Norton 360

rosboy

Hey guys.

Not sure if this qualifys as a bargain or now, but I'll leave it up to the mods to decide.

Earlier today I was in PC World and they had Norton Internet Security 2008 for €75 and Norton Antivirus 2008 was €65 (I didn't write down the figures, but if they are wrong they aren't far off the mark).

I then came home and checked on line at the Norton website. Internet Security 2008 was $59.99 to download, and Antivirus was $39.99. Norton 360 All-In-One Security (which encompasses both of the individual packages) costs $79.99. Each gives one years worth of updates. For $139.99 you can upgrade Norton 360 to two years worth of updates.

http://www.symantec.com/norton/theme.jsp?themeid=new-2008

We are being so ripped off in this country!

GBX

Good price online yeah ... but not a great program imo. AVG is better.

The_Conductor

Norton causes all sorts of system conflicts and is a total mess. Having worked briefly for Symantec- I'd advise avoid it like the plague. There are totally free options out there which do very decent jobs of antivirus software, soft-firewalls, POP-scanning etc- look at Avast or AVG for example......

rosboy

GBX wrote: »

but not a great program imo. AVG is better.

You could be right. I don't know alot about antivirus software. All I know is that I work for a large multinational computer manufacturer, and we use Symantec (who publish Norton) on our computers internally. Also, I never had any problems when I used Symantec/Norton on a computer. I do know that when I switched to McAfee I got totally screwed. I won't be going back to them!

Edit: smccarrick posted while I was replying to GBX. As I said, I've never had problems with it before. That isn't to say I won't have problems with it on this system. Fingers crossed!

Appleblossom42

Norton 360 is actually very good and light on the system. Downloaded the trial a while ago and was really impressed, great compared to the normal Norton internet suites. Takes up much less space now and no slowing of pc.

The_Conductor

Rosboy- I'd have to agree with you. The 60 day trial version that ships on Dells etc is particularly poor- the heuristics are atrocious and its buggy as hell.

rosboy

smccarrick wrote: »

Rosboy- I'd have to agree with you. The 60 day trial version that ships on Dells etc is particularly poor- the heuristics are atrocious and its buggy as hell.

I've only ever used full versions, so maybe thats why my experience has been good.

CyberWaste

I would rather stick with Kaspersky tbh. Norton slowed down my pc so much.

bk

Norton completely re-wrote Norton Internet Security and now it is a very good app, one of the best IMO.

I'm surprised I'm saying this, as I use to loathe Norton, but they have massively improved, it uses very little system resources and doesn't slow down any of my systems.

I wonder if people here used the old version.

I require Norton Internet Security to be installed on any ones PC that I fix (family, friends, etc.). Doing this plus a few other changes (firefox instead of IE, etc.) means I have yet to have any one come back to me with problems

BTW I wouldn't touch AVG with a ten foot stick, given what they have been doing recently:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/13/avg_scanner_skews_web_traffic_numbers/

plus they have been adding a lot of other bloat, if your looking for a free AV, look at Avast.

philbee

the norton you buy in the shop will do 3 seperate pc's they tend not to tell you this for some reason but if you read the package it will be written on it.

rosboy

philbee wrote: »

the norton you buy in the shop will do 3 seperate pc's they tend not to tell you this for some reason but if you read the package it will be written on it.

I saw that on the packaging alright. The one you download also does 3 PC's.

Saruman

Norton 360 is good? I do not think so. Every time i have come across this app on someones PC as it was preinstalled it kills it even worse than internet security. Once its uninstalled the system flies along.

anyway rosboy we are not being ripped off from the comparisson you are making... Firstly its priced in Dollars so immediatly we save money being euro. Secondly sales Tax is much lower in any of the US states (it varies). Thirdly you are comparing a digital download to a boxed product with media cd etc.
There is also the fact that we are a richer country and have more take home pay and spare cash after all our bills are paid than almost any country on the planet... and that includes the US so as a result we are charged more.

sunny2004

Would not touch it with your bargepole !

Its a messy program..

rosboy

Saruman wrote: »

anyway rosboy we are not being ripped off from the comparisson you are making... Firstly its priced in Dollars so immediatly we save money being euro. Secondly sales Tax is much lower in any of the US states (it varies). Thirdly you are comparing a digital download to a boxed product with media cd etc.
There is also the fact that we are a richer country and have more take home pay and spare cash after all our bills are paid than almost any country on the planet... and that includes the US so as a result we are charged more.

Sorry Saruman, but I have to say that I totally disagree with you on the points above.

1. When you convert the dollars to euros its still much cheaper. If the conversion rate made them equal, then you could say we aren't being ripped off.

2. We pay more in sales taxes in Ireland than in the US? Correct. Therefore we are being ripped off.

3. Digital download vs. physical. You could opt for a physical package to be sent you in addition to the download option. This cost $9.99 (iirc). Still vastly cheaper buying in Ireland.

