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My neighbour has just been telling me about a problem she's had with Norton. She bought their anti virus a year ago online using her credit card.A week ago, without informing her they took £69 from her credit card to renew her anti virus. a few angry phonecalls later (to someone in America) she got her money back. She's also gone to the trouble of changing her credit card number. I don't think i'll be buying their products online.
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McAfee, Norton and the rest, wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. Resource hogs from annoying companies.
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There are loads of better and free antivirus.
This happens when one accidentally enrolled for auto-renewal assuming buying one off.
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Who does the best "free ones" ?
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Microsoft, Avast, panda, AVG, in no order of recommendation.
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Thumbs up for Avast (choose the free one) tinyurl.com/clvxgfe and Microsoft Security Essentials windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/security-essentials-download
Last edited by: Victorbox on Tue 20 Nov 12 at 18:12
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Good luck getting rid of the Norton infection, we ended up getting our irregular computer whizz chap to finally remove all traces.
Never again, the PC's have never run so well.
Have been using MSE ever since being recommended here and thanks for the tip Z, not a problem, also run 10bit malware fighter beside it just for belt and braces.
How does one buy a simple PC, when this one dies, that doesn't come already loaded with one of those invasive and costly security packages already installed...apart from getting a custom build?
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>>How does one buy a simple PC, when this one dies, that doesn't come already loaded with one of those invasive and costly security packages already installed...apart from getting a custom build?
You wouldn't need a custom build, if it annoys you that much just buy the Windows version of your choice and do a clean install. Or use Linux.
I think it helps to remove them before activating. That's worked for me on the last two. Once activated they are probably harder to shift.
I thought that buying a "business" PC would mean less bloatware, but it didn't. In addition to a 90 day subscription to Norton, the new Lenovo has all sorts of rubbish on it, most of them called "solutions". I've got rid of a lot already but there's more to go.
People who should know have told me that Norton is "better" now, but I still don't see the point in paying for it. And the renewal subs are silly at £55 a year, so it's no surprise that people who only trust paid for AV (you might be surprised - my retired doctor friend refused to believe that a free AV would be effective) just go and buy a new copy at half the price.
Last edited by: Manatee on Sat 24 Nov 12 at 10:08
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>> I thought that buying a "business" PC would mean less bloatware, but it didn't. In
>> addition to a 90 day subscription to Norton, the new Lenovo has all sorts of
>> rubbish on it, most of them called "solutions". I've got rid of a lot already
>> but there's more to go.
Oh!. some of the solutions are good. You could have used the helpdesk thing, and the automatic upgrading of device drivers to solve your wireless issue. Dont for gawds sake dump the recovery tools....
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>> Oh!. some of the solutions are good. You could have used the helpdesk thing, and
>> the automatic upgrading of device drivers to solve your wireless issue. Dont for gawds sake
>> dump the recovery tools....
No I haven't deleted the recovery stuff. And I've made recovery disks, though I've yet to see any of those work. And some of what I've deleted can be reinstalled with something called I think "Vantage" or similar. What I've got rid of was unfathomable to me. There was a thing called "Simple Tap" that seemed to be associated with an icon that always had a message - usually a backup reminder. Clicking it to get rid of the message brought up "Simple Tap" that is a screen full of shortcut icons that I could only get rid of with task manager. I'm not sure I've found the helpdesk thing.
I guess restoring from the HDD will bring it all back. I take your point that some will be useful, but with 100+ processes running before I even installed anything, it seems likely that much of it is redundant.
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>>>> Oh!. some of the solutions are good.
I've had a look and most of the useful stuff seems to be under "ThinkVantage". The one useful looking thing I deleted was Lenovo Solution Centre System Health and Diagnostics, and TV reinstalls it, so I did. I immediately got the backup reminder message, and another saying I had device problems. The devices turn out to be the virtual miniport adapters I disabled yesterday. Why disabling something is a device problem I don't know, but I'll able them and see what happens.
I think I deleted LSC with the Simple Tap thing, at least that hasn't come back.
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>> I think it helps to remove them before activating. That's worked for me on the
>> last two. Once activated they are probably harder to shift.
Thats probably a good solution, i'll remember that for when the time comes, thanks.
It annoys me for the fact that the machine was slow for many years, painfully slow, but once Norton was finally rid it was like the choked machine could finally breathe and has run well since.
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>> Good luck getting rid of the Norton infection, we ended up getting our irregular computer
>> whizz chap to finally remove all traces.
Norton must know their normal uninstall process is rubbish as they created a specific programme to clean out all the stuff left behind!
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Even the Norton removal tool leaves the odd Registry key behind, but CCleaner sorts that out.
The very existance of the Norton removal tool does beg the question as to why they don't just use the techniques in there to fix their uninstall routines......
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I use MS Security Essentials which rarely shows any invasion, but a full scan takes about 3 hours. I also use Malwarebytes. Both free. McAfee, which comes semi-installed on some (all?) new computers, is a devil to get rid of if you don't want it.
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Norton Anti Virus - No FM2R
