Norton Internet Security 2003 Professional Edition (5 User Pack)

Rating:
Summary: Definitely a good product, but Install can be troublesome.
Review: Being a long time user of Norton products on other PC's, when my new PC, running XP Pro, arrived with Norton AV pre-installed with a free 30-day subscription, I was quite pleased. When the subscription ran out, I decided upon NIS 2003 product, as I was also running Zonelabs as my firewall. My first install attempt was a disaster, almost everything locked up and no applications would launch. Finally, after about 2-3 hours of fiddling and research, thankfully, a safe mode reboot and the usage of the XP System Restore facility (run msconfig), I was able to back out my system to prior to the install. Then it took another 3 reboots to fully get rid of the NAV 2003 install, including having to go into the Services function to stop the system portion of the product. After that, the re-install of the NIS product went fine.

The Firewall configuration was a breeze as well.

So, if you are running any Norton product at all, be sure to uninstall EVERYTHING and check your task lists that everything is really uninstalled. If you don't, your will run into problems --- which will be very daunting to a novice user.

All in all, a good product --- just be very careful if you are currently running ANY anti-virus or firewall product.

Rating:
Summary: No problem here
Review: I have been using Norton Internet Security 2003 for just under a year now, I have had no problems what so ever. The fire wall has caught numerous problems in the past and I have had no ill effects on my internet access. It has caught numerous virus attacks via websites and email. With virus protection so critical now, I don't see any better product on the market. I liked it so much, I bought it for my wife's business.

Rating:
Summary: No Flaws Here - Ad Blocking Is Worth The Price
Review: I have now received, installed, and used this product--and consequently feel qualified to "review" it. I installed NIS 2003 on a Windows ME system which previously had Norton Antivirus 2001 installed. The installation not only went flawlessly, but NIS 2003 automatically uninstalled NAV 2001 and reinstalled the new product without any prompting. Along with its other security and antivirus features, the main capability which attracted me to this product was its inclusion of an Ad Blocking feature, which is not discussed in Amazon.com's product description. Simply stated, this feature is OUTSTANDING. After installation, I visited numerous sites which had previously dumped loads of pop-up and pop-under ad windows and flash-based ads on my screen, but now -- POOF -- no more trash, with no discernable negative effects on web page loading. Plus ad banners are effectively eliminated--so all you get is the web page you want. For me, this feature alone is worth the price ...-- it's a total steal at [the after rebate cost]P>I find it difficult to praise this product enough--it delivers every feature smoothly and efficiently, as advertised.

Rating:
Summary: Good program, but don't skip the tutorial
Review: I purchased 2003 in 2003. I tried to install it without removing all the programs from the 2002 version. I used the uninstall program, but Symantec made a change that wasn't in the manual that requires you to remove all previous version programs before installing 2003. I didn't read the tutorial that tells you of the change. It also tells you that you need Explorer 5.5 or higher. I was using Explorer 5 and later updated to Explorer 6. The first installation didn't work, but one-year later after I read the tutorial and made the Explorer upgrade it worked. I am using Windows 98se operating system. What prompted me to try again the second time was that the 2002 version I was using refused to allow me to use the firewall after a online update. It works great but the set-up instructions are difficult to follow. If I didn't have previous experience with the earlier version I would have had big problems. Symantec's support is hard to obtain on-line and you have to pay big bucks to get telephone support. Once you set it up properly it works great.

Rating:
Summary: Great Product
Review: I purchased this item with trepidation due to all the bad reviews I had read prior to purchasing it. I decided to purchase it anyway due to expiration of my Norton NIS 2002. I installed the product on my Windows XP system without any trouble whatsoever-except that I forgot to remove the Norton Internet Security 2002 and Norton Antivirus 2002 prior to loading this program. The program will not load if it finds a previous version of the programs already installed. I removed the two products by going into the add/remove programs from the control panel tab. After this was done, the software loaded flawlessly. I have been using it for almost a week and it is working fine. I have not noticed any slowdown when searching the net. It has caught several intrusion attempts and some that were not intrusive so I added the one I knew not to be intrusive to the list of computers not to warn me about. The add blocker is working great blocking both pop-up ads and banner adds on web-sites. I have noticed occasionally some pictures will not load correctly, so I turn the add blocker off and then back on after the page loads, but this is rare. I recommend it if you need a software firewall and antivirus protection.

