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journal: win
20 Reasons The World despises Norton Anti-Virus
Do i have a virus or is my computer just gooey???
In the beginning… well, I’ll stay away from that mess of evolution vs. intelligent design. Let’s start back when the Internet began. So there Al Gore was; supposedly he invented this thing called the Internet. Then some other college kid got bored and decided “Hey! I’m going to delete crucial code from a program until it crashes my computer!” Thus, the first virus was born. Ever since then, more and more Windows users have been placing viruses on the Internet, and every person with a PC is running around like a chicken with its head cut off in fear. Then came the good guys; yes, anti-virus software. Until one day a company named Symantec made Norton. Then the good became the bad. Norton turned the tide for PC users… until after it was installed on their computer. At that point they wondered, “Do I have a virus or is my computer just gooey?” Unbeknownst to them, their computer was infected, infected by the disinfector. Norton anti-virus sucks, and the world despises it. Why is it around? Because Compaq bundles it with their PCs. Geek Squad at Best Buy hands it out to old ladies who can’t even get their monitors on, and Al Gore used it to make his slide show of idiocy (look, I apologize for the Gore jokes. From now on, I’ll only make fun of the French.) With the history laid, here are the top twenty reasons why the world despises Norton.
20. Having to type in your serial number while installing and then activating it within 20 days of installation.
19. When Norton corrupts downloading files.
18. When Norton uninstalls its self because a virus threatened it.
17. The stupid task bar tool bar thing that has pop-ups the size of greater Atlanta.
16. The live update reminders.
15. The CPU and RAM consuming virus scans.
14. Its inability to delete any virus, even ones that a three-year-old wrote.
13. How it re-adds its self to your computers start up list.
12. When it says you have spyware on your computer, then does nothing.
11. How when it quarantines a virus, it copies it to the folder.
10. If you use it to delete adware it changes your homepage and locks it.
9. After using Norton to delete spyware it tells you that you have to re-install it to open Microsoft Word.
8. The virus definitions in a Haitian health clinic are more up to date than Norton’s.
7. Norton is over hyped and over-priced.
6. Requires a subscription every year.
5. On any operating system other than XP if your computer gets a virus Norton’s only defense is to initiate “the blue screen of doom”
4. If it comes bundled with a computer and you don’t run thorough set up it will pop back up every time you log in.
3. It tried to tell me that dtgeeks was giving me a virus.
2. The latest version blocks ports that are critical to 99.9% of Internet gaming connections.
And now for the number one reason why Norton is despised worldwide:
1. Because after you realize Norton is crap. You will also find the folder is missing the uninstaller, just like many kinds of adware.
Please feel free to correct me about any of these. As always I’m open to suggestion, and will correct any major mistakes.
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| Jay | comments | views |
thinkback
@ Steve:
“But, is Norton’s grammar, spelling and punctuation quite as bad as yours?”
The plural form of a noun requires no apostrophe. Also, the first comma is superfluous.
If you’re going to play semantics with other peoples posts because you can’t counter their actual argument, it might be a good idea to proofread yours first (or ask a friend who has full command of the English language)…
I deleted Norton from my computer several years ago,
and have been using NOD32 since.
Its an awesome Antivirus,the BEST in my opinion.
Check it out at http://www.NOD32.com
Avast would be my 2.choice.
I know it is predictable but I just want to give a BOW to Elf for helping Steve with his grammar.
Thank you.
NICE ARTICLE, so if you u have problem with virus , new virus you can find free software for that here
i just bought a new laptop a few days after thanksgiving, and it came with mcafee and after the 30 day trial was up, i uninstalled it and installed norton antivirus. i’ve had it for only 6 days and already im regretting it. i thought it was my imagination, but sure enough, my windows is heartbreakingly slow, and experiencing frequent crashing. i keep hearing how painful it is to uninstall. should i contact a professional, or, what would be the steps i can take to uninstall, aside from the obvious “Remove Programs” option? and what anti-virus and anti-spyware should i use instead?
please HELP me! 
@Drea
Here is a link to the symantec removal tool.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeni nfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039
Norton is bought by ordinary users who know no better. I feel sorry for them when they ruin a perfectly good computer by installing that P.O.S. software.
Still, keeps me in a living be paying me to remove it and put a proper program on like NOD32.
Norton doesn’t suck per se, but it is an A/V solution that isn’t suitable for computer-proficient users. It is clearly targeteted for your average home user. This is indicated by flashy and ugly GUI and the overly verbose feedback; probably intended to make customers feel they’ve got their money’s worth out of the program. But it’s laughable when Norton claims to have protected your computer from regular ICMP ping…
From my experience it does two things well: 1) It infests your computer better than any virus, and hence once a virus tries to gain entry, Norton can bar it effectively. Further, it still finds and cleans viruses reasonably well, albeit it has been better. The main drawbacks are the immense resource drain.
