Norton

What’s up with Norton Anti-Virus? I’ve been using it for ten years or so, and installed it on my mom’s computer, but I’ve since it removed from all of my computers and from my mom’s computer. It was really slowing everything down (after one update, the time it took to boot up my computer in the morning went from a couple minutes to fifteen on my main machine, twenty on my mom’s machine), and starting to conflict with other software. Including the e-mail software.

I was slowly going nuts… and finally I narrowed down the problem to Norton Anti-virus. After removing Norton and installing CA’s product, the problems I was noticing went away. From what I can tell, all of them. Not just on my machine – my mom hasn’t had to call me for help since then either. I’ve talked to a few folks who make a living working on other people’s computers, and when it comes to anti-virus software, I’ve literally been told: “Use anything but Norton.” And given the few months of frustration I had, at least for a long time, that’s advice I will follow.

What happened? Norton used to be the gold standard.