Norton 360 Renewal

H

hotrod

Hi guys,

My Norton 360 subscription expires tomorrow and I'm looking for a free replacement AV and firewall product so I don't have to put my hand in my pocket :LOL:

I've had a read through this post:-
//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=209912 and it seems there is a consensus that Comodo Internet Security would suit my needs - is this still the case? I want a product I can install and forget and let it go off and update as required - as I do with the Norton 360.

I'm running XP SP3 ( IE 8 ) on a Dell Inspiron 1010 1.3GHz 1GB RAM. Any advice from dave.m and the usual forum gurus much appreciated.

Cheers.
 
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I have Comodo Internet security which is one of the best free firewalls and a very good antivirus.
You will also need a real-time antispyware, I use Windows Defender.

The Comodo will take a couple of days of nagging to get used to what you allow to run and downaload.
It just puts a notice up asking what you want it to do, you can then usually click allow and also click Remember this decision. Once it has got the run of you it will be fine.

Keep MalwareBytes and/or SuperAntiSpyware for weekly scans and also to have them installed should you get any malware.

Did you buy the Norton on a disk in a box or was it a download from Norton's website? I ask because if the latter and you paid by card when you first got it, they oftwen take payment about four weeks before it expires so that you may have paid and not yet know.

dave
 
Did you buy the Norton on a disk in a box or was it a download from Norton's website? I ask because if the latter and you paid by card when you first got it, they oftwen take payment about four weeks before it expires so that you may have paid and not yet know.

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply. I bought the Norton from PC World at the same time I bought the Inspiron (I know, I know..... :rolleyes: ) but because the Inspiron has no cd drive had to download the software from the Norton site. Must say I was a bit miffed as I expected just not to be able to update the AV definition files but to still have all other functionality. Oh no - it shut the lot down completely. This is the pop up I got this morning:-



I'll keep an eye out for the card statement just in case.

Anyway, have downloaded and installed Windows defender and Comodo Internet Security. Quite painless really just 10 minutes and 2 reboots including the Norton uninstall. Plus 20 minutes updating 87MB worth of Comodo AV signature files which I was surprisingly not prompted to do automatically. I only realised whilst I was messing around :rolleyes:



Still mustn't grumble hey Dave - it is free after all :LOL: !!

Keep MalwareBytes and/or SuperAntiSpyware for weekly scans and also to have them installed should you get any malware.

I'm not familiar with these are they essential to replacing Norton? Or a nice to have? My machine's not mission critical.

Thanks a lot for your help.
 
I'm not familiar with (MBAM & SAS) are they essential to replacing Norton? Or a nice to have? My machine's not mission critical.

Not critical but should you ever get an infection some malware will prevent you downloading anything that might 'kill it' such as the two above.
If you do install them just open SAS Preferences and untick the Startup options so that it does not run at bootup and will only start when you double click the icon.
As neither provide real-time protection in the free version, you do not want them running from startup, just running whae you update them and run a regular maintenance scan about once a week.

dave
 
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Cheers dave, I'll take a look and probably download it and install it if it's not too resource intensive / doesn't require too much user intervention.

Thanks

hotrod
 
if it's not too resource intensive / doesn't require too much user intervention.

MBAM doesn't use ANY resources until you start it up once a week, then it is two minutes to update it and two to three minutes to run a scan.
The only user thing you do is double click the icon, click Check for Updates and then click Scan.
You could not get the kettle to boil that quick.

dave
 

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