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Yesterday evening I was having a lot of problems with an expired Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet program throwing a lot of annoying popups that kept going up every 30 seconds. I called Symantec support and they gave me this site for a tool that completely removes Norton products from the system, including registry entries. Here is the link:

www.symantec.com/autotools

and you want to download and run the appropriate program for your system. This is the one that worked on my XP system, Norton Removal tool for Windows XP/2000. I now have NOD32, and I like it. I thank Fled for the suggestion for it.

Just so you all know, Symantec recently got into some hot water for putting spyware in their programs. That is one of the reasons I decided to leave them behind and finding someone that still works, without the garbage that comes with the programs.

Thankx for the link Wingy !


fled

Let me add something to this and thanks Wingy for the link...

On our Sunday Flights with FS9/FSX, not all people could join MP. In trying to figure out what the problem was, we had one person that when joined, made it so others couldn't join. If that person disconnected, others could join fine. Odd? We thought so too. This same person also had a problem disconnecting to MP and it took a long time for his game to 'shut down'.

We finally got it figured out and by now, you must know it was Norton that was causing the issue. It seems that once he 'hooked' into MP, Norton shut down all other attempts to connect to his machine from other players and the way DirectX works, if your MP attempt screws up, it aborts the connection for the player trying to join.

Most if not all run some kind of Anti-virus program with no issues, so this seems to be a Norton specific issue.

I also discovered that when the Norton Internet program subscription expired, I started getting errors when ever I tried to connect with the FTP server, and Google Earth. It blocked the connections. It was also causing a popup that indicated the certificate for this site and a couple others to indicate they also were expired. Once I changed out of Norton, the problems cleared up. Those programs were more a headach than any other program that I've ever used. It's also been recently noted that Symantec got themselves into hot water because the Norton antivirus program puts Spyware on your computer. I'm glad I got rid of it.

Glad to hear you got your "glitches" ironed out Wingy.

Who knows maybe you even get an improvement with multiplay


fled

I have used Norton for a long time. I upgraded to Norton system works 2006 because my old one wasn't supported anymore and talk about a resource hog!

I always turn off the auto protect when running FS, joing MP's or running intensive software like video editing stuff.

Thinking about trying some freeware stuff recomended by PC World and giving Norton a rest.

NOooooooooooooooooooo
Fair enough if you're not happy with Norton and want to swap, but NEVER listen to PCWorld.
Geeze!
lolol
I use N.I.S.2006 and it is a resource-hog. But you can customise it and it does scan more than anything else so it has more to do.
For me it is the best but I probably have different requirements to you.
When I'm bored I go into PCWorld and wander around until I find one of their 'boys' 'advising' some old biddy about what will and won't suit their upgrade needs. Then I butt in and tell them what they really need.
PCWorld guys mostly tell you what they've been told to tell you.
It's true some do actually know what they're talking about but the majority prey on the unknowing.
They survive because anyone who asks a PCWorld rep a question doesn't generally know enough to contradict 'em.
Two sec's and I'LL find you a list which will give you a good choice of what to go for, if you're really dumping Norton for Freeware.

www.av-comparatives.or...006_11.php

and (probably a more accurate test) www.thepcspy.com/artic...ows_down/5

There's also a list of freeware in C-C somewhere which has security software among it's sections.
I had a look for it but couldn't find it (I know it was before 7th Feb 2006 coz it's me birthday and I saw it this time last year, lol).

[edit]
Anti spam programs:

K9 www.keir.net/k9.html
MailWasher www.mailwasher.net/
POPFile popfile.sourceforge.net/
SpamBayes spambayes.sourceforge.net/

Anti Spyware:

Ad aware www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Diet K www.dietk.com/
SpyBot Search & Destroy spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster www.javacoolsoftware.c...aster.html
SpywareGuard www.wilderssecurity.ne...guard.html

AntiVirus

AntiVir www.free-av.com/
Avast www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html
AVG www.grisoft.com/
BitDefender8 www.bitdefender.com/PR...tion.html#

Firewalls:

Kerio Personal Firewall www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
Outpost Firewall (version 1) www.agnitum.com/downlo...post1.html
Sygate (FREE for personal use) smb.sygate.com/product...andard.htm
Zone Alarm www.zonelabs.com/
Comodo www.comodogroup.com/

Not personally a fan of AVG (anti-virus) as I'm convinced it false reports but lots of other folks seem to be and this same issue seems to comfort them.
[/edit]

Thanks for that list mate. Just what I needed. Aad.

- Shades

NOooooooooooooooooooo
Fair enough if you're not happy with Norton and want to swap, but NEVER listen to PCWorld.
Geeze!
lolol
I use N.I.S.2006 and it is a resource-hog. But you can customise it and it does scan more than anything else so it has more to do.
For me it is the best but I probably have different requirements to you.
When I'm bored I go into PCWorld and wander around until I find one of their 'boys' 'advising' some old biddy about what will and won't suit their upgrade needs. Then I butt in and tell them what they really need.
PCWorld guys mostly tell you what they've been told to tell you.
It's true some do actually know what they're talking about but the majority prey on the unknowing.
They survive because anyone who asks a PCWorld rep a question doesn't generally know enough to contradict 'em.
Two sec's and I'LL find you a list which will give you a good choice of what to go for, if you're really dumping Norton for Freeware.

Don't get me wrong, NSW is a very powerful tool but I don't like the new versions way of sucking all my resources. I also don't like the fact that every year I need to pay them for a new years worth of updates, the same cost that I could get whatever new version of the software they have out. In the past you could re-install and the Subscription would start fresh (kinda a cheat) but not anymore. I like it's antivirus and windoctor.

I've been a user of Zonealarm for awhile now and it's a great freeware firewall. Have also used and still have installed Spybot & Adaware, all of which I was turned onto by PCWorld. Not saying they are the be-all end-all but I've been a subscriber to their mag for a few years and have received some good tips. I'm savy enough to realize when certain articles are full of themselves like the recent one for the reasons to get Vista

I agree about AVG, tried that one and wasn't too happy with it but thanks for the links and I will check them out.

Adaware's good.
Have heard Spybot is too but I haven't used it myself.
I use AdAware and Defender now.
I use Registry Mechanic for those little services (not free, but worth it).
ZoneAlarm Pro is a good firewall (used to use it myself before Norton) and I hear they have a 'suite' out which includes an anti-virus, although I again haven't used it.
The suite isn't free either.
NOD32 is getting a lot of attention and good recommendations at the moment.
May be worth some closer attention, but I think it's only an anti-virus.

NOD32, is the option to go for as AntiVirus proggy simply the best one around and also minimal stuff running in the background.


fled

How about the MS Security Essentials program - anyone had much experience of that...?

Like AVG and so many others, it's also free...bye bye Norton, McAfee et al

To remove Norton products, I have always used the NRT (Norton Removal Tool):

www.symantec.com/nrt/

M$ security essentials is better than nothing, but even M$ suggest getting something that's capable of doing a better job.

When it comes to computers and especially Windows, you can't take enough security precautions. No software "does it all", so a good combination of various manufactures works well and relying on one is a recipe for disaster. Sometimes finding out which software 'plays nice' together is a bit of a battle however.

I've been getting a lot of computers in lately that's full of a variety of illness' and the one common denominator seems to be the users click on a flashing security banner saying it's found X number of virus' on their computer and if they want to fix it for free, click to install their software. BANG...their computer is infected and most often to the point that formatting and complete operating system install is the only fix.

I still run Linux Mint 99% of the time and only use Windows or MAC for specific software that only runs on that platform. Of course, Windows users help me keep the 'wolf' from the door and for that, I'm thankful...