Norton NIS Subscription Renewal Dilema

[HB13DISH]

I purchased in 2006 the Norton NIS 2006 with 2-users license.
One license went to the PC at work with W2K and the 2nd was installed on the home PC with XP Pro.
Last year I made a renewal and everything went OK.
Next week the subscription expires again but I have now some kind of hesitation since Norton has stopped supporting the W2K in their new products like NIS 2008 which has a license for 3 users by default.
I am worried that if I perform the renewal from the W2K PC, then the 2nd license may not activate the XP Pro PC or vice versa
If I purchase brand new NIS 2008, then I will have no use for the extra 2 licenses since it will not install on the W2K PC.
On the other hand, everything may work out fine and I am just a little bit paranoid about it.

Please let me know which other similar products do you use and are happy with instead of Norton. It must have support for W2K.
(Tried McAfee in the past but didn't like it at all).

[dig deep]

I was a Norton fan

Then I did found out that Norton loved to drain the computer

So I skipped that and started on the cheap AVG and Zone for a starter

and then some free ad-remover and spyware doctor

Works fine, even in Vista

[Channel Hopper]

Norton *shudders*

Never again.

[HB13DISH]

Norton *shudders*

Never again.

As bad as that?
What do you use instead?

[rolfw]

I certainly wouldn't use it again, I prefer the PC to be working on what I want it to do, not Norton.

I use AVG Pro now from Grisoft, works well in the background.

[HB13DISH]

Thanks rolfw for your input. I will bear that in mind.
Actually, my work PC with W2K takes a very long time to start up until it settles down. I have always suspected Norton NIS but turned a blind eye.
But not anymore.
I took the plunge and decided to renew the subscription.
After going through all the forms filling and creditcard typing, I submitted the form only to be told that there is a problem with my card.
Tried again and again, but they just wouldn't accept my hard earned money.
Tried on the second PC with XP Pro, still not accepting the payment.
So it looks like bye bye Norton for ever.
It's their $60 loss for the renewal.
Will be happy to uninstall it from both PCs and see if the response is better.

[Channel Hopper]

Will be happy to uninstall it from both PCs and see if the response is better.

Use the official removal tool , and then the aftermarket complete removal tool. Then search for anything Symantec / Norton and delete those.

I used Norton complete in 2002 and wrote off two drives and data. Stupidly I continued with it, thinking it's a complete solution and it stops all the nasties.

I treated the new PC with the 2003 offering from PC World as it was half price - big mistake. The office PC slowed down to about a third of its speed, constantly questioning my keystrokes.

The last straw was the 2004 subscription in the two months remaining and the home PC started slowing down (exactly when the renewal notices started coming up ). By the end of the month with two weeks remaining I ran a secondary AV tool and it found many that Norton had simply ignored.

I then spent a week or so trying to remove the stranglehold the Software had on my data, finally transferring it to another hard drive using discs.

[mhku]

I second AVG; Nod32 is also good. Norton and many others are bloatware.

[Topper]

I have a 40 user Nod32 license for all my work XP Pro Tills and some PC's it never needs any attention just does what it says on the tin, but I still use bloatware for heavy web access PC's that use MS office. I do not find it a problem if general PC housekeeping is done on a regular basis.

I found AVG to be a little unreliable but perhaps that was because I was using the free version

[T_G]

I use Kaspersky at home, we use it for all our work computers as well. I find it works fine, good email spam filter etc. I got my home "evaluation" copy from a russian website. I also noticed that a lot of people in the Portugese section are using this prog.

[Norm]

I would also give a vote to Kaspersky. I binned Norton about two years ago; Kaspersky is much more user friendly and unintrusive as far as I'm concerned.

[rolfw]

I now use a product called Link Scanner by Exploit Labs _http://www.explabs.com

Works well in identifying web pages with exploits and prevents them from loading, also scans google searches to pre-warn you about bad pages.

[HB13DISH]

Thank you all for your informative feedback.
AVG bought Link Scanner by Exploits Labs.
Started to look at some of the alternatives and it looks like if I install a different evaluation software every month, my PC will be protected all the year. What a fierce competition out there.
One thing that I find irritating is why do they give prices for 1 license or 3 licenses. Why not also for 2 licenses?
I need for only 2 PC's, so the third one will be wasted since all 3 have the same start and finish dates.
In the past, when I installed the first license on one PC and then the 2nd after few days, it showed me that the start date as that of the 1st install.

