Dump Norton and McAfee Anti-Virus? - Comments Page 5

Long ago (and I mean way more than 20 years ago) I had great respect for the Peter Norton line of products. Unfortunately, his legacy died when it was sold to Symantec. To pay annual fees for a bloated payload on my computer that served more to slow it down, and provide no better protection than the free services, persuaded me to dump all connection with Symantec. Their refusal to co-exist with Spybot didn't help their position, either.

A number of years ago, as an alternative, I decided to give McAfee a try. About 20 years ago, they held a popular reputation, but I was terribly disappointed at the waste of money for a service that fell far behind the free products.

Upon the purchase of any new computer, I use Revo Uninstaller to remove any vestige of Norton or McAfee I might find on the machine.

Hello Mr. Rankin,
I have used Norton and McAfee. Now I use the free AVG and love it. I also use Winpatrol, Advanced System Care, Malware Antibytes, and CCleaner.

No problems and all free.

When I recue my friend's PCs I always install a free anti-virus program because so many either niether start the trail version that ships with their machine or do not purchase the service when the free period expires.

Dumped McAfee many years ago when it caused a crash that could not be repaired; now use AVG on all 3 computers and never had a problem! Used to have Norton....bloatware is an apt name for that program.

Well said, Mr. Rankin.
I've been removing Norton from my friend's computers for years. I can't tell you how many times I've been removing malware and the guy will say, "But I had Norton."
McAfee's new tactic of bundling their crap with Adobe and others annoys me greatly. Yet another software giant abusing their position.
Microsoft Security Essentials gets good reviews and is free.

I have used AVG free for years and have always felt secure. I also run Malware Bytes periodically. Only problems I had with AVG were occasional problems with updates which eventually fixed themselves. However, I started having slowdown issues with my computer. Ran scans and found nothing. Eventually had a techie check my computer with his tools and found nothing. Since my computer was almost 5 years old I bought a new one. Had Staples (where I purchased the computer) transfer the data. Got a call that some data could not be transferred because of 3 Trojans that were found. So much for AVG. I now run Norton Internet security 2011 for $30 for 3 computers/year. Deals are available. I sort of feel better and it doesn't slow down my system that I can see. By the way, I did not have to pay Staples for virus removal so that was not a reason to tell me about the Trojans. They eventually were able to transfer all but some data.

Dump them!!! I have had GREAT success with VIPRE.

I dumped Norton, I switched to Ubuntu and now I don't need that bloatware.

I dumped Norton and McAfee in 2003 when they became bloated and started slowing down my computer. I have been using AVG Free for many years. Occasionally, I try the others, but until recently AVG was as good or better than the others for me. However, now AVG nags a lot, and has started hitting performance. Avast talks too much and Avira has lots of quirks (even though it finds the most bad guys).

If you are willing to pay money, Vipre, NOD32 and (gasp) Norton 2011 (Antivirus only, not the Suite) are very good, leave you alone and don't slow your computer down. My only problem with Norton 2011 is that it is constantly scanning the drive. If I go away for a few minutes, when I come back, it's busy, but it stops when I start up a program or do other things.

I agree with most comments about Norton and dropped it several years ago. I never did like McAfee. I have tried most of the free versions and have now stuck with Avast for a couple years .. it is my favorite until something better comes along.

I used to have Norton but I dumpted it a while ago. I now use the free program provided by Avast. I love it. It updates everyday and keeps me virus free. Never had a problem with it.

i tried several over a period of time and nothing, but nothing beats NOD32 by Eset. its the best there is and nothing ever seems to get by it. ive had 0 probs since getting it. so there

Yes! I was a (paying) McAfee anti-virus user for many years (back in the 80s and 90s), but when I wasn't able to upgrade to a major new version (!) I gave up on McAfee. I bought and installed Norton just before Y2K, but found it brought my PC to its knees with its intrusive processing (it scanned every .exe program each time I ran it...every time!). Lastly, I obtained AVG (Grisoft) in early 2000, and I've been happy (and protected) with it ever since.

I used McAfee once when I bought my first PC in 1996, never again. Then switched to Norton until 2005, they got worse with every year.

I've tried five other AV products, prefer Avira Free and I've used Avira since 2007, runs fast, does not degrade performance on my Windows PC.

The *best* product I've found is Sophos, but you need to buy a minimum of a 3-computer system from them, which is too expensive for me (though they are FREE for a Mac system), but they are by far the best Anti-Virus / Anti-Spyware product I've seen.

I used to use McAfee, but as you stated in the article, they started bundling programs, my machine started slowing down, and I couldn't get any straight answers out of tech support. About 5 years ago, I switched over to the free version of Avast, and I've never looked back.

I used to use Norton, and it would really bog everything down. I finally went to replace it, but had big problems trying to uninstall it. It wouldn't uninstall, and I had to download an uninstaller, which couldn't get completely rid of it.

I ended up using the shotgun approach. I spend almost 2 hours in the registry, deleting every entry with Norton, Symantec, and several associated names.

I also deleted all instances form Program Files and user/Application Data.

Was I ever surprised when I rebooted the system came up and it worked ok.

I have used free AVG for four or five years now and can, I believe, certify that it caused no problems whatsoever, unlike Norton which I said goodbye to long ago.
Use AVG in combination with SpyBot (S&D), and you will forget about all and any viruses and malware (okay, maybe virtually all - I have so far had none slipping through, but sh... pardon me, things may and occasionally DO happen).
Thanks for your publication, BTW. There is one thing though which I miss: those good old squirrels... ;-)

I quit using Norton and McAfee more than 10 years ago and never looked back. More than a year ago I quit using AVG because of the overhead and bloat problems as well. I now use Avast. I've purchased 2 new computer in the last 6 months and removed the factory installed Norton immediately.

After having Norton 2006 (standalone) and doing the usual updates I was curious as to why my C drive was so full I couldn't even do a decent defrag to regain some space back (this was 4 years later 2010) I had very little installed on my pc , not alot of photo's , a few video's etc . so something was hogging my resources as I was barely able to get online due to very little disc space left . It was suggested I dump Norton (they have an uninstall directions/download at Symantec)I did uninstall Norton through this method , and download the free version of Avira . By ditching Norton I regained 85% of my C drive space back . I was shocked that Norton took up that much space

First, understand that I am far from an expert, just a consumer. Bought a Dell 4550 about 6 or 7 years ago which came with McAfee. Probably worked ok but because I had dialup at the time it was a royal pain. Some update downloads had to be restarted and run all night as the computer and/or connection would time out. Not McAfee's fault...or is it. Heavy on resource usage too...that much I could feel.

Finaly went to Microsoft Security Essentials (free) and Malwarebytes (free). Have had them for a number of years and using Verizon wireless (very pricey). Any how no problems that I can detect.