This will not surprise anyone who knows about computer

[fpb]

How in the name of Hell and of every variety of evil did Norton Antivirus ever become the best-selling commercial protection software? The damned thing is as damaging as the viruses it's supposed to fight. It has just caused me the most elaborate and unmanageable computer crash I have ever seen, which even led to me being physically injured (as I was removing the battery and the power cable, the only way I could see to shut the machine down, it fell over straight on my ankle, where it cut right into the flesh). To misquote the old song, Norton is a moron.

Comments

[secularhermites.livejournal.com]

Good marketing. However, I would have to agree with you (and many others). I use it as well - and it causes me numerous problems. The most frustrating is it's conflict with Quickbooks Pro. Sorry about your toe :(

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I already had bad experiences with it in the past, and my ankle (not toe) just was the final straw. I should however say that if you have never tried getting rid of it, you should. AVG Grisoft has a good anti-virus system whose basic version is free to download, and you can integrate it with equally free SpyBot and AdAware: a combination of three helped me clear out a computer that was absolutely lousy with viruses and Trojans. Other people in this thread recommend Avast and Kaspersky, which I have never tried, but they can hardly be worse than effing Norton!

[secularhermites.livejournal.com]

I guess that's telling how much the imagination plays a part when reading - and in a hurry! ;) (toe/ankle) Thanks for the suggestions; in Sept the subscription runs out, I'm moving on. I'll have to do some checking to see if any of the said others conflict with QB.

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Part of it is marketing, and the other part is lots and lots of big licensing agreements with really huge companies and computer manufacturers. I detest Norton and have not used any of their products since the mid-90s. They are terrible and completely overrun your system and cause even the best systems to lag and do odd things.

I use AVG and Avast antivirus softwares.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

So do I, except Norton was pre-installed in my new laptop. I thought it could do no harm to have it on for the one free month. HAH! I did not even know that a computer could crash like that, with the screen fading on and off, pieces of graphics from different pages chaotically arranged in varying pattersn, and, of course, absolutely no response to the "shut down" and "ctrl+alt+del" commands. Some day when I've calmed down and my ankle has stopped hurting, it will make a scary campfire story to tell any grandchildren.

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Norton is insidious. Hopefully they will have been stamped out before your grandchildren arrive. One generation having to deal with the Norton menace should be enough for the world to learn the lesson.

[guarani]

Two options:

1- Migrate to Linux... it's become quite friendly and, unless you have very, very specific software needs, it may suite you very well.

2- Use Kaspersky anti virus (www.kaspersky.com). None is perfect, of course, but some are less intrusive than others.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

In spite of everything that can be said against Windows, I find that in general it works for me at least well enough that I do not feel the urgent need to change. Even the screen crashes that used to sicken me every once in a while seem to have become less frequent - or maybe I have got smarter in using the system. Mind you, Vista might be the straw that breaks the camel's back - worse in that this is the first computer I ever bought new, instead of second-hand, with a seasoned Windows system full of patches and improvements. Norton, however, is different. I have never once had it on (I used it for brief periods a few years ago, and now I got one month free with the new machine) without any serious problems. Conversely, AVG has always satisfied me - for one thing, you can set it for three in the morning when you are asleep, and for another, the worst it does even at the height of activity is to slow down the computer a bit. Norton works so badly, especially compared to AVG - and AVG's basic model is free - that it was wholly counter-intuitive to me that it should sell at all, let alone be the marktet leader. I think superversive below gives quite a credible account.

[guarani]

If it ain't broken, don't fix it. But it's always good to be aware of the available options.

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

Bleh on Linux! As much as I love the idea of open-source computing concptually... I have yet to get Linux to *actually work* when I've tried to use it. Even the supposedly ultra-friendly Ubuntu, which even a non-savvy person is supposed to be able to set up and get going with right away.

The day that I can can Linux to function as easily and painlessly as Windows does most of the time, then I'll jump on the bandwagon with you. But that day hasn't come yet.

[guarani]

I'd been using it since the late 90's and had never had any problem deploying it either in a corporate network or in personal computers. Now I'm not using it just because the only PC I have access to belongs to the company that hires me, and Linux is not an option for it. But I'm planning to mount my own notebook, which will run Linux (and maybe have a WIN partition to be used with VMWare, for the few programs that I cannot get to run under WINE).

