Norton overrated?.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill
  • Start date Start date
B

Bill

As a newbie, who got a new pc. last week I find that memory has apparently
been lost and when I try to run an application like defragmenter, a dialogue
box tells me there isn't sufficient memory. Yesterday I had 34g free space,
today about 500 kb. Not a peep out of Norton 2004 though even when I ran
virus scan.
Have I got a virus which reserves or takes up memory?
Anything I can do?
Tia
 
What OS are you using?
XP??
Try updating your Norton anti-virus definitions online and run it again.
Run Norton's CleanSweep to possibly gain more space.
Look in Explorer and see where all the 'free' space went to on your HDD.
When posting questions, at least give your Operating System and what you did
shortly before the problem happened.
:)
 
from the wonderful person said:
As a newbie, who got a new pc. last week I find that memory has apparently
been lost and when I try to run an application like defragmenter, a dialogue
box tells me there isn't sufficient memory. Yesterday I had 34g free space,
today about 500 kb. Not a peep out of Norton 2004 though even when I ran
virus scan.
Have I got a virus which reserves or takes up memory?
Anything I can do?
Click to expand...

Have you perchance got the Norton protected recycle bin turned on? That
will eat disk space if you've been adding and removing things. btw, the
best resource on the net is:

www.google.com
and
groups.google.com

assuming you are smart enough to frame the right question.
 
Quoth the raven named Bill:
As a newbie, who got a new pc. last week I find that memory has
apparently been lost and when I try to run an application like
defragmenter, a dialogue box tells me there isn't sufficient
memory. Yesterday I had 34g free space, today about 500 kb. Not a
peep out of Norton 2004 though even when I ran virus scan.
Click to expand...

Since you claim to be a newbie, we want to be sure you understand the
difference between 'memory' and 'hard disk drive space'.

Yesterday you had 34 gigabytes of free 'hard disk space'.
Today you have 500 kilobytes of free 'hard disk space'.

Memory is RAM, or random access memory, not storage space.
Hard Disk Drive is HDD, or storage space.
Have I got a virus which reserves or takes up memory? Anything I
can do? Tia
Click to expand...

I guess some viruses can write stuff to your hard disk until it is
full. My defragger doesn't fill the drive, tho it does use some amount
for swapping while it is running, but nowhere /near/ 34 GB.

This would have nothing to do with Norton.
 
GSV Three Minds in a Can said:
Have you perchance got the Norton protected recycle bin turned on? That
will eat disk space if you've been adding and removing things. btw, the
best resource on the net is:

www.google.com
and
groups.google.com

assuming you are smart enough to frame the right question.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your comments. I've just turned protected bin to
"standard recycle bin" also downloaded free version of AVG which reports "no
virus found".
 
GSV Three Minds in a Can said:
Have you perchance got the Norton protected recycle bin turned on? That
will eat disk space if you've been adding and removing things. btw, the
best resource on the net is:

www.google.com
and
groups.google.com

assuming you are smart enough to frame the right question.
Click to expand...


P.S.
Maybe speaking to soon, but since turning "protected bin" off
and running an eraser application, the problem seems to have been resolved.
Thanks!
 
GSV Three Minds in a Can said:
Have you perchance got the Norton protected recycle bin turned on? That >
Click to expand...
will eat disk space if you've been adding and removing things. btw, the
best resource on the net is:

www.google.com
and
groups.google.com

assuming you are smart enough to frame the right question.
Click to expand...

Heh......if he was smart...he wouldn't be using Norton. :)

Jan :)

..
 
from the wonderful person said:
will eat disk space if you've been adding and removing things. btw, the

Heh......if he was smart...he wouldn't be using Norton. :)
Click to expand...

Hey, everyone's allowed one dumb move, from time to time.
(Didn't you just mistype 'Microsoft' in the thread above?)
8>.
 
GSV Three Minds in a Can said:
Hey, everyone's allowed one dumb move, from time to time.
(Didn't you just mistype 'Microsoft' in the thread above?)
8>.
Click to expand...

Yeah...you're right..... did. I'll be glad when they invent a keyboard that
can spell.....and a spell checker that nose what I mean......;-)))

Jan :)

..
 
