karlgurney Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 I've been having a few problems with my pc lately, like random mouse clicks, caps lock going on and off and various other irritating inputs not controlled by me. I have norton antivirus and firewall so assumed i was reasonable well protected from viruses, hmm wrong, i just tried this online virus scanner (Trend micro) and it found ten of the little b*******s. I thought this might be of interest to some of you, i never really considered using anything other than a well known virus checker before but now i will be more broadminded when it comes to things like this. Karl Quote
Blatman Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 Remember to update your virus checker at least once a week, and also check for firewall updates too. I use Norton, Zone Alarm Pro for a firewall, and I scan my system once a month with Spybot. I used to have the odd problem before I started this regime, but since then, nowt..... Oh, I use Win98, and IE5.01.... Quote
Mark Purves Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 Blatman, You know whats going to happen now. Quote
adhawkins Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 Remember to update your virus checker at least once a week Even this is barely enough these days...I would recommend updating daily if you can. The virus scanner on my firewall (that scans incoming e-mail) checks for updates every hour... Andy Quote
v7slr Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 I have encountered too many people now who have experienced problems with Norton. In the IT profession it is said that no-one ever got sacked for implementing McAffee and there's good reason for this. I use McAffee V7 but am about to implement V8 which comes with its own equivalent to popup stopper. I have just finished removing Norton from the 4th (all different) business after they ran out of patience with it. It *was* implemented correctly in all cases but had caused numerous headaches for the various IT depts. I always get it to auto-update on logon. This means it gets an update at least once a day and gives me the opportunity to call people up and request they save and reboot if I need it to update immediately. It's less hassle than asking users to look through a menu. Quote
karlgurney Posted July 5, 2004 Author Posted July 5, 2004 I do a live update with norton every day, and most of the time there are updates waiting to be downloaded but Norton didn't find any viruses Quote
adhawkins Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 Sounds like Nigel's advice is right then. On my two machines at home I have Panda and McAfee (although I'm about to switch the Panda one over to McAfee). Andy Quote
Blatman Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 Blatman, You know whats going to happen now. Yeah..... I saw Nigels opinions on Nortons last week. I'm not about to disagree with him, but for ME, Norton seems to work just fine. I also think that lots of virii are written with the contemporary OS's in mind, so Win98 and especially IE5.01 don't seem to be troubled by very much, or so it seems to a non professional like me... That said, when Nortons do something to force me to upgrade rather than simply re-subscribe, then it'll be bye bye Norton, hello McAfee..... Quote
v7slr Posted July 9, 2004 Posted July 9, 2004 Blatters may be onto something there. In nearly all the cases I've encountered Norton *as* the problem, it's been on Win2000 or WinXP machines. On only one 98 machine has it proved to be the problem. In nearly all cases too, it is the installation, upgrade or removal of Norton which causes serious damage to the OS integrity. If you have it, and it's working OK, then it ought to be fine until you have to upgrade, or choose to switch (i.e. uninstall) to something else. Had another one to rebuild yesterday. I built a fresh WinXP/Office2003 machine for a lady 2weeks back but left McAffee off the installed software suite because, despite my warnings, she wanted Norton (I think her husband had advised her to go with it). She had to bring it back to me to rebuild as her husband's installation of Norton had corrupted XP. It amazes me really. I haven't tried installing it to find out what people are doing wrong, if indeed it is their fault. I find it hard to believe that Norton could write something so "dangerous" but statistically Norton is the cause of more problems than viruses in my experience. I also have no clue how Norton is marketed. I guess, because of the frequency of times I encounter Se7eners with Norton, that it is easier to come by than anything else. Perhaps it's PC World's bargain of the moment. It's easy for me to say "Go with McAffee" as I get it for free. My current "fresh" build consists of: Windows XP - full updates (everything) including SP1 Office 2003 - full updates Spybot V1.3 - full updates McAffee V7 - full updates and configured to look for new updates each time you boot Winzip Popup stopper (personal preference, although XP SP2 will incorporate an equivalent when it's released in Sept) Quote
studbuckle Posted July 9, 2004 Posted July 9, 2004 I also have no clue how Norton is marketed. I guess, because of the frequency of times I encounter Se7eners with Norton, that it is easier to come by than anything else. Perhaps it's PC World's bargain of the moment. Easy one to answer. The box is Yellow and you know how flies and Westfield drivers like Yellow Quote
neilwillis Posted July 9, 2004 Posted July 9, 2004 Yep, I subscribe to McAfee, it self-updates, mostly in the background, and that along with Zone Alarm Pro seems to me to be pretty well bullet proof. I must say I hadn't considered the necessity to update the firewall quite that frequently, but I think I'll be doing so from now. I tried a demo version of the McAfee firewall, but it didn't like working with my operating system, so that got the heave ho, as did their spam killer which didn't kill anything as far as I could see. I also find installing a copy of Ad-Aware 6.0 and running it regularly is a good move. We use that little gem at work too, and it speeds the machines up drastically if it hasn't been run for a while. Quote
david.c Posted July 9, 2004 Posted July 9, 2004 I also have no clue how Norton is marketed. I guess, because of the frequency of times I encounter Se7eners with Norton, that it is easier to come by than anything else. Perhaps it's PC World's bargain of the moment. Mine came preinstalled on my new computer with 3 months free trial. I wish had seen this before I renewed for the next year I have been having no end of grief with this machine. It's a 2.5 Gig processor with 256 ram and XP and it runs slower than my old 1 Gig machine with 128 ram and win 98 David Quote
Blatman Posted July 9, 2004 Posted July 9, 2004 In nearly all cases too, it is the installation, upgrade or removal of Norton which causes serious damage to the OS integrity. I *always* do things with Norton (except updates) in safe mode. I had cause to un-install one version, and re-install another 'cos my ISP had made it available to ALL their customers free of charge The usual Control Panel > Add/Remove programs method caused my machine to fall over. Did the same in safe mode, and voila, no problem. Installed the new version in safe mode, and it has proved robust enough for me not to have to worry about it.... Quote
v7slr Posted July 9, 2004 Posted July 9, 2004 Good advice. Glad someone has worked out a work-around. Pity it couldn't have come from the perpretrators themselves. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.