That being said, I understand that the choice to use of a given system comes always from a combination of factors, and I'm not aware of yours (except for the ease of use that you mention). All systems have their pros and cons, and this is by no means some sort of "evangelizing" crusade.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

Seriously? Makework for IT departments. Almost every major corporation and public institution, in the Western world at least, contains a fifth column of technicians whose jobs depend upon the ridiculous difficulty of maintaining Windows networks and the Norton software that allegedly secures them. (Repeated studies have shown that an all-Mac network requires about one-third as many IT staff as an all-Windows network of the same size. Linux, too, is rapidly improving in this respect, as information about administering Linux systems becomes more widely disseminated.)

Many of these technicians, and perhaps most of the CTOs who make IT purchasing decisions, have extensive training with Windows and Norton, and virtually no experience of other systems. Some of them take shelter in protective ignorance. They think there are no alternatives, or that the alternatives can’t be any better than what they’re used to because ‘that’s the way computers are’. As Upton Sinclair said, ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’ Others, more informed, cheerfully acknowledge that their jobs should be unnecessary, but are not foolish enough to lobby for changes that would make them redundant.

The ‘good marketing’ that keeps Windows and Norton (the lesser flea on the back of the great one) in their dominant positions is largely done by keeping these fifth columns strong and well-indoctrinated. It’s a variant of the old IBM game, where the only people who ever touched the computer were salaried IBM men in white lab coats, and if a salesman ever lost an account, he had to pay back his commission. It’s a classic example of one monopolist learning from another.

I myself don’t use Windows unless I’m forced to use a specific application not available for any other OS. And except on those rare occasions, I don’t use Norton or any other anti-virus software, because I simply don’t need any. Nor do I have to contend with adware, spyware, or any other kind of malware, except, of course, that my inbox is clogged with spam just like anyone else’s. The number of people who find this incredible is a sad testament to Microsoft’s and Symantec’s success.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

So much for the unthinking believers in the wonders of the free market and the efficiency of private corporations.

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

*bitter laughter* Odd how this topic keeps coming up so much of late.

I really, really *want* to like Linux, you know? I'm always, ideologically, rooting for the underdog in the tech world. Linux. Mac. Nintendo. The guys who are *different*, who don't follow the monolithic corporate groupthink of Microsoft and Sony.

"If you can get it to work, Linux works beautifully." Well, so far, I haven't gotten past the first clause of that sentence. Once I do, I'm sure I'll rejoice and never look back.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

The trouble is that without the free market and the private corporations, we probably wouldn’t have computers at all; and if we did, the operating system would be written and maintained by some department of the state. Bureaucracy is odious wherever we find it. The sole advantage of Mr. Gates’s bureaucracy is that Microsoft can go out of business if enough people choose to stop buying its products. If we voted on operating systems, there would be no legal alternative anywhere.

I can forgive the free market many of its sins because it lets me take my business across the road. As Churchill said of democracy, capitalism is the worst of all economic systems, except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You speak as though big business had anything to do with the free market. Oligopoly, let alone monopoly, is not free market.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

Where a free market exists on any significant scale, big business is bound to arise, because a market that forces businesses to remain small is not free. Of course oligopoly is not a free market; it’s a disease that afflicts free markets.

—But abusus non tollit usum; and in this case the abusus arises from the free decision of businesses and consumers to ignore alternatives. Freedom unfortunately includes the freedom to make foolish choices. As long as those alternatives remain viable, the market is doing a job that regulation has never accomplished and isn’t suited for.

[secularhermites.livejournal.com]

By 'good', I mean 'effective'. They exist to be profitable, and it works for them. What about us? - to them, it's simply an imagined problem until it starts affecting profits.

Forcing power off

[tapinger.livejournal.com]

With regard to shutting the machine down: You can often force a power-off by holding the power button down for 10-15 seconds. You might try it next time.

Re: Forcing power off

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I actually mentioned that it was not working (...and, of course, absolutely no response to the "shut down" and "ctrl+alt+del" commands). You may have missed it because it was in a response to patchworkmind.

Re: Forcing power off

[tapinger.livejournal.com]

I saw that, but wasn't sure if it included holding down the actual power button, which often has some kind of hardware attached to it that will force the computer off even in the case of a bad hang. Note that this is different from just pressing the power button, which I guess is something left for the operating system to handle these days. I don't know if most people shut down their computers this way or if they still use the menu option.

With the screen fading in and out, I can imagine that it was messed up enough to require more drastic measures.

Re: Forcing power off

[fpb.livejournal.com]

All I can tell you is that I have been using computers for almost twenty years and I have never seen a crash like that. I almost wish I could recreate it, just for the astonishment value.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

I've been using Trend Micro. I also disliked Norton-- it was worse than Itunes for taking over the computer.

So far, so good, with this thing.