Jan Il said:
Yeah...you're right..... did. I'll be glad when they invent a keyboard that
can spell.....and a spell checker that nose what I mean......;-)))

Jan :)
Click to expand...

Norton AntiVirus does a much better job than AVG.
Get some facts.
:)
 
: : >
: > Have you perchance got the Norton protected recycle bin turned on? That: will eat disk space if you've been adding and removing things. btw, the
: > best resource on the net is:
: >
: > www.google.com
: > and
: > groups.google.com
: >
: > assuming you are smart enough to frame the right question.
:
: Heh......if he was smart...he wouldn't be using Norton. :)
:

Why not? What is wrong with it? Why is it worse than other anti-virus
application, in your opinion?
 
I don't think you got the most important point, which is;
Even if you download/install the LATEST version of any A/V Software, there's
NO POINT in running it UNTIL you've UPDATED its DEFINITIONS.
most A/V software updates every couple of days.
 
John Donson said:
: : >
: > Have you perchance got the Norton protected recycle bin turned on? That
: will eat disk space if you've been adding and removing things. btw, the
: > best resource on the net is:
: >
: > www.google.com
: > and
: > groups.google.com
: >
: > assuming you are smart enough to frame the right question.
:
: Heh......if he was smart...he wouldn't be using Norton. :)
:

Why not? What is wrong with it? Why is it worse than other anti-virus
application, in your opinion?
Click to expand...

It is very heavy on resources in most instances, does not play well with all
systems. I have no particular argument with it's abilities to catch a virus
or not, it's primarily the impact on the system.

But, it's like anything else, some love it, others don't. Some like Fords,
some don't. I've had Norton, I got 5 viruses, and endless problems. I had
McAfee for over 3 years, and got 7 viruses and it was also hard on
resources. I use AVG6 Free because it is not heavy on resources nor
bloated. I've used it for about 2 years and I've never had a virus, it works
well with my system, and I like the UI. It works for me. Simple. But, I
don't depend totally on any AV alone for virus protection. And I use F-Prot
as an on-demand backup AV as well.

If you read through this newsgroup, you'll see that it is full of pros and
cons on every known AV on the market, as are other AV groups. There's no one
prefect AV that fits everyone's needs, experience, UI preference, or
systems. Although there are those that will passionately defend their
favorite as the only one that really works. But, it's really a users call.
:-)

Jan :)
 
I have used Norton with no problems and no infection. The only virus I
ever had was while I was using McAfee. But, Symantec has implemented
Product Activation for their 2004 software and I refuse to support any
company that uses that as a ploy to sell more software. (If I have a
viable alternative.) So, I have done some research in the last two
weeks, to find an alternative to Norton. I have been surprised at the
virus detection failure rate reported by VB 100. The best performance
reported by VB 100 is NOD32. Norton comes in second in the VB 100
reports. Many of the other popular AVs have failure rates twice the
success rate! So Jan, I think you are right on the mark when you say
that you use two AVs. Right now, I am trying NOD32 as the main AV and
Avast! 4 as my SMTP and on-demand scanner. I tried AVG and I like the
interface, etc. but the VB 100 score is only 4 sucess to 20 fail! Not
too impressive.

I am curious about your use of F-Prot. Are you using the DOS version
or the Windows version? The DOS version is sort of appealing because
of the simple, brute force approach, but it apparently doesn't work
with Win XP because Win XP doesn't have true DOS. But, I wonder if
F-Prot for DOS is small enough to use a DOS boot floppy to run the
virus scan? Or maybe one could burn a bootable CD with F-Prot? Well,
maybe not, too much hassle burning updates, etc.

Anyway, do you have any thoughts or comments?

Regards, hawk
 
hawk said:
I have used Norton with no problems and no infection. The only virus I
ever had was while I was using McAfee. But, Symantec has implemented
Product Activation for their 2004 software and I refuse to support any
company that uses that as a ploy to sell more software.
Click to expand...

....but it is a feature designed to protect *you* from the consequences
of the pirating of software. ;o)
 
Yes, isn't it clever of Symantec to use those words to "explain" what
Program Activation is?

