Put bluntly, the quality of Norton products across the board more or less, has taken a serious nose dive of late. It's been a sort of slow downward march for some time now, but the latest versions of stuff really seems to have stepped up the pace.
There are people who spend good chunks of their day just dealing with problems created by Norton products.
That being said, McAfee also sucks if you ask me, because they hog way too much CPU time. And ZoneAlarm is like putting some pastic over a broken window. Keeps the wind and bugs out, that's about it.
I'd say that first thing is you need to invest some time and energy into getting yourself to a level where you can "understand all these messages about ports, Spyware, AdaWare, etc." Without that, it's pointless for people to suggest anything because chances are real good you'll inadvertanly mess it up. Shouldn't take more than an hour or two a day for a week or two to really get a feel for the basics. Then you'll probably be in a pretty good position to make a decision for yourself. If you still want opinions, feel free to come back at some later time and ask again. On a subject like this, you'll get more than you probably bargained for.
My brand new computer has arrived so I'm hoping I will not have any problems after dealing with my old computer and my son's computer that I have used temporarily.
I installed Norton Personal Firewall 2004 on his Windows XP just as I had on my Windows 98 without making any specific choices of ports, etc. other than to have the security level set for medium and making sure I enabled secure connections.
With installing on Windows XP, however, I cannot in any way shape or form view a webpage. You see the hourglass move but the message in the taskbar says "done". I have to disable and refresh before the page will actually open.
Since I am going to be busy saving all the zip disks I had from my old computer to CDs, I want to get the firewall issue cleared up on my son's computer because I know he will have cable connection at college.
He is still operating with SP1 so I know Norton isn't conflicting with the new SP2, but I don't know where to look to see if it is conflicting with ICF of SP1? He also has Norton SystemWorks 2003 installed on his computer but I had the same on mine and still did not have the internet issue that I'm having with his.
PLEASE can someone help. Should I uninstall Norton Personal Firewall 2004 and install Zone Alarm or McAfee? Will either have issues with Norton SystemWorks? I'm just trying to keep things from causing him a greater problem but the bad thing is I don't understand all these messages about ports, Spyware, AdaWare, etc.
I just use the computer for communication with family and friends that live up north and halfway around the world (I have a son in China). I use it to create things but no gaming and nothing real high tech. I've used computers for over 10 years but that's it. No formal training in the "works" of it or the understanding of HTML, etc. Sorry to be so dumb!
Thanks for any bit of help. I'm desperate!
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