4. We are a richer country so should pay more for goods. I'm sorry, but this is one of the most rediculous arguements I have ever heard. Retailers know they can get away with extortionate prices, so they charge them. The only way this will stop is if people cop on and start refusing to be ripped off.

Lets take Norton Internet Security 2008 as an example:

PC World sell it online in England for 39.99GBP (50.38euro).

In a PC world shop in Ireland they charge us 75euro.

If you buy online at Norton (and pay extra $9.99 for the physical package to be shipped to you) its 43.96euro.

I'm sorry, but I really can't understand how you'd look at the three prices in the three scenarios above and not say that we are being ripped off.

Nea

rosboy wrote: »

I do know that when I switched to McAfee I got totally screwed. I won't be going back to them!

Why do you blame Mc Afee for what happened you?Was that not because of a dodgy ebay seller? I know Mc Afee can be a bit of a nightmare to remove but otherwise I think its fairly stable. We put Mc Afee on servers last year after Nortons nightmare of rolling out new enterprise software that was not ready.

I will agree with smcarrick that there are plenty of free options that do the job for home users.

rosboy

Nea wrote: »

Why do you blame Mc Afee for what happened you?Was that not because of a dodgy ebay seller? I know Mc Afee can be a bit of a nightmare to remove but otherwise I think its fairly stable. We put Mc Afee on servers last year after Nortons nightmare of rolling out new enterprise software that was not ready.

I will agree with smcarrick that there are plenty of free options that do the job for home users.

I don't think this had anything to do with ebay. Somebody got access to my Gmail account, changed the password and backup email address, and blocked me out. They then hijacked my ebay account and put an item up for sale on my account. My best guess is that this happened because of a worm on my system that gave my details to the hacker.

I may be wrong to blame McAfee. But as I think I said previously, when I was running on Norton/Symantec in the past I never once had an infected PC. When I switched to McAfee, I got infected within a week.

Of course, I could have been infected if I was using Norton/Symantec also. After that experience though, I'm going to stay clear of McAfee for a while.

Nea

I suppose I have had better experiences with Mc Afee compared to the mild heart attacks we suffered last year with Norton.

Then again if it was a new worm none of them would catch it if the definitions werent out.

Saruman

rosboy wrote: »

1. When you convert the dollars to euros its still much cheaper. If the conversion rate made them equal, then you could say we aren't being ripped off.

2. We pay more in sales taxes in Ireland than in the US? Correct. Therefore we are being ripped off.

What the? How can you bring the conversion into it? It costs $80 for a digital download, $90 if you order the CD... oh and thats NOT including sales TAX as no US shop includes it in the price. Its $99.99 when you go to checkout and then you can add your $10 + tax bringing it over $110 which is a lot of money in the US.
You can not say we are being ripped off because our currency happens to be a lot stronger than theirs so we get a better deal. Thats like saying the UK are being ripped off if something here works out cheaper once they convert to Euro because their currency is stroner.

And on the sales tax? That means the US is being ripped off because their sales tax is higher than somewhere like the Canaries which does not have any... complete rubbish.

Oh and i do not think they ship to Ireland anyway and if they did the cost would be pretty high.

Gadgetman496

bk wrote: »

Norton completely re-wrote Norton Internet Security and now it is a very good app, one of the best IMO.

I'm surprised I'm saying this, as I use to loathe Norton, but they have massively improved, it uses very little system resources and doesn't slow down any of my systems.

I wonder if people here used the old version.

I require Norton Internet Security to be installed on any ones PC that I fix (family, friends, etc.). Doing this plus a few other changes (firefox instead of IE, etc.) means I have yet to have any one come back to me with problems

BTW I wouldn't touch AVG with a ten foot stick, given what they have been doing recently:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/13/avg_scanner_skews_web_traffic_numbers/

plus they have been adding a lot of other bloat, if your looking for a free AV, look at Avast.

Anyone who thinks that Norton is a virus doesn't cause system lag is naive to say the least.

Anyone worth their salt in the PC repair & maintenance business will tell you that it does for sure grind the older systems to a hault & seriously impede the performance of even the dual core systems with plenty of RAM.

bk wrote: »

BTW I wouldn't touch AVG with a ten foot stick, given what they have been doing recently:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/13/avg_scanner_skews_web_traffic_numbers/

If you read that article all the way through, who is it affecting?

Certainly not the end user, if anything it is ensuring the end users security at the cost of the Webmasters, not the user.

It's funny how opinions differ.

I always recommend to my customers that they do not run with Norton.

You on the other hand require that they do?

Who are you bk? to dictate to potential customers what they must use?

Whatever happened to consumer choice?

