Symantec Norton 360 Review

I'm not a huge fan of security software systems, which tend to put a bit of a "drag" on a system when performing copious background tasks.  After my last experience with McAfee, I wasn't sure if I ever wanted protection again.  "I'll buy my own security software" I had told the Yahoo tech but everything worked so much better without that I had rolled the dice and remained unprotected for months, living with my virtual front door unlocked and standing wide open.  Fortunately, sanity returned and I installed Norton 360 by Symantec. 

Just in time, too.

Norton 360 was industrious, always DOING something or other.  This effort on my behalf was noted and duly commented on by me:  "What a pain!  There it GOES again!" I would say as my champion swatted away on my behalf, sometimes slowing everything down, but it was better than McAfee and certainly better than nothing as I was to learn the hard way. 

Up Popped the Devil

On Labor Day morning, I was quietly enjoying my computer when a gold and black Norton message appeared in the lower right-hand corner of my screen.  Norton had blocked some Fakealavert thing.  Just as i was wondering what the Heck, all Heck broke loose.  An ominous bright blue message appeared in the middle of the screen, screaming that the system had stopped because I had been infected but all I had to do was hit "Next" to upgrade my "invasion detection software."  I was startled and caught off guard by what appeared to be a Yahoo message and definitely everything had stopped.  So I hit "Next" and up jumped the Devil, in the guise of Advanced Virus Remover. 

Advanced Virus Remover is a malicious, intimidating and just plain annoying monster that charges in and takes over with incessant pop-ups and "scans" generating phony and frightening lists of fictitious threats found in your software.  AVR wants you to sign up and pay them to restore everything to "normal."  I distrusted this but meanwhile they were impossible to get rid of.  Trying to uninstall the AVR software achieved nothing but the mysterious destruction of my Control Panel html file.

I struggled on through the day, trying everything and fending off annoying pop-ups as AVR taxed the efficiency of my computer and Norton updates continued to inform me of horrible things they had thawrted on my behalf.  It seemed they could defend me from AVR's dirty tricks but could not locate and eject the insidious invader itself.  During the night, as I slept, Norton 360 software was in my corner fending off myriad malicious attacks at the rate of every five minutes, all originating from AVR.  (That's what it was really there for, to infiltrate spyware and Trojans, et al.  The money they were trying to charge me was just adding insult to injury.) 

The next morning, my computer software had been damaged (something which fortunately Yahoo was able to repair) and Norton had produced a battle-scarred combat log of what had happened during the night.  I knew instinctively what was coming next and spent the morning cleaning out documents or e-mails I didn't want.  Sure enough, when the 36-hour point had arrived with the battle still joined, Norton 360 acting on its own initiated a complete, comprehensive scan of everything, a process which took four hours but which finally nailed AVR and bounced them out the door.

MY VIEWPOINT:

I'm not a techie and so can't really compare the relative virtues of one software with another but I really think that if Symantec Norton 360 had not been there for me, I would be dead in the water by now and my personal information stolen.  In the old "Honeymooners" shows, Ralph would holler up the stairs:  "Hey, NORTON!"  I can only quote him now as I say ...

Hey, NORTON!  You did a wonderful job!