LOL, hawk
 
hawk said:
I have used Norton with no problems and no infection. The only virus I
ever had was while I was using McAfee. But, Symantec has implemented
Product Activation for their 2004 software and I refuse to support any
company that uses that as a ploy to sell more software. (If I have a
viable alternative.) So, I have done some research in the last two
weeks, to find an alternative to Norton. I have been surprised at the
virus detection failure rate reported by VB 100. The best performance
reported by VB 100 is NOD32. Norton comes in second in the VB 100
reports. Many of the other popular AVs have failure rates twice the
success rate! So Jan, I think you are right on the mark when you say
that you use two AVs. Right now, I am trying NOD32 as the main AV and
Avast! 4 as my SMTP and on-demand scanner. I tried AVG and I like the
interface, etc. but the VB 100 score is only 4 sucess to 20 fail! Not
too impressive.

I am curious about your use of F-Prot. Are you using the DOS version
or the Windows version? The DOS version is sort of appealing because
of the simple, brute force approach, but it apparently doesn't work
with Win XP because Win XP doesn't have true DOS. But, I wonder if
F-Prot for DOS is small enough to use a DOS boot floppy to run the
virus scan? Or maybe one could burn a bootable CD with F-Prot? Well,
maybe not, too much hassle burning updates, etc.

Anyway, do you have any thoughts or comments?
Click to expand...

Yes...the program I have is DOS based, version 3.14e. - 5.56 MB. Looks like
it is too big for a floppy but, perhaps a Zip disc would work. F-Prot
doesn't update but maybe once a month, like most other AV's. I run an
update on the 5th of each month. Most updates are posted around the first
part of the month. But, when there's a rash of new stuff coming out, I
check twice a month just to be sure I'm totally up to date. But, I don't
really get why you would need to run it floppy or CD. You can just install
it on your hard drive like any other program. I sets up a icon on the
desktop and you just click that and run it. Or, you can run it from DOS.

Yeah....Rafters just informed me that it doesn't work with XP in another
thread a bit ago. I forgot that XP does not have DOS. Too bad, because that
is the great part about the program, that it handles things from DOS when
you can't get the job done through Windows.

Jan :)
 
hawk said:
I have used Norton with no problems and no infection. The only virus I
ever had was while I was using McAfee. But, Symantec has implemented
Product Activation for their 2004 software and I refuse to support any
company that uses that as a ploy to sell more software. (If I have a
viable alternative.) So, I have done some research in the last two
weeks, to find an alternative to Norton. I have been surprised at the
virus detection failure rate reported by VB 100. The best performance
reported by VB 100 is NOD32. Norton comes in second in the VB 100
reports. Many of the other popular AVs have failure rates twice the
success rate! So Jan, I think you are right on the mark when you say
that you use two AVs. Right now, I am trying NOD32 as the main AV and
Avast! 4 as my SMTP and on-demand scanner. I tried AVG and I like the
interface, etc. but the VB 100 score is only 4 sucess to 20 fail! Not
too impressive.

I am curious about your use of F-Prot. Are you using the DOS version
or the Windows version? The DOS version is sort of appealing because
of the simple, brute force approach, but it apparently doesn't work
with Win XP because Win XP doesn't have true DOS. But, I wonder if
F-Prot for DOS is small enough to use a DOS boot floppy to run the
virus scan? Or maybe one could burn a bootable CD with F-Prot? Well,
maybe not, too much hassle burning updates, etc.

Anyway, do you have any thoughts or comments?

Regards, hawk
Click to expand...

One other thought on the F-Prot, or similar DOS AV, is that if you do have
it backed up on a CD, you will always have access to it in case your Windows
or system is not working properly. I have a copy backed off on a CD as
well. And, I do update it when I do the hard drive copy, normally once a
month. I don't find it a problem. And, having had need of it from the CD
once before, I am glad to go through the trouble. Having given some thought
to your message I now understand your desire for a boot floppy or CD for the
program.

As general practice and precaution for the possibility of lack of Internet
access, I keep copies of all the virus cleaners, downloaded programs such as
SpyBot, Adaware, SpywareBlaster, Stinger, CWShredder, etc, and all MS
updates and patches, backed up on a CD and keep them updated regularly is
necessary. Believe me, there is nothing worse than needing one of these and
not be able to get to them. I always try to practice the 7 P's just in
case. :-)

Jan :)
 
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