Uninstalling NortonAV...

[jkc]

well i finally got that "pain in the *$#" off of my pc..Man i need some execedrin now. Had 2 download software from symantec to erase all of the hidden suprises.....never again!    Peace.....JKC

[Lisandro]

Welcome... a lot of us are ex-NAV unhappy users.
Now I'm feeling avast 

[MFB]

Hi there!

You're not alone, there are alot users here who share the same pain that you went through.  I hope that avast! is bringing you comfort back to your PC.  Welcome to the forums!!!!


Gaaahhhh, I just found out that my new laptop has Norton Security Suite, those evil people must have plague me with it after I bought it.  Plus they have AOL free trial, what has the world gone to when you want to buy a new computer?  What happen to the days where you just buy the PC and install the OS by yourself and just the OS alone?   :'(

[thedon57]

Hi there!

You're not alone, there are alot users here who share the same pain that you went through.  I hope that avast! is bringing you comfort back to your PC.  Welcome to the forums!!!!


Gaaahhhh, I just found out that my new laptop has Norton Security Suite, those evil people must have plague me with it after I bought it.  Plus they have AOL free trial, what has the world gone to when you want to buy a new computer?  What happen to the days where you just buy the PC and install the OS by yourself and just the OS alone?   :'(

Hi A lot of manufactorer's have an agreement with Norton's and AOL to download their software onto the product, in exchange for help and development.

You would be surprised any many uninstalls I have to do, then I put the only one, for me Avast then get them to regisiter in their own name.

[DavidR]

Welcome to the forums, you have lifted a huge load off your back, NAV is harder to get rid of than a virus.

[Uncle Mike]

Oh boy, I've just gotten through the same excruciating experience with Nortons. The company I work at has always used Nortons without incident on Macs, but at home Nortons on XP has been severely painful. I have a tech friend who practically swears by Nortons, and she advised me to wipe all of my programs off of my PC, re-load Windows and then re-load Nortons. I simply did not want to do that. I told her that at this point, my relationship with Nortons was like the kind of relationship that a lot of women find themselves in - Norton kept beating me up and then asking for a second chance. I told her that bad software was like a bad relationship - sometimes you just have to walk away. That's when I ran across Avast, and I'm glad I did. It actually works.

Perhaps this is covered on another part of the forums, but just how do you explain to people why Nortons is crap? I just have my own experience to go by, and the anecdotal evidence of a lot of others, like yourselves. Do we have any solid proof that Nortons has derailed?

[Lisandro]

Perhaps this is covered on another part of the forums, but just how do you explain to people why Nortons is crap? I just have my own experience to go by, and the anecdotal evidence of a lot of others, like yourselves. Do we have any solid proof that Nortons has derailed?

There are lots of ex-NAV users. Most of them just complain about NAV being a resource hog, weekly updates of the virus database, impossible to uninstall, etc. etc. 

Welcome to avast! forums 

[thedon57]

Oh boy, I've just gotten through the same excruciating experience with Nortons. The company I work at has always used Nortons without incident on Macs, but at home Nortons on XP has been severely painful. I have a tech friend who practically swears by Nortons, and she advised me to wipe all of my programs off of my PC, re-load Windows and then re-load Nortons. I simply did not want to do that. I told her that at this point, my relationship with Nortons was like the kind of relationship that a lot of women find themselves in - Norton kept beating me up and then asking for a second chance. I told her that bad software was like a bad relationship - sometimes you just have to walk away. That's when I ran across Avast, and I'm glad I did. It actually works.

Perhaps this is covered on another part of the forums, but just how do you explain to people why Nortons is crap? I just have my own experience to go by, and the anecdotal evidence of a lot of others, like yourselves. Do we have any solid proof that Nortons has derailed?

Welcome to the club I repair and maintain computers and I also find it on them. it soon comes off.
On goes Avast customer registers, away I go happy because they are happy and found an antivirus that they can use without it fowling their computer up.

[MFB]

Norton consume extreme amount of resources.  It does not unistall completely, sometimes you have to go deeper into your PC or install  their removal program to fully remove Norton from your PC.  For those who use the internet alot, weekly updates may not be enough (but I heard that Norton is now providing daily updates now).  There are other reasons why we don't feel comfortable with NAV in our PC, this is just some common ones.

[Uncle Mike]

Norton consume extreme amount of resources.  It does not unistall completely, sometimes you have to go deeper into your PC or install  their removal program to fully remove Norton from your PC.  For those who use the internet alot, weekly updates may not be enough (but I heard that Norton is now providing daily updates now).  There are other reasons why we don't feel comfortable with NAV in our PC, this is just some common ones.

Yes, I've noticed this as well. It has its tendrils all over the inside of the machine. Very difficult to completely extract. In my case, it took awhile to install, then once installed completely failed to even activate. Then it's so hard to uninstall, it's crazy. Thanks for your comments.

[DavidR]

Welcome to the forums Uncle Mike.
Norton must know how difficult it is to get rid of for them to have created a removal tool and written instructions for the manual removal of NAV. They could have expended this effort into getting the uninstall routine sorted so as not to leave all this mess behind.

I guess if you uninstall NAV and install another AV that experiences problems because of what remains and incorrectly blame the new AV, perhaps many give up and revert to NAV, not a bad marketing strategy in my opinion (unconfirmed)?

[Uncle Mike]

Welcome to the forums Uncle Mike.
Norton must know how difficult it is to get rid of for them to have created a removal tool and written instructions for the manual removal of NAV. They could have expended this effort into getting the uninstall routine sorted so as not to leave all this mess behind.

I guess if you uninstall NAV and install another AV that experiences problems because of what remains and incorrectly blame the new AV, perhaps many give up and revert to NAV, not a bad marketing strategy in my opinion (unconfirmed)?

I have to admit that I didn't have any problems at all installing Avast - and in that way it was like a breath of fresh air. I still have to get rid of the remnants of NAV, but Avast continues to work just fine nonetheless. My PC is an older Dell OptiPlex (probably built in 2000), and Avast has been less cumbersome and less trouble in every way. No, I'm not cruising around with the latest hardware, but I still need a good security software - one that doesn't try to gobble up all of my available memory and hard drive space. Avast is that software.   

cNet editor Robert Vamosi, I think, got it right when he wrote a review of ZoneAlarm that voted in favor of new, smaller, more agile security products. He says that the core of NAV is from the 1980's, and that it's not likely that they will soon dump their core in favor of a new paradigm. You can read the article here, if you'd like:
http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/4520-3513_16-6273746-1.html