC support guy both hardware and software, I can tell you why people steer clear of Norton... I cannot tell you how many machines I have had to rebuild due to Norton "Activation" issues... They have the worst activation and subscription service I have ever dealt with. More often than not even Norton themselves cannot fix the subscription problems and cannot even uninstall their own software. Reminds me of AOL many years back that would take over the system and had no way to remove. (They later got their asses sued off due to these types of issues and I think Norton should as well.) Norton often requires a complete machine rebuild to fix the issue and in todays' world that is just unacceptable. I belive Harrison said that the new version supposedly fixes these issues and I certanly hope so... But for my money I will not take a chance on their shoddy software when there are so many alternative options out there...

Just my opinion... Good luck with whatever choice you make..

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Originally Posted by outlawal2

Just my opinion... Good luck with whatever choice you make..

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Would you than suggest something in particular? F. ex. sticking with free software, like Avast and Comodo Firewall (which I use atm)?

I read that Norton still has problems when you try to remove the software, and I had these problems back then too, but I found a Norton removal tool, which did the job quite good.

BitDefender receives consistent good marks and I have had many customers that swear by it... If I were in the market I would try Bit Defender...

Ok, I will investigate that further tomorrow.

Ok, I installed the trial version of Norton 360 v4 to make a test. Today, 2 days later, I'm already removing it because I have some issues. I cannot run "Live Update", I always get the message that I can't connect to the Symantec server. First I thought that would be a problem of my laptop, not making the connection correctly, but it wasn't. This seems to be a more common problem. Searched for support on the Symantec site, found several help to fix this problem, tried all of them, none of course worked. As the problem still remained unsolved, I decided to get rid of it.

Testing BitDefender next I think.

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Installed BitDefender Total Security now, seems to work, gonna wait some days before giving my final opinion. I also found a nice patch for BD, applied it, and it gives me free usage until 2047!! Nice!! It also seems to work, I updated, nothing changed.

It seems that with BitDefender I have exactly the same problem with the databases update than with Norton, so that was eventually not Norton's fault, but I'm quite sure now that it could have something to do with my laptop. Don't know what though, as I can connect to the internet perfectly, although only via 3G, but that was always enough so far.

EDIT: Found out what the problem was. Avast and Comodo were still installed, although not active and not started with Windows, they were disabled. After now removing them, the update just went fine. Perhaps something of these programs still was running silently in the background.

Now I feel bad about having removed Norton, as that must have been the same problem :whistle:

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Originally Posted by outlawal2

As a PC support guy both hardware and software, I can tell you why people steer clear of Norton... I cannot tell you how many machines I have had to rebuild due to Norton "Activation" issues... They have the worst activation and subscription service I have ever dealt with. More often than not even Norton themselves cannot fix the subscription problems and cannot even uninstall their own software. Reminds me of AOL many years back that would take over the system and had no way to remove. (They later got their asses sued off due to these types of issues and I think Norton should as well.) Norton often requires a complete machine rebuild to fix the issue and in todays' world that is just unacceptable. I belive Harrison said that the new version supposedly fixes these issues and I certanly hope so... But for my money I will not take a chance on their shoddy software when there are so many alternative options out there...

Just my opinion... Good luck with whatever choice you make..

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Hmm, interesting!

I guess for me, I always have had my laptop connected to the net, so I've had no need to remove it. I can't say that I've ever experienced that issue. Interesting that it is such an issue though.

But in terms of protection, how would you rate it/ what do you think is the best? That's what I'm looking for, as for me, I haven't had issues with installation, activation or updates...

Ok, some updates. I removed BitDefender again from my main PC and my laptop, it had an annoying major problem, which seems to be common. It asks you in the beginning if you want to perform a deep scan, meaning a full scan of all existing files on your disks. Problem is first of all that this takes very long, I had to stop it on my laptop after 6 hours because I wanted to switch it off, I use it here at work, and don't want to leave it outside on my desk over night.

But every time now I turn the laptop on, it starts with the deep scan task immediately, you can stop it manually, but after every restart, it starts from scratch. There's no way (at least I couldn't find whilst searching nor on the internet) to stop it from doing it, and there's also no option to tell it that you don't want to do a deep scan at all. It then always shows you an error message that this task has never been completed. So far so good, I could live with that message, but guess what happens again after the next restart!!

On my main PC I let it finish the deep scan, which took some days because my 10TB disks already contain millions of files. As that system is running 24/7, I just let it finish. Once done I was really happy, because also during the deep scan your PC suffers slowdowns. But then, after 30 days, it wants to do the whole operation again, and again it shows you the error message all the time if you're not doing it, and of course again it starts the deep scan every time you restart your PC.

