Oh norton.. you used to be so good, what happened??

[covox]

Anti-virus? What's that? *bricked for being smug*

I have no opinion on NAV, except that it used to kick arse back in the Windows 3.11 days, when REAL viruses corrupted your boot sector and appended the string "buttocks" to the end of every EXE file.

Norton Firewall (or Symantec SecurityCenter, whatever) is cancer. Don't get me wrong, it's secure, in the same way that taking a hatchet to your ADSL line and urinating on your CPU will protect you from network attacks. It's irritating, blocks a lot of legitimate traffic, always seems to forget port forwarding rules, and you can't turn it off permanently or uninstall only the stupid firewall.

In theory, you only have to worry about network attacks if you're not behind a router. Failing that, there's always ZoneAlarm.

[m0ds]

Dragging up an age old thread but my friend is having trouble with files, they get added to some kind of inaccessible folder after they've downloaded with the AV saying it's dodgy. All I know is that he uses Norton anti-virus. Has anyone any experience of downloading a file (typically an EXE) that then gets blocked by Norton - and if so, how to lift that block, if there is even a way? Sorry to be vague.

This thread and this other thread have given me some clues, but overall they seem to suggest the problem is having Norton in the first place 

[Radiant]

I found something called the PC-decrapifier, which removes all of the common adware junk that you get with a fresh new PC these days. Recommended!

(and yeah, Norton has been sucking for ages, ever since they changed their "high tech" budget model for a "let's make lots of money" model)

[OneDollar]

I don't know Norton very well, but it sounds like it's automatically quarantining the files. If that's the case there should be an option somewhere in Norton to view quarantined files and decide what to do with them (usually restore, clean or delete them). Norton will probably have encrypted the files to stop them being launched, so you won't be able to just copy them out of the folder.

Not sure how to stop it quarantining every file, your best bet is to go through all the settings and see if you can spot anything. You *could* turn off heuristic scanning (which is where the antivirus looks at files and -supposedly intelligently- guesses whether they are viruses based on their attributes). That's one possible culprit, but if you disable that the computer will only be protected from viruses that Norton already knows about. You'd be putting it at risk from brand new viruses or variants of existing ones that Norton hasn't put out a definition update for yet.

Personally, if it's a home computer I'd never pay for antivirus. There's plenty of free ones out there that work well.

[m0ds]

Thanks for the notes chaps. I'll pass on the note about heuristic scanning, I appreciate it! And agree - like you, I stick to the simple free ones. Or none at all

I guess family computers are especially likely to have these kinds of problems so your info is a good start OneDollar, certainly the case for my friend, I don't think he'd use N. AV out of choice. Last time I saw it was a family computer in 99

[R4L]

I use Avast now. Norton has always slowed my computers to a halt and AVG doesn't do its job these days.

[Frodo]

I find BullGuard does an excellen job, and it doesn't slow the computer down at all.   

[Khris]

Avast is great. It comes with a silent/gaming mode that doesn't show any messages, popus or whatever.
And there are no false positives for certain popular little thingies one might occasionally download like with Avira's corrupt little piece of shit.

Edit:
Yes, there are.

[Armageddon]

This Norton also used to be good.

[Eric]

I just watched Moonrise Kingdom finally, and I thought he was pretty good in that.

[R4L]

Fight Club is my favorite movie!

[blueskirt]

All I remember from Norton is the two or three times my license expired and I uninstalled it, it took some vital system files with it and the following weeks were downward spirals of oddities, glitches, freeze, crashes and BSODs until the computer would no longer boot. I've last used it in 2004.