Topic: Battle of the free anti-virus

[KnuckleBuckett]

Norton is a decent antivirus.  But far from the best. 

McAffe is a virus.

[Steve]

Norton is a decent antivirus.  But far from the best. 

McAffe is a virus.

It's the exact same thing with a different GUI buddy.

[stealth]

I've been using Norton for years and have never had a problem with it (touch wood). 

You have had issues, you just dont know it because norton has not caught them. I will stake my professional reputation (which is very good, assholes lol) on the line against norton/mcaffe security suites any day of the week.

I have been an IT support tech for nearly ten years, I have a pretty good idea about how AV works.

[Steve]

I've been using Norton for years and have never had a problem with it (touch wood). 

You have had issues, you just dont know it because norton has not caught them. I will stake my professional reputation (which is very good, assholes lol) on the line against norton/mcaffe security suites any day of the week.

I have been an IT support tech for nearly ten years, I have a pretty good idea about how AV works.

Not saying you dont. Simply saying Norton is missing infections and issues, you dont know it because Norton isnt telling you because its missing them.

[KnuckleBuckett]

Phooey.  Norton is fine.  I prefer ESET but Norton is fine.

[Steve]

Phooey.  Norton is fine.  I prefer ESET but Norton is fine.

Norton is not fine, even a fully updated and current definition file is going to miss a ton of crap.

I tried to find the thread where we hashed this out once before. I thought ethic started it, but i cant find it. The reason was i gave the exact same opinion to ethic, and he argued with me about the quality of norton. And then you, KB, came along and quoted one of my anti-norton posts and gave a whopping +1. Choose a side yeti love

Norton and McAffe are not the same program obviously, but at the core of them both where the actual purpose of the software comes into play you will see the exact same code. It's just like store brand tomato soup and cambells. Same factory, different label.

[Bassy]

I switched to Kaspersky from Norton. Managed to get a virus on my PC in the summer - which Norton didnt pick up at all - resulted in losing all my world of warcraft accounts until I could get them reinstated. Going back through my logs later found that Norton had spotted the virus but decided it had no impact (cant remember the full wording its months ago now) and not done anything about it - even though I had it to tell me when it found anything . So after a full reformat and fdisk etc I installed vista and kaspersky.

[Steve]

The only thing the Norton and/or Mcafee suite is good for is causing internet and file sharing issues for techs around the world. I cannot tell you how many customers have called to report they need me to come out because their new computer doesnt get online.

"Do you have Norton or Mcaffe installed?"

"Yes"

Walk them through the steps to disable the gay ass firewall and bs settings that dont do anything anyway and viola.