What does Norton 360 do?

[Faldo]

I have been looking to get some sort of _ protection for my PC, and I saw that Symantec was offering a free beta copy of Norton 360. It seems to be more than just a firewall and a virus scanner, but I don't think I really understood what it's all about. Can anyone explain?

http://www.symantec.com/norton360beta/betacenter/n360betadownload.html

[cosmicB]

I've read a lot of bad press in blogs and forums about Norton AVS software... and I had some nasty mishaps with Norton stuff... Hackers easily shut down my Norton AVS and BlackIce Firewall, then destroyed my PC's operating system several times...

You would probably be better off running "F-Prot" for your AVS... and NetVeda for your firewall... but maybe the latest versions of Norton are good.. or not??... You should do a search on the Net for consumers talking about the version you are interested in...
Search phrases like: "norton X is useless".. and "norton X fantastic"..

The real test is to anger a super computer wizard, to give your security system a good test... You'll probably discover as I have.. that no computer is truly safe on the Net.. not even if you've got the whole American military behind and infront of it.. Even their systems get hacked and messed up, by mischievous hacker-kids, striving to make a title of infamy for themselves in the group...


Which Windows operating system are you running?.. Microsoft supposedly has a good new security system for the newer Windows...

The responsibility of security is on the user.. who must be sure that all the patches are installed.. and all the poorly built media player, music and video software holes are plugged...
Search on the Net for "security issues on windows X"...

[LaLogo]

I've heard good things about Norton recently, they seem to be improving - not that I ever had any trouble with it. Experiences seem to have been rather mixed in the past for different folks.

Anyway, Norton 360 is their latest take on internet security - they are doing a lot to make _ shopping safer next to all the usual protection. There's also a backup tool included (in case those hackers to get past your defences) and I think it offers you extended system options or something, too.

[cosmicB]

I suppose your PC would be reasonably safe, with that "Norton 360", if it really works.. in combo with a "naty" router... And a good and honest provider, that has the latest state of the art security covering its systems...

Then you are probably reasonably safe.. Unless you download dirty softwares, and/or check into some of those wickedest triple-x, or the mighty German hacker domains.. where the visitor took the bait as the target.. and the contest is won by the one who shoves the visitor off the Net, by destroying the victim's PC's OS...
You really don't want to play there.. Unless you are one of the players in "World War 4 on the Internet, in the Valley of Fear, within hell's walls"... In that part of the Internet-world called "Fear"... You don't enter-Fear with your eyes closed, and yer thums up yer bums, that's forsure... You must be & remain Awake...
It's same as you can't go jump-in and drive a fighter-jet in a battle when all you've ever driven is tenspeeds and VW's, and your family, neighbors, and dog, crazy...
There's a battle going on in Cyberworld... If you don't want to get Stung, then don't touch it... cuz in that war-zone all the firewalls and AVS's in the world ain't gonna help your PC there... Some of those hacker-kids could reverse engineer your PC's whole operating system, if they thought it would be a fun thing to do...

If you need to go into those dangerous sites, then first get yourself a secondary PC, and load it up with just the operating system, an AVS, and a firewall... Use it as your expendable-point, for when you intend to roam Fear's battlezones for product and/or exciting battle...
Buy up as many 2-gig hd's as you can find at used-stuff sales, and load 'em up with an OS...

Triple-X and Serials are real-bad for Internet-bugs... I enjoy triple-xxx and hacker-sites too, but I sure avoid them, unless my security system can handle what they can dish-out... and I really doubt that just NetVeda, Spybot, and this AVS, are good enough to mess in those high-stakes websites...

I'm into pix-editing, to learn the skill... Metart's cover-story is clean.. and their product works well with IrfanView, Seamonkey, PhotoPlus 8, and WinWall...

Too bad Subdesktop got dumped from Majorgeek's... Must have had bugs in it...

After all this mess, I still can't find a reliable AVS for W98se... and I still can't afford to buy a new computer...

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to open the dirtiest emails, and visit the nastiest sites, to have your AVS and Firewall block all the bugs with ease...

Essentially I am in the same boat as Faldo... "What's a good AVS?"..

I tried the seven top AVS's.. They all persisted in trying to update connect to the Net about every five minutes... That would momentarily suck up all the RAM, and freeze up the mouse and keyboard, while the AVS was doing its thang on my computer-time... There was no way to shut off their connect attempts... The writers would not give out the key to shutting off their auto-updaters... I got refunds...

I suppose just about any AVS and firewall will do it... The rest is you avoiding the wrong websites, and not opening the wrong emails...
You are your best security... so just try to "not sit on any bees"...

And be prepared, with a good understanding on how to make a clean registry backup, and what to do with it.. and have the necessary softwares.. reg-cleaners, and "Eraser".. sitting in the back, waiting for when there is an emergency, when your last resort is to format-C...
And forsure make that set of AVS system recovery disks...

There isn't much more you can do, except do up "google alerts" for: "Security issues in Windows X".. and maintain your OS up to date, by plugging all the new found leaks... Or just do what you can, say "to hell with it!".. and take your chances... and get good at formatting and reloading a hard-drive...

