Symantec Norton Internet Security 2006 (Academic, PC)

Symantec Norton Internet Security 2006

Norton Internet Security 2006 (Academic, PC) Review, by Narasu Rebbapragada May 20, 2006

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• Latest User Reviews 12 reviews
• Reviewed by: perryrt

  Duration of ownership: 24 Months

  Strengths: Does catch viruses Can block intrusion attempts

  Weaknesses: Recent versions slow computer to a crawl - something the reviewer seems to have completely missed!

  Overall: I have used various Norton products since the mid 1990s and felt that they were relatively good performers. With that in mind, I installed Norton Internet Security 2006 on a new Dell laptop last year. Up until June 2007 things worked fine, with no real threats detected but also no degradation of computer performance. Since June, though, the program seems to take over the laptop, with the CPU at 100% for hours and hours of time. I checked the Symantec web site and they had a FAQ giving suggestions if NIS makes a computer run slowly - mainly to update the program. Updating to NIS 2007 seemed to help a bit a couple weeks ago, but not completely. What happens is that everything is fine when the computer starts but after being on for a day the computer slows to a crawl (and I mean a crawl!! 5 minutes to open Task Manager, for example) with the CPU at 100% and various bits of NIS taking up the processor. "Debugging" the problem has been a chore as I need to use the computer to do things, not to spend time trouble-shooting. However, I see that a work laptop with the Corporate NAV and basically the same programs as at home has not had any performance problems, and stopping NIS altogether makes the laptop run faster. Recently working with pictures / PDFs / documents makes the computet slow as the CPU goes to 100%. The anti-Phishing feature is a headache unto itself, as it slows down IE when opening web pages to an unacceptable degree. Waiting 20 - 30 sec for a page to begin downloading is not bad if you only look at a few web pages ... unacceptable when really browsing. These sorts of experiences are documented on various chats accessable with your favorite search engine. What is sad is that none of the reviewers seem to have noted these problems - understandable maybe as they take some time to "mature" but still something that makes me even more cynical about the worth of any software / computer review.

• Reviewed by: revfred

  Duration of ownership: 9 Months

  Strengths: It's easy to disable . . . which is a good thing, because you are really going to need it.

  Weaknesses: Poor service ...they charge. I didn't pay. I filed with the BBB and the CA Atty General. But I had to go through hell first. It was their download that caused the problem. Slow scans. Updates are confusing and god forbid if anything goes wrong and you have to figure out one of their "solutions". My ISP warned me about this with Norton. So once my subscription runs out .. .that's it, I'm switching.

  Overall: Very poor. I would not buy this again, but would research others on the market that I now know are much better and their telephone service is FREE. You have the choice with Norton of either paying $9.95 for 30 min to talk with a tech. OR you can do it by e-mail for FREE . . . but that takes 2 or more days for a reply . . . and guess who wrote me back .... Aravind GopalKrishna. I knew he wasn't from Cupertino, Symantec's HQ. I also knew after months trying to resolve a problem with :New Delli, Inc. computers that I was screwed from the get go. Gave him a chance ... have been going on two weeks without any security. Filed with the BBB and Atty General of CA, consumer fraud. Got a call from an AMERICAN tech in CA who is going to debug this via a phone appointment. Nice guy .... but I've got 113 days before my subscription runs out and that's it for Norton. Going with my ISP's recommendation. The item got good reviews. Don't feel it's fair to name them because I'm not sure if my ISP can get into trouble for making product recommendations. Sayonara Symantec . . .

• Reviewed by: rorybiggs

  Duration of ownership: 5 Months

  Strengths: Catches viruses and attempts very quick and fairly easy to install, did not need tech support.

  Weaknesses: Symantec tech and management does not know anything about their product.

  Overall: I purchased the Internet Security 2007 package to support up to 3 PC's on 01/07. I loaded it on two PC's and one pc is a little older laptop and it did slow it down abit. Things worked out fine until Symantec reported that one of the subscriptions was expired. After 4 chats with their tech support I was able to mal-adjust my PC setting to not operating. They could not understand that this package had been working and was allowed three subscriptions, not one. I requested a refund for my remaining 210 days on my subscription and the management denied a refund for a product purchased in 2005???? Due to the lack of tech support and their management I now use Sheild Deluxe and it seems to perform just as well for less price.

• Reviewed by: jafo

  Duration of ownership: 1 Month

  Strengths: The program works although not too well. It does not tell you the name of the spyware or virus that it deletes, no way to to delete them if you want. It says repairs them but it means they are removed.

