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"Wrecked my computer. I hate it!"
1.5 starson by Barker CPros: Uses less system resources
Cons: Uninstall locked me out of my administrator account and left me with a $200 mess.
Summary: For many years, I have used CNET reviews as one of my resources before making a software upgrade or a major hardware buying decision. I relied on the CNET reviews of Norton Internet Security 2010 and made the decision to purchase the product. I feel the editors were way off base on the recommendation of this product. True, it uses fewer system resources as stated in the review. However, this Norton product wants to take over your entire PC life. It wants to control web surfing, passwords, web site selection, searching tools, and just about everything else on your computer. To further complicate matters, Norton 2010 does not give you an option of High, Medium, or Low security. You have the option to turn on or off the security features of each component, but the feature leaves you with very little control over the sub-sets of those components. After trying Norton Internet Security 2010 for one month, I hated it and tried an uninstall. Instead of Using Norton?s Uninstall feature, I used Perfect Uninstaller, because I did not want to have to deal with all the ?junk? Norton leaves behind, after an uninstall. After I rebooted, I found that Norton had removed or ?reset? my administrator account in Win XP, and I could only log on as a guest. As a guest, I could not do a system restore, access the files on my admin account, nor do a Norton Ghost recovery. I tried the Windows recovery CD, but it is looking for the admin account and a password. I had never set a password on the admin account, so Norton fixed that for me too. I took my notebook to a computer repair shop and $200 later, even they cannot recover my system. I would not recommend this product to my worst enemy, and I am truly sorry I followed CNET?s recommendation.
- 4 replies to this review
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I'm pretty sure Perfect Uninstaller is rogueware. Check them out on WOT and SiteAdvisor. I agree that Norton is pretty bad software, but if you have rogue software on your computer, can you really be 100% sure it was Norton that locked up your PC? Also, you should follow the proper procedure for uninstallation, even if it seems stupid or inconvenient. The procedure is there for a reason. Just a bit of advice.
One more thing-it's never a good idea to use the administrator account for browsing the web or anything like that. You could be exposing your system to viruses that can access any part of the computer. You should probably create a standard-level account to use and then password-protect the admin account so you can easily elevate to perform administrator tasks. Having the admin account secured saves a lot of trouble at times. -
No offense intended, but I think you set yourself up for problems when you "... Instead of Using Norton?s Uninstall feature, (you) used Perfect Uninstaller, because (you) did not want to have to deal with all the ?junk? Norton leaves behind," I think the problem more likely resides within "Perfect" Uninstaller.
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Frankly - I doubt that I will be renewing my subscription that comes due at the end of the Month - Nortons 2010 is a pain - I've turned off Sonar permanently because it kept screwing up downloads of legitimate software because they may - just might - have a visus attachjed. None off the other virus scanners that I used could find anything wrong.
Also Nortons 2010 constantly tells me there is a visus on HDDrives and usb sticks that have already been deleted and aren't even currently connected to the computer - I'm not sure, but I believe this is what is blocking a port that have been set to unblock in the smart firewall.
Norton generally does a good job in firewall and virus management, but it has got too complicated for its own good - jumping at shadows and constantly crying wolf. -
I seriously doubt that the uninstall wrecked your computer. I've uninstalled Beta versions of Norton products and have NEVER had them 'lock me out of my administrator account'..... it sounds more likely that you had a virus on your machine that Norton missed OR your registry got messed up in some other manner.
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