[boingo]

I used Norton System Works 2004 & 2005. From my experience, and that of all four of the other people I spoke to who have also tried those programs, the part designed to fix windows ends up deleting two vital files: DotNet Installer: Needed for Windows security updates, and some vbrun.dll file.

Plus System Works 2005 kept telling me my trial period was up and that I needed to register it. -I bought it brand new in a box and registered it the day I installed it. Even though I had registered it, and kept on registering it every time it told me it wasn't registered, I still got the message about every week and I even got the message every day for about a week.

Each time it told me I needed to register, it also ceased functioning which left my PC vulnerable.

I don't use any of those programs designed to fix Windows any more, because I can only find the Norton one or some other one that gave me an invalid registration key in the box, then the company refused to reply to any of my emails.


I've since switched to Computer Associates Internet Security Suite for my antivirus and firewall. Like some other programs, this one one is a bandwidth hog when it wants to do an automatic update. There is no override for that either, so I have to just let it do it's thing and carry on without sending or receiving any large files until it's finished; which is usually only a few minutes anyway.

[cosmicB]

The meanest AVS I've tried was AVG... Everytime I installed AVG, it locked up, and twisted the OS super bad.. It wrecked the OS so bad that I had to format-C to get my computer back... Some say AVG works just fine, but I sure can't use it..? I gave it five tries.. and it ran me through hell...

I liked Norton AVS, BlackIce, and Zone Alarm, but quickly discovered that they really didn't protect my PC from true hacker stuff... Hackers could shut them down in a flash like they weren't even there...

F-Prot and Security's softwares always popped up their update connect attempts, every five minutes.. and there was no way of stopping that irritation...

Security suite was super, but in W98se, it locked up after an hour scan... It's just to powerful for the antique Windows systems...

I'm beginning to accept that W98 just Can't be fully protected.. so I've just got to live with it.. and be formatting this PC about every three months, whenever it gets hit by yet another hard hitting hacker kid who doesn't like what I've published on the Net, and feels the need to bump me off the Net for a couple days, by destroying my PC's OS...
All I've really got is to be super careful with what I click on... and open all stranger and suspect emails in the old iMac...

I published a powerful letter recently, in a philosophy forum, detailing how and why our species is wrecking the planet so fast and hard, not leaving any home world for future humanity children.. and offered a string of solutions, and a wake up call to mankind.. and ended the note with "C'mon great thinkers of planet Earth, let's see what you've got to add to this thread and topic... Show us what you're made of."...
Next thing I know is my Internet is off line... Someone sure showed what their made of.. thhT!... Turns out that someone at my provider's computers, reading my emails, bumped my email account into their inactive-accounts dead-zone, and hit my computers with a major Dos hit...
Took a week of formatting the PC's and Mac, and five tech-assistance phone-calls to finally discover what had happened, and get them to fix it...
Even providers can be mean and nasty, if someone there at the controls doesn't like what you publish...

Bottom line in using the Internet.. "You have No rights, No security, No privacy"... only miniscule defences, in the form of "paper-thin" AVS's and Firewalls...
The Internet was invented exclusively to assist the American military fight people-killing wars... The Internet was conceived and birthed of War's needs... It's no wonder the Internet is a major battle-zone.. with the meek and innocent caught up in the crossfire, as it has always been and always is in War...
You do what you can.. You duck and dodge crawling and flying things to the best of your abilities, and hope for the best.. as I have ducked and dodged so many blades and bullets in my time... and some of those projectiles came pretty close.. but a miss is a miss...

One tiny thing you can do to raise your security, is to use a Mozila browser, like Seamonkey.. and use the quick-disconnect icon a lot, to be off the Net while you compose and read...

Find all the tiny security things, and live them... That should be a significant boost to your Internet security... Really it's all you've got in the crazy world of today... It's like "running scree"...

It's like, yesterday, just after all this formatting and reloading, I gets a Whitehouse letter in my inbox.. from a "no reply" sender, in jibberish.. It's topic line, "Survey.. Donald, do you think President Bush is doing a good job?"... There is absolutely NO-WAY that I'm gonna open that email!..

Bottom line is "You are your own best security"...

[Faldo]

Ah, I see very mixed reactions and am about as smart as I was before now

Yeah, certainly seems like everyone is responsible for what they chose to do, and nothing will help if you're not using your brain.

Yet, still, I am somewhat fascinated by Norton 360 since it does seem to offer a unique combination of features.

Will it run under Vista, too? And if so, is it designed specifically for vista, or will some of the system-tuning-functions be shut down?

[cosmicB]

Nod32 is so good it's scary... Huge public and corporate communication's networks are using nod32.. plus they won awards... That aught to count for something...

The biggie problem is finding a firewall that actually works...

[LaLogo]

Hey Faldo,

yes, the new Norton 360 runs under windows Vista. Check their website and see it for yourself.

And since it only runs with XP and Vista (in its various incarnations) it seems to use special functions for either system - rather than just run on a compatible system or something.

[monosodium]

What does Norton 360 do?

Mostly eat system resources under the guise of protecting your machine.

You should have a decent firewall (ideally a seperate device from your machine - software firewalls are a waste in my opinion) and anti-virus protection, and use the latest version of outlook (not outlook express) if you have it.