Norton AntiVirus Begone!

Reader Thom Gifford has lost faith in a utility and would like to bid it a not-so-fond adieu. He writes:

How the heck do you get rid of Norton AntiVirus? This thing crashes my MacBook regularly and makes it slow down worse than a telephone modem. Somebody tell me how to make it go away. Please.

In fairness to Norton AntiVirus, it could be something else that's causing the problem, but then again, maybe NAV is to blame. Regardless, here's how to remove it.

If you have Norton AntiVirus 11.0, open the Applications folder at the root level of your hard drive, locate the Symantec Solutions folder, and open it. Launch the Symantec Uninstaller application within, choose the option to remove the Norton AntiVirus application within that utility, and click Uninstall. Follow the directions of the uninstaller to remove NAV. Restart your Mac and NAV should be gone.

If you have version 10 of NAV, visit this Symantec support page, download the Symantec Uninstaller, run it, select NAV as the application to remove, and click Uninstall.

You have an earlier version? That could be your problem. Kenyon College provides a nice set of instructions and utilities for removing Norton AntiVirus 9 and 8.