To their credit Norton's most recent product is far and away better than previous ones in terms of system utilization and effectiveness. Now, far and away doesn't mean much when you started at the bottom of the sea but at least they're trying.
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I wouldn't call AVG "ass", ikayoo. I used to be a huge fan of it and would still recommend it as one of the trinity of decent free solutions (avast!, Avira and AVG). I just am less of a fan of it than I was after the update kerfuffle. They were good about getting a fix out for it, to be sure; I simply find amusement with the situation. (who puts out an update without testing for something like that?) As I said, though, they aren't the only ones. It's for the same reason that I now recommend Comodo's firewall over ZoneAlarm. I shouldn't be so hard on them, I suppose. It's no easy task to put out a product that will work across the myriad of computer configurations and keep everything working smoothly.
And when does AVG have problems with updating? It's always updated automatically for me with no problems. Over the course of thousands of installs, I recall two seperate instances where I had to manually remove the update files and reinstall them, but I wouldn't call that "update incometence."
I didn't mean to damn their updation in a global sense, just that one mishap. As I said above, it amused me greatly when it happened. Kind of like the occasional story of Windows updates that set a computer into perpetual rebooting.
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Ew. ew ew ew ew ew! I cannot tell you how many times I have seen acast! cause problems on systems. One that sticks out in my mind is a customer I had in Red Hill a few months ago who was using avast. Not only did it allow several trojans/backdoors in over time, but when they activated, avast did nothing to stop them, and the customer was pretty pissed. I wound up replacing it with AVG lol.
To each his own on antivirus solutions. I disliked AVG for a time after it missed some bugs on my family's computers. Switched to Avira and all was well for some years. Then just this Christmas I go back and find multiple machines have bugs on 'em it missed. Installed avast! and got it cleaned up nicely. I'll probably move back to AVG once avast! proves inferior again. Antivirus, both in my experience and reading the (often flawed) online reviews and comparisons of each, doesn't tend to have one that is fully effective. A constantly shifting field, one in which I've learned to keep no loyalties.
Doubtful, really. Given what you do, HDS, you're a bit paranoid about firewalls and other online threats, but it's understandable when you have to deal with major servers and big network applications. However, for our friend here, he is only using a single user-PC, and frankly, the Windows firewall is probably more than enough for him unless he's downloading a lot of files via torrents or other means.
I happen to disagree but your logic is sound. I like installing firewalls that bug the user about what's happening. Is it annoying as heck when the firewall pops up when a program first requests internet or critical system access? Certainly. Does it teach you a whole lot about what your computer is doing? Definitely. Learning what is normal on your machine and what, when notice pops up, is abnormal is as great a preventative measure as any security suite.
That said, if you have a wireless (or otherwise) router between your computer and the internet you've got a handy dandy hardware firewall that will give good protection. Windows Firewall is nice, but doesn't stop outbound. But, then, outbound protection is worthless if you don't pay attention to what is trying to go out.
Tee hee, I love SymNRT. I carry it with me on a thumb drive that is pernanently attached to my keychain. It's like carrying around a mini-Excorsist of evil demons on people's computers. 😀
I continue to find it highly amusing that Symantec knows their products are a pain to remove, goes to all the effort to make a special uninstaller, and yet seems incapable of making a product that uninstalls cleanly. Boggles the mind. (but, then, it's Symantec)
In short, the bugman's simple post says it better than all my words: everybody's experience is indeed different. Sometimes you get lucky with a product and it works flawlessly; sometimes not.