This was after some time annoying me really much so that I decided to remove the whole software. Now I'm again working with Avast and Comodo.

I know you had some problems with Kaspersky, but I've just upgrades last month to the latest Kaspersky Security Suite 2011 and it is improved on previous versions. You don't even notice it is there unless a thread is detected, and it doesn't have any annoying warning to do full scans as you have been getting. It just warns you that it hasn't been performed in a message box if you open the main main window. Other than that it is never seen and just sits in the background working.

I could perhaps test Kaspersky on my laptop, then I would have tested most of them :) But I should do that anyway before buying some stuff straight away only based on good reviews, I think you will always have to see for yourself. Is there a trial version of the Security Suite, I only find a trial for Internet Security, but perhaps that will already do the job, mainly only needing a good antivirus and a firewall. What is the difference between these 2?

Btw, did you try Kaspersky Pure? It has even more features than the whole Internet Security, don't know if I would need the additional stuff though.

EDIT: Is Kaspersky Pure actually the "Suite" you meant?

The suite is also called "Internet Security 2011" so is the same thing.

Pure is their larger package and similar in idea to Norton 360 with extra features for system secrity, such as backup utility, password manager, security tune-up and file encryption. It also includes everything you get with Internet Security 2011 in terms of the firewall and virus scanner. I looked at this when I updated my license last month and decided it didn't contain anything I needed over the Internet Security package. Only really useful for families with the parental control and password manager. Things you can easily get from free utilities if needed.

Regarding the discount code. It probably only works in the UK because its a discount code for Royal Mail employees. It was a good one though as it gave a 50% discount. There might be other discount codes around.

I installed Norton 360 again now to give it a try, because last time it didn't update, but that was my fault, as several other stuff was still running. Now it seems to work, and if I compare reviews on the internet, Norton is still one of the best internet security programs, averaging even slightly better than Kaspersky, which apparently takes a lot more resources. I was also looking closer at ZoneAlarm Security, which made 1st place on some sites, but after reading some comments, I got more and more sceptical. Also Webroot Security seemed to be fine, but again after reading many comments, I had my doubts.

No security suite is ever perfect. I avoid ZoneAlarm myself after using their firewall years ago and having a lot of issues with it. It conflicted with software, not allowing it to run and made the system very unstable. Things might have improved since then, but a bad experience is often enough to avoid something again.

I prefer Comodo Internet Security (Antivirus+Firewall).
It's free and works perfectly :thumbs:

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Originally Posted by Demon Cleaner

I installed Norton 360 again now to give it a try, because last time it didn't update, but that was my fault, as several other stuff was still running. Now it seems to work, and if I compare reviews on the internet, Norton is still one of the best internet security programs, averaging even slightly better than Kaspersky, which apparently takes a lot more resources. I was also looking closer at ZoneAlarm Security, which made 1st place on some sites, but after reading some comments, I got more and more sceptical. Also Webroot Security seemed to be fine, but again after reading many comments, I had my doubts.

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Good to hear about Norton, they have really trimmed the fat out so it's not a resource hungry beast anymore

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Originally Posted by Wots

I prefer Comodo Internet Security (Antivirus+Firewall).
It's free and works perfectly :thumbs:

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I also use Comodo on some of my PCs. It is the best free security suite for sure. Quite small on system resources and it seems to work quite well. I don't think it is quite as good as the best commercial products such as Norton or Kaspersky, but it is worth using if you don't want to pay for one.

I'm also using it on my PCs, but only the firewall, and I use Avast as my anti virus soft.

This is really weird, I will definitely stop my testing around now and stick with free software.

As you know I installed Norton again. Everything seemed to work fine, but I got the Extreme Games Manager, and that one refused to update or to be activated, giving me a message that I should let it through my firewall. In the Norton firewall was a rule that granted the application full access, whether in or outcoming traffic or whatever. I couldn't get it to work.

Another thing was that Internet Explorer couldn't connect either. I found that strange as I could perfectly connect the internet with Firefox, and both of them also had the same rule in the firewall. Today I removed Norton again, and guess what, Internet Explorer is working fine again.

That is weird, even the basic stuff getting blocked by an "award" winning firewall. Rules were set, because other programs with the same rules could actually connect. I tried for 2 hours to get these things working, resetting firewall over and over, and trying to create different rules. Nothing helped, only the removal.

That was it now for me, for years I never had problems with the free software I use, so I'm also gonna use it for the future.

From your experience it sounds like Norton is acting exacting how it always has in the past, and one of the reasons many avoid it.

Comodo do produce a great firewall and virus checker that is more than enough for most people. Why pay for something, when something exists for free?