hi

my norton anti-viral stuff is about to expire. how do i update it? is there anything i can download for free? money's a bit tight!

thanks x

They had norton anti-virus in that shop which used to be zavvi in meadowhall. It was the 2008 version and it was £3.99 no idea if thats any help? this was on sat maybe worth calling them not sue the name of the store though.

There are plenty of free, reliable anti-virus solutions available.
Google is your friend.

like which ones? there are so many, i need one that's reliable!

xx

Try Avast: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Or AVG: http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage

I've used both and found them pretty good.

I use AVG on one PC and Avast on another. Both are fine. AVG did not used to work on Vista though unless they have sorted it.

People still use norton? wow that means people still shop at PC world then.

Avast is what you will be needing.

If it's Norton's AV & firewall thingy then you'll probably want something to replace both aspects. The free offering from Comodo (http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/) is good.

Jump up and down on your nortons cd really hard.

It takes over your pc more and harder to get off than the viruses, throw it in the skip and put Avast on.

I would follow Steev's advice - lifetime of freedom! Just follow his link, but after downloading and before you install do the following.

1. disconnect from the internet;

2. Log off as user and log on as administrator (root administrator even if you have admin rights [which you shouldn't really be doing if you are doing so on the internet - hackers will have no need to escalate your user privileges!]

3. Disable Norton Antivirus (right click its icon and select whatever words they are using these days to exit/disable

4. Uninstall Norton with its uninstaller.

5. 'Start/Run/regedit' to open the registry.

6. Click on 'Edit/Find' from the menu and search for Norton - when regedit finds the key hit 'delete' and confirm delete with any confirmation message that might appear - to repeat the find just keep hitting the F3 button and repeat the process until Norton can be found no more.

7. Repeat the process of 6. but this time you are looking for Publisher keys - 'Symantec' (without the singular quotes).

You may come across some keys that refuse to budge - right click the folder in the left pane that is refusing to go, select permissions - select 'User' tick 'full control', 'Apply' then press delete again and now the stubborn varmint will go!

hi

my norton anti-viral stuff is about to expire. how do i update it? is there anything i can download for free? money's a bit tight!

thanks x
There's lots of good (much better than Norton) free anti-virus and firewall software out there.

If you follow this link (http://download.cnet.com/windows/security-software/?tag=rb_content;contentNav) you'll see several good options. I used AVG fro years and it's kept my PCs fully virus free and had a bunch of trouble with AVG 9 though on my wife's computer and so have shifted to Avast.

If norton was also acting as your firewall you'll also need to download and install one of those.

avast antivirus
comodo firewall
anti malwarebytes anti spyware

all free, and good

hi

my norton anti-viral stuff is about to expire. how do i update it? is there anything i can download for free? money's a bit tight!

thanks x

The first thing you need to do is to completely remove Norton from your PC.

If you leave Norton on your system or only partially remove it then it can still conflict with any future anti virus software you choose to use.
To remove Norton properly you need to use the Norton Removal Tool which you can download from here:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,73329-order,3-page,1/description.html

Once you have downloaded the removal tool then double click on the removal tool icon and just follow the simple instructions that the tool will display.

Once Norton is removed then you can download and install a different Anti virus program and Firewall.

An excellent free Anti virus program that I use is Avira AntiVir

http://www.free-av.com/

(I have previously used AVG for a number of years and it has served me well, but Avira in my view is superior program)

As for Firewalls.

The one I highly recommend is the one I am using now from Online Armour:

http://download.cnet.com/Online-Armor-Free/3000-10435_4-10426782.html

Anti spyware software is also a must.

I would recommend the free versions of Super antispyware

http://www.superantispyware.com/index.html

And Malwarebytes.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/


Tip: Only have one anti virus software on your computer, If you have more than one then they may well conflict with each other.

Similarly only have one Firewall installed (Switch off Windows Firewall via the "Control Panel > Security if you intend to install any of the Firewalls recommended in this thread).

As far as Anti spyware software goes, you can have as many as you like but only use them one at a time.

Gosh, I've personally seen viruses fly past AVG and AVAST on several occasions. Norton's no better.

Anti-virus subscriptions are cheap... $35 a year for some! Buckle down and get some real protection. Check out av-comparitives and the vb100 awards. You'll find Kaspersky and Nod32 are some of the best and cheapest not to mention very easy going on system resources.

Microsoft Security Essentials, it's free and great, it protects you against everthing.

Microsoft Security Essentials, it's free and great, it protects you against everthing.

I've not tried Microsoft Security Essentials, but I would be wary of using any Microsoft protection products.
I trialled Microsoft Windows Defender before and it was pretty hopeless!

Gosh, I've personally seen viruses fly past AVG and AVAST on several occasions. Norton's no better.

Anti-virus subscriptions are cheap... $35 a year for some! Buckle down and get some real protection. Check out av-comparitives and the vb100 awards. You'll find Kaspersky and Nod32 are some of the best and cheapest not to mention very easy going on system resources.

I've had used AVG Free for a number of years and it failed to protect me from a virus a while back and on my sisters PC which used AVG she had picked up Spyware, even though AVG 8 was supposed to protect against Spyware too.

As for Avast, I trialled that once and the user interface put me write off, designed like a teenager's ghetto blaster the product looked more like someone's pet project rather than serious protection product.

As for payed protection, well some products may be worth the peace of mind but whether they are worth using over Free products is debatable.
I once(A long time ago!) payed for Panda Antivirus (At the time this was well rated) but that didn't stop me getting infected.

That's why I've settled for AVIRA, the FREE version gives comprehesnsive real time protection from all kinds of Malware (not just viruses).
It is also the first product I've used that prevented me from landing on a certain web page, warning me that a virus had been detected on the page.

The Free version after each full scan,use to have an annoying pop up advert that advertised their payed version, and you had to click the "okay button to get rid of the pop up.
Now however there is now pop up, all you get is a notifier in the task bar, which is far less intrusive.

So in my view If you use a secure browser like Opera (And keep it update with the latest version) combined with a good free anti virus product like AVIRA and Firewall like Online armour then you should be okay!

People still use norton? wow that means people still shop at PC world then.

Avast is what you will be needing.

I think Norton sales must be down, they tried flogging it me when I bought a monitor...