-

rosboy

Saruman wrote: »

What the? How can you bring the conversion into it? It costs $80 for a digital download, $90 if you order the CD... oh and thats NOT including sales TAX as no US shop includes it in the price. Its $99.99 when you go to checkout and then you can add your $10 + tax bringing it over $110 which is a lot of money in the US.
You can not say we are being ripped off because our currency happens to be a lot stronger than theirs so we get a better deal. Thats like saying the UK are being ripped off if something here works out cheaper once they convert to Euro because their currency is stroner.

And on the sales tax? That means the US is being ripped off because their sales tax is higher than somewhere like the Canaries which does not have any... complete rubbish.

Oh and i do not think they ship to Ireland anyway and if they did the cost would be pretty high.

There's been quite a bit in the papers recently about the conversion rate of the euro, and how retailers are ripping us off. IIRC, its been brought up in the Dail. Large English chains (like Next, Debenhams, River Island etc.) are still using teh same conversion rate when converting from Sterling to Euro that they were last year. So lets say something cost 50GBP last year. Next would have priced that at 75euro, which would have been pretty close to the exchange rate. Now, that item that costs them 50GBP should be on sale for approx 63euro because of strong euro. But they're still charging 75euro. So while the item is still costing them the same, they're toubling their profit by not passing on the currency saving to the customer. If you have a look in the consumer or bargain forums here on boards.ie, you're see hoards of people complaining about play.com doing the exact same thing. They aren't passing on the savings to the customer.

So to get back to the subject at hand, because of the strong euro/sterling in comparison to the dollar, PC World can buy Norton for much cheaper. Yet they are not passing the saving on to the customer. Thats my point!

On the whole sales tax thing, I typed that quickly and it didn't really come accross as I meant it. I'm in a hurry now too, so I won't go back on that one atm......I'll concede it temporarily:D

Saruman

Ah now i understand your point about being ripped off! I agree about the clothing stores etc

bk

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Anyone who thinks that Norton is a virus doesn't cause system lag is naive to say the least.

No need to get personal, attack the post not the poster.

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Anyone worth their salt in the PC repair & maintenance business will tell you that it does for sure grind the older systems to a hault & seriously impede the performance of even the dual core systems with plenty of RAM.

I just checked my system, Norton Internet Security is using only 4m of Memory and that is less then I use to with separate AV, firewall and AntiSpyware tools.

Are you sure your experience isn't based on previous version of Symantec tools. I certainly had awful experience with previous version, but the latest versions is vastly improved.

gadgetman496 wrote: »

If you read that article all the way through, who is it affecting?

Certainly not the end user, if anything it is ensuring the end users security at the cost of the Webmasters, not the user.

I read the article in detail as it effected me and it adversely effects both users and webmasters.

It effects users in that lots of extra http requests have to be sent, which means users on dial up will be slowed down and it will unnecessarily use up peoples data caps on BB faster.

It also opens up users to serious security and legal issues. Basically what it does is if you do a search in google, etc. it pre-fetchs all the results on google. But the danger of this is that it will fetch a page that the user wouldn't have, perhaps a page with child porn on it or terrorist information.

So yes, this was very bad for end users and the worst thing about it was that it was completely unnecessary. Most other AV tools simply scan the actual web pages that you access, as you access them. So most other AV tools actually give you the same or better protection in this area, with no downside to either the user or webmaster.

gadgetman496 wrote: »

It's funny how opinions differ.

I always recommend to my customers that they do not run with Norton.

You on the other hand require that they do?

Who are you bk? to dictate to potential customers what they must use?

Whatever happened to consumer choice?

-

I don't do tech support for a living, I'm a software engineer. If I was doing it for paying customers, I would of course give them a choice, but when I'm doing it for free for family and friends, I've every right to set down ground rules so that I don't have them coming back to me every 6 months with a reinfected machine. If they don't like it fine, then they don't have to bother me any more, I'm doing them the favour.

Interestingly since applying this policy, no one has come back to me with a reinfected or slow machine (usually due to masses of malware and viruses) and everyone is happy.

If someone would like to recommend a better application that includes AV, Firewall and anti-malware, I'd be very happy to hear your recommendations, I've tried a few and NIS seemed to be the best to me, but I'm open recommendations.

rosboy

Saruman wrote: »

Ah now i understand your point about being ripped off! I agree about the clothing stores etc

If only I had explained it properly first time:p

Dilbert75

I did the same as the OP and downloaded my 3-user version of Norton 360 from the US site. You can also buy it from their UK & Ireland / Euro site (can't remember which) and get royally shafted by paying some 50% more. So yes it does pay to look at the US site.

FWIW, I've removed McAfee from many PCs because it slows them down so much. I've been recommending Norton for a couple of years now, based on my own experience and some limited knowledge. What I do know is that they've not let me down yet.

Davy

Ye McAfee seems nothing but down hill. I have found norton quicker, even more so with the troublesome vista. Their is no delay on startup like their was on XP, well for me anyway