  Weaknesses: Worst weakness is the very bad support. They do offer telephone e-mail and chat. I used chat a few times and it seems that the help people needed a course to know the program you want help with. They seem to be learning on the job and god help your computer if it guides you wrong.

  Overall: The program 360 was purchased on the good name of Norton but there is no instructions to be found, for example to find out how much storage space would cost on the internet if needed for back up's. I tried to run their auto fix tool and I had no idea if it was running or the screen was frozen. No instruction of what to do next or if anything was being done. I just had to leave the program and tell myself, "what a dud" For a program designed and created by Norton it seemed like the programmers left for lunch and some executive told himself the program is ready to go. (Not today)

• Reviewed by: clarkster

  Duration of ownership: 2 Years

  Strengths: Norton is a great product.I am amazed after figuring out the product it now scans my computer while i'm sleeping,it will do auto downloads and tells you what it is blocking.

  Weaknesses: The only drawback is they only have it for windows xp home xp pro and 2000 pro so i can no longer use it on windows me

  Overall: After using this product for so long i can't see switiching to another you will not get a better quaility product then Norton Internet Security.

• Reviewed by: dlauber

  Duration of ownership: 12 Years

  Strengths: None

  Weaknesses: Unable to update all components; incompetent and arrogant tech support ; a nightmare pure and simple

  Overall: Here's something the reviewers never discover because they don't use a product over a long period of time -- and in the case of Norton it's the inablity to update itself. After more than a decade of using Norton's security products, I am thrilled to be free of them altogether. The 2006 version was the last straw. Norton simply could not install the application updates for its AntiVirus component and other features. It just wouldn't install the updates. Online help could not solve the problem. Calls to Norton's incompetent overseas tech support yielded the brilliant response of "Uninstall and then reinstall" --- which of course made no difference whatsoever on all 4 of our computers. Enough was enough. I'm no newbie. I've built over 60 Windows computers and know when to give up. So I tried the free 30-day trial of PC-Cillin Internet Security and was blown away with its relative ease of use (given its extensive capabilities), flawless updating, and the great control it gives over connecting to the Internet. A sheer joy to use! I even tried Diskeeper for defragging the hard drives. It blew away Norton SystemWorks. Indeed, Symantec is said to use Diskeeper on its own computers rather than its own inferior product. Tried Acronis True Image for cloning the hard drives and it beat Norton's Ghost hands down. And like the rumors I had heard, our computers do run faster when free of Norton. Goodbye Norton forever. It's worth a few dollars more to have a more secure, more stable computer by being Norton-free!

• Reviewed by: xdevilox

  Duration of ownership: 5 Months

  Strengths: Easy-To-Use, Uses 'rules automatically created' instead of asking if you want to allow or block it. Nice little toolbar that shows the status of your protection. Great firewall and warns you if a file is a vires even before you started downloading.

  Weaknesses: Slows down your PC quite a lot. Installation takes a long time. Interface could be better (interface improved in NIS 2007).

  Overall: Norton is really easy to use and protects your PC very well. A feature I really like is when your PC is being attacked you can click on details and it shows you the attacking IP address. I have never had any problems since I installed it on my PC. I would really recommand this great security suite!

• Reviewed by: tr1gger

  Duration of ownership: 6 Months

  Strengths: none

  Weaknesses: customer services, trapping of viruses

  Overall: i had used internet security since 2002 , but 2006 lasted just 2 weeks after a virus kept de-activating norton , after reactivating it it didn`t find the virus that de-activating . When it was de-activated 7 times and told me that i could no longer activate it , I rang customer services to re-activate it , this took 2 weeks and speaking to a lot of useless poeple, i finally spoke to a supervisor and got it reset it still would not install . At this point i give up and used something else. do buy it , its not even worth the rating i gave it

• Reviewed by: Zypher

  Duration of ownership: 6 Months

  Strengths: amazing at stopping virus at infection, works great with xoftspy

  Weaknesses: Doesn't catch too much spyware, xoft spy se had to do that

  Overall: Norton antivirus notifies u when u r infected right away, and gives u options to repair, quarinteen, or remove it from. The scan ends up kindove pointless since viruses r blocked and fixed, automaticlly. doesn't screw up installations no need to disable for microsoft updates.