[HB13DISH]

I took the plunge and decided to give Norton the goodbye.
Not giving support to W2K (in new products) was the last straw.
So I uninstalled it almost completely and then installed AVG Internet Security 7.50
Looks good so far, but had a problem connecting to my ISP and to the internet, so after several trials, I deactivated the AVG firewall and got the connection.
This is not recommended, so I will have to fine tune it tomorrow.

[Topper]

but had a problem connecting to my ISP and to the internet, so after several trials, I deactivated the AVG firewall and got the connection.
This is not recommended, so I will have to fine tune it tomorrow.

That was exactly the reason I ditched AVG AV and AVG Firewall on my laptop, it kept stopping me connecting to the internet but connecting to the internet was the very reason I wanted the AVG firewall.

[HB13DISH]

Unbelievable.
Spent few hours today trying to configure the AVG firewall so that it will connect to my ISP and the internet, but without success.
I have an Alcatel ADSL host modem.
The only way was to deactivate the AVG firewall.
Any ideas if it is possible to sort this thing out or should I look for another software instead?

[T_G]

Yeah mate, go fo Kasperski...even I did manage to sot it out in no time, and I haven't got a clue...

[HB13DISH]

Yeah mate, go fo Kasperski...even I did manage to sot it out in no time, and I haven't got a clue...

Hello T_G,
Thanks for recommending Kaspersky. The problem is the total cost for my 2 PCs.

Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 for 1 PC costs $ 59.95
Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 for 2 PC costs $ 119.95
Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 for 3 PC costs $ 120

AVG Internet Security 7.5 for 1 PC Costs $ 52.95
AVG Internet Security 7.5 for 2 PC Costs $ 105.90
AVG Internet Security 7.5 Home Edition for 3 PC Costs $ 64.95

AVG will costs about 1/2 price for the 3 PC license.

So I just need to find out a solution for this firewall problem.
Any ideas anybody?

[Channel Hopper]

Plenty of freeware stuff out there as pointed out above.

Have you looked at Avast ?

[HB13DISH]

Tried the AVG Internet Security software and I am not happy with it.
Had to deactivate the firewall every time I start the PC.
Then it looks for updates and locks the PC entirely until it make the install.
Even with Norton NIS this wasn't the case.
Next, will try Nod32 Smart Security from ESET.

[jimbo]

Plenty of freeware stuff out there as pointed out above.

Have you looked at Avast ?

Doesn't have firewall software as far as I know so not the complete solution.


I dropped Norton having previously been an advocate. Using Steganos Internet Security now which looks remarkably like AVG but very small cost. Good interface and double firewall.

[HB13DISH]

Installed NOD32 Smart Security, but when I clicked on purchase, it redirected me to my country's local page.
Obviously they check my ISP and IP and won't let me check the prices from other countries. I really hate this.
Is there any way to overide this?
Alternatively, I would appreciate it if someone can check the price of the NOD32 Smart Security including VAT for me from the UK. Thanks
_http://www.eset.com
Click on purchase in the middle of the page after RSS.

Edit:
Never mind. I typed _http://www.eset.co.uk and the purchase button doesn't take me this time to local purchase.

[Channel Hopper]

Doesn't have firewall software as far as I know so not the complete solution.

OK, but it is remarkably transparent when used with something like Lavasoft ZoneAlarm (which was free up until very recently)

[HB13DISH]

Installed NOD32 Smart Security 30 days evaluation last week and it looks OK so far.
Thanks Topper.
When I receive e-mail messages, it inserts this message at the end of each message, with live website link:
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 2904 (20080227) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

_http://www.eset.com

I am not willing to give them free advertizing since every time I reply to my messages, the recepient will see this message.
Is there anyway in the setup that can stop it from inserting this message?

[HB13DISH]

Just a little update:
I have tried so far
AVG
NOD32 Smart Security (ESET)
Kaspersky

The best one for me so far is Kaspersky. User friendly and doesn't leave their marks at the bottom of my e-mail messages like NOD32 does.
I need two licenses and they have either one or three options. So I am not happy about paying for an extra license when I don't need it.
Please let me know if there are other good Internet Security software that you use and would recommend. Thanks.