I’m currently using AVG and Avast on my two computers, and has been doing so for about six months. Both works well enough, AVG has lower overhead but I have been getting false positives from it a number of times, pretty annoying. I’m considering purchasing Kapersky or NOD32 instead.
lol, classic. U are so right, your forgetting that what happens if you do actually manage to uninstall it. It devours dll and system files like a kid getting into a cookie jar. Than It ****s up your registry real good. Than leaves hidden extensions in the add remove list. Still tries to boot without it’s files, causing the computers boot process to slow to a point that the average user will just collapse comatose halfway through. Than if your actually dumb enough to try another antivirus program such as mcaffee, they fight each other over your computers resources (this includes after it’s unistalled, because like I said, It doesn’t actually fully uninstall itself). In fact if you really want norton gone, assuming you were naive enough to buy this bloatware, there are only 2 real solutions. either 1, hunt down each norton file by hand, than delete the files while in boot (norton won’t let you delete them when your in windows because you don’t have the rights even if you are the administrator). But at that point, the damage is done. My advice is do the second, back up all your files (not the hard drive, it is destroyed beyond belief, with windows trying it’s best to slow the bleeding)than reformat the whole thing, and start clean, ditch your worthless oem bloatware ridden version of windows and void your warrenty by buying a nice retail version. Some may say Im making this crap up, I’m not. I have been doing tech support for those old people who fear viruses and get this stuff. I have only once seen a virus more destructive than Norton Antivirus, and it changed the the settings on the powersupply, to run high voltage through the motherboard totally making the computer useless. People compain about how hard trojans are to remove, just use clamwin, scan the active memory, if you can’t delete it, than quarentine it. Wham, no more virus problem, sadly it becomes quite different with norton. The whole way norton is makes me wonder, does norton make most of the viruses out thier just to intimidate us to use they’re crap (cause they ought to make the viruses as difficult to remove as norton =P)
A good free Antivirus Software is Blink Personal Edition. This program has surpassed all others in functionality, ease of use and how thorough it is. I used to run programs like Spybot and AdAware and though those are good programs, it was to time consuming to run two separate programs.
I keep all of my personal business files on my home computer and can’t afford to lose any of that data and there’s some of it that isn’t for anyone’s eyes but mine and my clients. This free program does everything the other programs do but does it all in one program and is much more thorough than any of the others ever had. I love this program, you should check it out.
This free program does everything the other programs do but does it all in one program and is much more thorough than any of the others ever had.
Strangely, this often seems to be the case with anti-spyware and anti-virus software.
| Sep. 28, 2007 | |
| Arden | 12:28 am |
FUCK YOU ALL YOU COCK SUCKERS MY DAD CREATED NORTON ANTI VIRUS and it was perfect now that symantic owns it it sucks so you all can go to hell and rott in your own piss
If that were true, I bet you’d have enough pride in your family legacy to use a real email address.
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| Oct. 24, 2007 | |
| Arden | 4:21 am |
its call privacy dumb ass
Funnily enough, the textbook for my computer applications class—Introduction to Computers—was written by Peter Norton of Norton Utilities fame.
| Oct. 24, 2007 | |
| Liam | 10:41 pm |
FUCK YOU ALL YOU COCK SUCKERS MY DAD CREATED NORTON ANTI VIRUS and it was perfect now that symantic owns it it sucks so you all can go to hell and rott in your own piss
| Nick | Oct. 25, 2007 | |
| 12:39 am |
I have a little bit more info on my website regarding Norton. Coming from a software developer, system builder, servicer for over 20 years (I program assembly as well as 10 other languages - I KNOW about bloatware). But my article is fair. Check it out regarding Norton.
I have a little more info on my website regadring Norton. Coming from a software developer, system builder, servicer for over 20 years (I program assembly as well as 10 other languages - I KNOW about bloatware). But my article is fair. Check it out regarding Norton (has pictures too!)
http://www.perrycomputerservices.com/Articl es/2005/norton_product_review.htm
my main website is at
I would LOVE to use linux, but im a gamer =/= linux…
BUT…
1.) AVG (free)
2.) COMODO Firewall Pro (free)
3.) Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware (free)
4.) no porn DL’s (amazingly..FREE!)
Wow how amazing, i have a perfectly safe computer that works for gaming, has an AWESOME firewall with great support from forums and friendly folks.
i am making a new computer this new year (2008) and i will use this current machine to probably run a linux based firewall of some sort, because lets put it this way: Linux rox if you know basic programming and a helping hand (im 16 and neither of those fit...)
Nick…
That is hilarious. Its hard to believe that norton is so popular and sells so well.
I am amazed at this thread too...the fact I am still getting emails about responses. Popular topic!
More strange is the recent article in PC advisor (I think in USA it is the sister paper of PC Magazine..?) where they had an analysis of different ’Security Suites‘ and pitted their abilities against each other.
Guess which one came out on top...?
I won’t list all the contenders as I don’t have the magazine to hand and wouldn’t want to get it wrong but rest assured all the supposed ‘greats’ were in there...McAfee, Norton, Kaspersky, Bullguard and more.
Give yourself a pat on the back for guessing correctly:
Norton won with the highest marks!
I still think it is the worst security software on the market and I couldn’t give a monkeys what some two-bit magazine review tries to tell me!
I am amazed at this thread too...the fact I am still getting emails about responses. Popular topic!
Trust me, none of us involved with this site ever expected this article to become so popular when it was first posted. 
EDIT: gotta love the Google ad links at the top of the page right now:
“Panda ... Norton ... HIV Virus ... Herpes Virus ... Spyware”
| Nick | Jan. 28, 2008 | |
| 12:17 am |
Did you say ‘Ads’?
‘Google Ads’?
I have almost forgotten what they are since I started using firefox and Ad block Plus.
51.
Or try an open-source antivirus program like something based on ClamAV.