• Reviewed by: ElliotST

  Duration of ownership: 6 Months

  Strengths: Great program, virus and spyware scanner is great

  Weaknesses: Interface is a bit out-dated, and the "Protection Center" is VERy anoying and hard to disable (there is no ON-OFF option, you have to disable it's service)

  Overall: It is a very good program, but it slows your computer down (unless you disable the protection center, then it speeds-up a bit), and the interface needs a make-over (the "360" beta {2007 edtion}, has a better interface, but it is hard to use if you upgrade from the 2005 or 2006, becase it has a TOTAL make-over).

• Reviewed by: randy03p

  Duration of ownership: 2 Months

  Strengths: Easy to learn, love the little box that lets me know all programs are working

  Weaknesses: I could not really find a weekness, maybe a little more streamline

  Overall: My concern with Norton was that on shutdown I got an ccApp error that would pop up 80% of the time, so I emailed Norton, they replied back in 30 minutes with a fix,if I had no floppy disc to uncheck the box that scanned the floppy disk on shutdown or restart, problem fixed, very happy

• Reviewed by: Rick09

  Duration of ownership: 2 Months

  Strengths: very good virus protection,overall a good performer,interface is easy to use

  Weaknesses: twitchy program in 06 as in 05 version scans well uses a lot of resource.

  Overall: very good but tech support should be free for a limited time. knowledge base is somtimes hard to navigate.

• Reviewed by: betacopy

  Strengths: Works very good, once you can get it to work.

  Weaknesses: Numerous problems installing the program. Constant problems with live update.

  Overall: I downloaded NIS 2006 (2 yrs) software. It is not academic or the 3 pack, but this was the closest match. I have been using Symantec problems for over 10 years. The last few years I have had problems with installing Symantec software, but I have been always able to overcome it. This year was one of the worst years for installing it. I would get error messages after I installed it, so I would have to remove and reinstall the program. I kept on getting "Error: Install Error:10. The LiveUpdate install failed because LU was not able to register one of its components..." I did what the Symantec suggestions said to do: already logged on as administrator, already reinstalled, and added permissions to symantec registry. And most of the time when I tried their auto-fix, it did not work. Thank goodness for the internet. I finally found a solution from a MS blogger on resetting the entire registry permissions to defaults. That finally fixed the install problem, after wasting several hours trying to install it. The last few months, the live update would work for a few days, then it would stop working. It would come up with a LU update error message like "Error: LU1871 this product is aborted when running LiveUpdate". I wish I could abort Symantec. The only way to get it to update is to reboot the computer. When is Symantec gonna fix this crappy LU stuff and make it work?? I guess the reason I stay with Symantec is because most security programs have similar install, support, and slowness issues. They do have good expert reviews and Symantec is always on top of security issues. I am sure the program would have installed fine if I had a clean install of XP. Based on most reviews, you will either love it or hate it. I'm a computer expert, and this was painful. Imagine how it will be for most computer users. Refund!

• Reviewed by: fred_heath

  Strengths: Ease of use and installation. Almost configures itself. Allows custom firewalls rules. Updates itself.

  Weaknesses: No weaknesses noticed thus far.

  Overall: Norton Internet Security 2006:Excellent product. I highly recommend for home use. Strength's Ease of use and installation. Almost configures itself. Allows custom firewalls rules. Updates itself. No problems with this software thus far. I have purchased Norton Security for at least 4 years in a row now and am very happy with the product.

• Reviewed by: mrjonson

  Strengths: fast ship

  Weaknesses: wrong product

  Overall: I receive Norton Antivirus instead of Norton Internet Security. Although they were nice about it, in order to rectify the situation I would have to repack the item, pay for shipping and send it back before I would be sent the correct product. I decided not to pursue it.

• Reviewed by: pjmoran

  Strengths: Works as advertised.

  Weaknesses: Takes up a lot of disk space.

  Overall: Simple. It works, it's easy to install, and it keeps my computer safe. So, as someone who has an internet cable connection, I feel that Norton Internet Security is the way to go.

• Reviewed by: EtLoCo

  Strengths: VERY easy to use interfaceSOME-WHAT fast scanning speedEASY to update

  Weaknesses: SLOWS down computer performance a lotDOES NOT warn you when you haven't scanned within 1 week/ 7-days

  Overall: It's a great program to have, and it makes you feel good, that your comptuer is protected (nearly) 100% of the time! It doesn't have the easiest to use firewall, thought. I would and still recommened this product, but with it's firewall OFF, and ZoneLabs Firewall (FREE EDTION) turned ON. Other than the two metioned things above, this program is GREAT and EASY to use!