Rating:
Summary: Great Product - eay to work with
Review: I recently purchased a new computer and I felt I needed a solid virus protection program. I am running Windows XP and I have a cable internet connection. XP has an annoying feature that lets people display pop-up ads (different from internet browser pop-up ads) whenever I am on the computer. I don't have to be specifically using an internet browser or email program since the cable modem is hooked up to the net the entire time the computer is running. Also, I have found out that a lot of web sites will install "cookies" on your computer that tell a great deal of information about you to the web administrator. These cookies remain in your hard drive long after you have left the website or even rebooted your computer. Finally, a lot of browser plugins (media players, fun cursor programs, file conversion software etc) contain code that allows outside parties to access your computer resources. On my previous computer, these programs cost me a ton of CPU and memory usage (which slowed things down considerably).

The Norton program is fairly easy to install. I did have one problem though. I came across one specific install error that indicated my local machine did not have rights to install the software (whatever that means). I typed the exact error message into the Norton customer resource page and it gave me the proper steps to fix the problem. After installing the program - everything seems to be working great. The software has eliminated the annoying pop-up ads that XP is vulnerable to. The virus scan seems to work but so far, I have not had any viruses to deal with. The program automatically scan for viruses once a week so, I don't have to worry about remembering. The firewall program seems to be good at blocking Trojan horse programs and repelling outside attacks. I was surprised how often these attacks occur. I usually get these attacks about once a day (according to the software log). The email spam filter is just OK. I still get a ton of spam but the filter seems to get rid of about 50%, which is nice. It works with Netscape very well. Overall, the product is easy to use and seems to do its job. I do wish that the company had a free help line for the first 90 days but their web site seems adequate.

Rating:
Summary: Flawless install and operation
Review: I upgraded from NIS 2001 on Win2k. I had no problems installing and configuring this software. It has performed flawlessly. NIS 2003 is a great upgrade from NIS 2001. There are many nice features including the ad-blocker. The interface is cleaner, more logical. Commands have been added to the context-menu (right-click system tray icon). I can now go directly to live-update from this menu. NIS also dials directly instead of painting the connection dialog box and making me press "connect". I can also go to the options dialog or view statistics or logs from this menu. NIS integrated seamlessly with the other accounts I created in Win2K and set up their controls automatically.

Before you install this software, go to the Symantec site and obtain instructions for un-installing existing Norton products. Find and print the instructions and follow them. Read your manual. There are instructions for manually cleaning things up as well. Certain situations call for the executable that Symantec supplies to help uninstall. Educate yourself and experience a flawless install like I did. It's not hard.

I disagree that Norton products have been backsliding. I have not had a problem with this product and there were good, solid improvements on the NIS 2001 iteration.

Rating:
Summary: Worked fine on Win ME - Huge problems on Win XP!
Review: I used this product for about 8 months on Windows ME and it seemed to work fine. However, I recently upgraded to Windows XP and could not install this software so it would work. It would not let me on the web at all, and I couldn't install it using the normal uninstall approaches! In the process, I found that tech support is slow to respond by email (though you can pay Norton to take your phone call!). So, I don't recommend this software at all - am checking out McAfee.

For anyone who wants more detail on the problems, here it is: After installing NIS 2003,
(a) I could not turn on either the firewall or the virus protection because I was not a "supervisor." However, when I installed the software I had declined to set up any accounts or passwords. The error messages kept telling me to login as supervisor on the log-in screen - but there was no log-in screen anywhere;
(b) even worse, all of my internet access was blocked (according to Norton's website, if no one is logged in, no one can access the internet - of course I had to look this up on someone else's computer).

(c) I could not uninstall the software, using either Norton's uninstaller, or the Add/Remove programs feature in Windows. In each case I got an error message saying that only the supervisor could uninstall the software, and I needed to log in as supervisor! So after an email to Norton's tech support office (2 days ago with no response yet - their automatic email response said it would take 3-4 days), and much searching through Norton web pages (again on someone else's computer), I found two exe files to remove Norton from my computer. They worked, but what a headache. Also, I found the help web pages frustrating to use, because although I could find information on the problem I had, no solution was offered. So I sought out uninstall information, and had to click on several different pages to get all the pieces of what I needed to do. Everything could have easily been on one web page.

I don't know what the problem was (I installed it on my machine last year with Windows ME using same approach with no difficulties), but I'm not trying it again. Off to another company's product I go!

Rating:
Summary: Mediasales2000
Review: Just wanted to warn people not to buy from mediasales2000. I ordered a Norton Internet Security 2003 from them. Never got the CD. Wanted Norton Internet Security 2003 because heard there were problems with Norton Internet Security 2004. Got new computer with Antivirus on it. Think Norton is still good product.