Norton Personal Firewall 2004

Rating:
Summary: worst customer support
Review: This product if full of defects,cannot be installed easy, lot of headache and not phone support for customers. If you want for a new product customet support, they will ask you for 24.99 per incident! They are crazy! On line support? yes, send a email 5 days ago, still no answer, and u cannot find any phone # to talk with anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Wish I had not bought
Review: This program has given me nothing but problems. I finally had to refomat my drive. They charge for telephone customer support. Save your money.

Rating:
Summary: Works almost too good
Review: This software firewall is handy if you don't have a router/hardware firewall. If you are expanding into a LAN be sure to turn off some or all of the features or your computers or they won't be able to find each other on the network!
If you DON'T have a router you're just waiting for a netbot to invade your machine unless you use a tool like this.

Rating:
Summary: 8-months of Great Experiences ( Unlike Most Others)
Review: Unlike everyone else on Amazon.com I've thankfully (knock on desk) only had good experiences with both Norton Personal Firewall 2004 & Noron AntiVirus 2004.

It does take PERSISTANCE to train the Firewall properly and to get comfortable with the IE security and Cookie settings, but after about 2 weeks of teaching the software its been gravy... and I thankfully haven't had any major intrusions, file corruptions or viruses that I'm aware of in the past 8-months.

Downloading updates is seamless, I don't have memory hog issues on my AMD 3200+ w/512 MB Ram, Windows XP SP2 and my high speed DSL connection that's always on. I've turned off Symantec's Popup Blocker and configured the built in one with XP SP2. I set IE to prompt each time a website asks to install cookies. I've set the Firewall security setting to "High-Block Everything Until I approve it". Other than that, I manage Java Applet & Active X security within IE. I did try setting these to "Medium - ask me each time" and it worked as well. Really, the first 2-weeks in which you visit most of your key banking, finance, news, gaming and other websites is the important period which REQUIRES PATIENCE. The trick again is teaching the firewall which sites you approve and which you don't. According to various studies, the average internet user spends 80% of their online time on less than 10 websites. After the first 2-weeks, its the 20% you just have to teach yourself and other users of your computer to be smart about.

If you're not very comfortable with computers and are only a basic user of e-mail, news & regular websites... this is a great program as long as you have a techno-savvy son/daughter, friend or colleague who can help you set it up the first time. If you're a pretty advanced technology buff you'll appreciate the integrated management console between all Norton Programs and will like most of the features. Overall.. it's 4 stars in my book.

Rating:
Summary: Norton-Never Again!!!
Review: Update: I wish I had accessed this site before buying the downgrade. PFW 2003 worked fine and I have reinstalled it. All of the negative review problems happened to me. I have had problems with Windows since deleting PFW 04 and may have to reinstall. One reviewer asked how a great company with great products could go so wrong so fast. They probably moved production to low-cost Asian facilities, there are signs of this in the writing of the manual and the kirtypirty and hoolyhootoo flaws in the programming. I will never buy a NEW Norton "upgrade" again!!!

Rating:
Summary: HELP!! Get me out of Norton Firewall 2004!!! ZERO STARS!!
Review: WHY did I ignore the fatal customer reviews on this shameful product?!! After installing, my DSL internet wouldn't work, but I fixed it by turning OFF Norton Firewall 2004. But now, even after uninstalling completely (I think), not only can I not defrag my hard drive, I CAN'T EVEN ACCESS EITHER OF MY TWO CD-ROMS!! I can't read ANY of my program CD's - including Windows 2000 Pro OS - but wierdly it lets me play audio CD's. Maybe this is so that I can play a sad music until I figure this mess out. I'm just hoping that after submitting my feedback on this wretched software that I can find a fix from one of the other hapless customers who also made the mistake of purchasing it. Can you help? Thanks.