Norton Internet Security 2004

Rating:
Summary: Best Feature? 60-Day Money Back Guarantee
Review: Email in Outlook Express flat out stopped working after install. I have uninstalled and returning product after hours of lost time. Can't believe we put up with this type of service in this day and age. If you buy this product, hope that you have 0 issues. Online help is worthless and to talk to tech support is $29.95 a pop!!! That's 1/3 to 1/2 the price of the product. Symantec does not even give one chance free.
Never again. Thank goodness for 60-day return policy.

Rating:
Summary: Zero Stars
Review: I previously had Norton Antivirus and Norton Personal Firewall 2002 on my Dell Dimension 8200. When the subscription for NAV expired I thought I would be smart and buy Norton Internet Security 2004 for just a few dollars more. I downloaded the software form the Symantec site and began to install.

Immediately there were problems with LiveUpdate. I was able to resolve that problem and thought I had a stable installation. However after a couple of reboots, NIS says it had encountered a serious error and that I should reinstall NIS. This happened four times before I discovered a fix mentioned on a blog. I had searched the Symantec site in vain, but with the description of the fix from the blog, I then found the fix on Symantec's site. It did resolve that issue. But there was more.

Part of the NIS 2004 package is an antispam tool bar plug-in for Outlook (my email program). At least every other time I start Outlook, Outlook encounters an error, and I have to abort and restart. I have found no solution for this problem. I thought if I turned the antispam feature off and unloaded the toolbar, I would at least have functional email. Not so. There appears to be no way to disable the tool bar short of a complete uninstall.

Finally, there is the issue of computer resources. I have seen each program added to MS XP slow things down, but when I added Norton Internet Security 2004, it was like dropping anchor. Startup, shutdown and most application starts have been severly impacted.

My recomendation? Almost anything should be better than Norton Internet Security 2004. Save your money.

Rating:
Summary: Not anymore what it used to be
Review: Read the "falling star" article from another user. Everything he said happened to me too. I threw money away when I bought this thing that does not work correctly. I do not know how such a company can put such a product on the market. Moreover, none of their help tips work. They simply need to build a clean update and send it to their customers. If not, bye, bye Norton when renewal time comes... Also, there is NO CUSTOMER SERVICE AVAILABLE on the phone. Good luck...

Rating:
Summary: Don't upgrade to 2004 - Stay with Internet Security 2003
Review: We have been using Internet Security 2003. Up until the 2003 upgrade we have never had any problems with Norton AV. I can't say that anymore. I upgraded to 2004 a few weeks ago and upon booting Windows is complaining about missing Symantec DLLs. Tried sending a note to Support. It has been 3 weeks and no response. There is no support for the product unless you are willing to spend for support more than what the product costs. I am not.
I went back to Internet Security 2003 and plan to stay at that level.
My suggestion is that you stay with the older versions of Norton and just subscribe to the virus updates.

Henry

Rating:
Summary: not as good as former versions
Review: ok I usually like Norton products but the 2004 version was pretty disappointing. It did a good job but at the same time there were still some stuff in my computer that Norton didn't get rid of. Please read the system requirements to upload this software because its really heavy running like another reviewer said, you can't run other programs 'cause it'll slow the computer down and I have a decent computer system that I keep up to date.

I just don't feel secure with this, I don't feel like I'm getting the necessary protection from this product. I'm also annoyed at the fact that if I need technical support that I have to pay for it. They should at least have some free 1800 number that customers who buy it could call in and get help or to just ask a question that a customer is not sure about. I mean if we pay $50+ for this and submit a registration then shouldn't we get some kind of free support? That would just be more helpful.

This product also blocks pop ups from websites and that's worked pretty good so far. The ad blocking also blocks ads on websites, that's good but in some sites it even blocks the content instead of the ads. That's so annoying, I turned off that feature and just kept it so that it would only block pop up ads. I was really disappointed with this, its not as good as former versions.

Rating:
Summary: Ruin your computer for AUD $170
Review: One star is a review requirement, not my rating - 500 nuisance points is more appropiate.
I agree with the Reviewer: A software user from Maryland
To potential customers: Please listen to others -- this software is a joke. It ran all right for me for a few days then started getting blue screen crashes. Two friends have the same problem - it slows down your computer before it totally stuffs it.
Norton's website is no help. D grade support and an F grade product.
If you're thinking of buying this - DON'T - Listen to those who have been bitten. Like others, I had to offload all data twice (service cost me in excess of $450 as it was not known at the time that NIS 2004 was the culprit, anyway it was to late) then do full reformat and reinstallation of Windows XP to clean up my system, over a period of 2 weeks. Like others it conflicts with CD software, sometimes does not load on start-up, does not auto update, etc etc etc. It is a real problem you have Symantec when you try to sell us this dodgy software then get one of your people to write a 5 star reviews (see other (one) review). I will never buy another Symantec product - but that's your problem now Symantec... isn't it.

