Hi All,

Just bought a new laptop, and it comes with Norton Internet Security. I have run AVG for ages, and have no idea if I should stay with AVG or not. Any advice would be gratefully received.

Regards, Ian.

AVG won product of the year last year... and it's free!

Steve

TBH Norton is shite, It was on my pc as standard, but i got rid of it straight away.. I mean it said MSN was a virus..

I use Antivir (http://www.free-av.com) And have done for ages, Its free, updates every few days, and scans 24/7.

Ive also heard AVG is good, So its upto you, but if i was you i wouldnt use norton..

Hope this helps.

Add my vote for AVG - I've heard that Norton is considered a challenge by virus-makers, whereas with AVG, you pretty much fly under their radar. I'm using the AVG free version. It updates frequently, tests my computer daily, doesn't load it up with junk I'll never use, and found viruses that Norton missed for years!

..not to mention the Norton will make your PC work at 20% of its normal speed

AVG over Norton, no doubt, I had "free" Norton on my laptop and first thing I did is uninstalled it. But instead of AVG I used NOD - beats AVG anytime. Sill, AVG is pretty good - definitely better than Norton.

Im in a werid situation where i am doing the faux pas of running both softwre.

Norton generally picks up viruses quicker than AVG and seems to get updates quicker too.
Both claim ive been infection free for two years, Norton having avoided 35, AVG 15.

Norton does not consider MSN Messenger as a virus. What I assume you think your on about is you will get though is a dialog box asking you if it is allowed to connect to the internet (Once, Everytime, Never). It will display this to anything that tries to connect including Windows Core System (something alot of AV doesnt do.)

As for "Norton is a challenge..." The only virus I recall that started changing AntiViral Software was just after XP SP2 and actually did so by changing Windows so AVG wouldnt have stood a chance either!

AVG product of the year... You didnt actually specifiy whos product of the year. Also what company wouldnt put this on there website... There is no mention of it there. Could the free be one of the factors that won it? If Norton is preinstalled it too should be free (for a year).

Norton for me is the better program as it can do alot more ie more specific filtering/masking amoungst other things.

I would say, use Norton for a few months, decide for yourself. You wont loose anything by trying! Keep an open mind. You have to make your own decision in life (or were you of of the many sheep one who HAD TO ASK if you should go BEC?).

Dont try using two at once... I had to do it for a friends research at masters and it is coplicated to do correctly. It can screw up both if you do it inccorecctly.

Yep, AVG for me too. Choose a free firewall an your sorted

My laptop came with Norton installed. I use AVG but haven't found a way of uninstalling Norton (it's switched off at the moment to avoid clashes).

can anyone advise how to do uninstall?

Norton doesn't appear when I do uninstall programs in control panel

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

Uninstall tool.

AVG is just fine although my personal choice is Avira Anti-vir
http://www.free-av.com/

The first question I always ask client who complain of a computer running slow is are you running Norton ? the answer is invariably yes.

To remove Norton requires the download of a unistall program from the Symmantec website.
Even then I am not 100% convinced it is cleared out completely.

While AVG Free is better than nothing it is by no mean as good as the commercial anti virus programs and isn't even as good as the other free programs like AntiVir or Avast at detecting things. Out of the 3 free programs AntiVir is the best at detection.

AVG seems to have gotten quite a good reputation but I think this is probably because it is quite light on resources rather than its actual ability to detect virus worms and trojans. You can get by using it but if you do then you should do a weekly scan online using Kapersky Online Scan.

If you really want a good antivirus then purchase either BitDefender or Kapersky which are consistantly ranked at the top of the charts.

AVG

AVG is good but at the moment my version is saying it needs to be rebooted to finish the install whenever I switch on my computer.... Grrrr. The AVG website gives a fix but it doesn't work... Doing a re-install as we speak...

I must say that I have found Awil's 'Avast!' very very good, over Norton.....
and very user friendly

Again a good 'freebie'

Fozzie

Thanks for the response all. It's all academic at the moment, as I'm sending the damned thing back. Brand new out of the box, and the lid won't close properly, something rattles inside when typing, and it keeps on freezing. It's running Windows Vista and is slower than my old laptop!

That'll be Vista for you!