THSCC Forums

My Norton Internet Security 2006 subscription is about to run out, and I'm looking for alternatives. My gripe with IS 2006 is that it takes too much CPU (and disk thrashing) to do everyday tasks like opening a file or bringing up a web page.

Art I had been using McAfee. It turned out to be a real machine hog too. With McAfee active it took my machine 4 and 1/2 minuites to boot up. Without it was 30 seconds.

I am now using Avast. It is free and runs faster and found sme infected files that McAfee missed. With Avast it takes about 50 seconds to boot up.



http://www.avast.com/index.html

_________________
George Bright Member # 141
One of the youngest of the old farts.
Yes I voted against you joining the club.

Trend micro PC-cillin. My computer was slow before I installed it and I have not noticed it getting slower.

_________________
Silver Honda
Green Ford
Blue/White Suzuki
Red Triumph
Grey BMW

"Never let life be shaped by fear of its end"

No, you're a towel!

Ditto. I haven't read up recently to see if it is still true, but PC-cillin has a reputation for being less of a hog than McAfee or Norton.

_________________
Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

yeah, i'm looking for a new one too for the same reason. Norton is a resource pig, I have the 4 minute start up too.

I did fix it though, I bought a Mac

try "AVG Free" . small footprint and was reccomended to me by two different tech guys.

Linux?

_________________
In need of car.

My new home computer came with 90 day free trial of Norton and I couldn't believe how invasive it was and how much the resource hog. The first thing I did was kill it and uninstall. The uninstall software asked how I could possibly want uninstall before the free trial was over, thereby proving my point, so I promptly finished the uninstall. Then my new AMDx2 4400+ with 2 gig ram really woke up and made me stop second guessing the new computer purchase. I swear the computer operational speed increased fourfold after I uninstalled the "Free Norton Evaluation" crap. We run Norton Corporate at work and it doesn't seem to have near the effect and I ran MaCaffe on my old box without nearly the same ill effect. Something in this new Norton system is extra special.

I've been flying solo for a few years -- no antivirus, no spam blockers, no anti-spyware -- on my machines and I'm happy to have my CPU usage back. No problems except when I stupidly ran a "crack" exe on my server hoping to steal some software. I learned my lesson.

Also using Gmail which strips all the bad stuff from email. And I don't click on stuff that I don't know, understand, or trust.

Might want to consider not replacing your expiring software and work on the PEBKAC instead. YMMV, FYI, $0.02, etc.

_________________
Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Firefox, with periodic use of AdAware and Spybot Search and destroy.

Of course that's all on the work computer.

At home I just use a nice variety of unix called "Mac OS X."

In 10 years of clicking whatever I want I've never gotten a virus, etc on the home computer, I've also never run any anti virus software in that time.

X2

_________________
Not spectacular just decent.
I'm not sure what I'm driving.
Maybe an ITR in DS.
Or half-assed STX prepped 330.

X3

Firefox, Adaware, SpyBot, and AVG. All free, all great progs.

Steve

Thanks for most of the suggestions. I'll look into Trend micro PC-cillin and the free one that was mentioned.

IS 2006 includes a lot of capabilities that my older Norton AV 2004 didn't provide, such as spam blocking, spyware detection, firewall, intrusion detection, etc. It's probably not fair to compare it to a simple AV program. I could turn off some of the protections, but hey, I paid for them!

Guess I'll have to look into covering these functions a la cart.

Mike - no, I'm not going to do any finanicial stuff from an unprotected system.

Linux - I am subscribed to a number of internal security forums at work. I get many more security alerts for the various Unix platforms these days than I do for Windows.

Mac - their TV ads are insipid.

See you folks Saturday,
Art
who didn't buy a Miata.

I'd thoroughly recommend "Avast!" It's a commercial product that's offered as a free home edition. I really can't say enough good things about it.

Avast! makes Norton look like a Microsoft product.

_________________
Martyn Wheeler
AXing Kit's '05 Mazda 3, #29 HStock
(when The Gonzo Symphonic allows)