Rating:
Summary: Runs fine on my Windows 98
Review: I'm not sure why all the bad reviews, my computer isn't especially slowed down and I have Win'98. Sure, it slows it down a little, but that's expected. Perhaps Semantic could work out the efficiency a little, but these reviews are highly exagerated... I would ask what else these people are running on their computers(?)
So, if you have a fairly fast computer (1 gig or better) with plenty of ram (512) and your not gaming online or running streaming video continually, you should be fine. This is pretty standard for an up to date computer anymore, so what's the fuss?

Rating:
Summary: 4 stars (tentatively)
Review: After installing NIS 2004, all hell broke loose...

Comments about solving installation/upgrade problems

1) I was forced to upgrade from NIS 2003 to NIS 2004 because of problems with Norton and NIS 2003 licenses (somehow my multiple purchased licenses got merged together (even though purchased months apart, they all expired with the earliest expiration date, naturally. grrrr) and Norton would not address the problem. Simpler just to eat the $50 and upgrade)

2) Despite nothing but horror reviews for this product I decided to upgrade rather than go to some other product and face unknown problems.

Comments:
1) Installation was a no-brainer (my ideal). NIS 2004 prescanned for viruses that might adversely affect installation (a very good idea)

2) First NIS 2004 upate was a 23Mb download (a pain at 26K. grrr)

3) Did full system scan. About the same speed as NIS 2003 - 110Gb, 3 million files, 2 hours. Interface is essentially identical with NIS 2003 (fine with me, nothing much new to learn)

4) Rebooted Windows XP Pro. Crash booting. Finally came up on subsequent boot. (At least Windows tries to recover) Multiple boot crashes, etc. subsequently.

5) Crash after crash after crash of a previously stable system to the point that the system was no longer usable. Display driver problems, too.

6) There are known Windows crashes using ATI Radeon display cards with some motherboards and I suspected this was the problem. (this bug has driven a lot of users to the bottle or the bridge)(There is a workaround by turning off AGP fast writes) I looked and looked and looked and I just couldn't find where to turn off fast writes. (The reason, somehow, apparently, NIS 2004 installation/update/scan had deleted/clobbered/rewritten/whatever something and the function was no longer available.) I uninstalled the old Catalyst drivers and installed the newest ones from ATI. Voila, there was the option to turn off fast writes, right where it should be.

7) I rebooted a few times just to make sure everyting was ok and now the system is stable again. (six hours or so. hence the tentative rating. (who knows what the future will bring?))

Comments:
1) PCs are so prone to strange problems and we no longer know whether it is hardware, operating system or NIS 2004. Some minor hardware or software change and then, instability.

2) NIS 2004 Ad Blocking features affected Internet browsing sometimes (information would be blocked from reasonable websites) so I disabled it. (I want firewall and antivirus. Couldn't care less about this feature. If you want ad blocking, don't use the Internet.)

3) I tested a number of demanding programs and found no significant degradation of performance.

All in all, do a full system backup before installing this product, just in case! (I was lazy, no free 120Gb external hard disk was available)

Rating:
Summary: Don't use this software
Review: Please listen to others -- this software is horrible. It ran all right for me for 2 months then started getting buggy. The severe problems began when I tried to uninstall it -- you can not get this off your system. Norton's website has lengthy instructions involving several approaches to uninstalling including editing the registry -- what crap. Don't waste your money. Go to Norton's website and do a search using "uninstall and reinstall". If you use this junk you will regret it. I had to offload all data and do full reformat and reinstallation of Windows XP to clean up my system. Wasted 2 days screwing around.

Rating:
Summary: Good God what have they done?
Review: I have always loved Symantecs products, until now. I don`t understand how anyone could have jacked up software as bad as they have done NIS 2004! It installed great on my computer, ran great at 1st. The 1st problem was the horrible slowdown. I noticed when I checked in my running programs through control alt delete, that "winmgmt" was running. Most people know that when that is running your computer lags bad. I would end task it, it would come back. I would end task it again.... IT WOULD COME BACK! I think that was one of the biggest reasons for my computer to lag so bad with NIS 2004. After having the software on my computer for about a day it really started messing with my computer. My computer would not shutdown without me manually doing it myself through the power button, or if I was mad enough, by unplugging my computer! Ofcourse I uninstalled NIS 2004 and it actually uninstalled great. I reinstalled NIS 2002. Everything is great except now for the 1st time since using the 2002 my anti virus quit working. I`ll just blame NIS 2004 for it. Thanks for a load of crap Symantec.