Review by William A. Levinson

As a past user of Norton Internet Security (experience with NIS 2002), I feel an obligation to warn people off of this product.

(1) In 2004, a Live Update apparently created a situation in which my computer’s performance slowed to a crawl, with NIS using about 99 percent of the CPU as shown by Task Manager.

(2) More than a dozen E-mails to Symantec’s customer service and technical support representatives went unanswered, as did at least one fax addressed to the department’s manager. This demonstrates the company’s attitude toward quality and customer service.

(3) After early 2006, I could no longer buy virus definition updates. Symantec told me I’d have to buy the newest edition of their software, despite online reviews about it ruining entire computers (people had to reformat their hard drives). I recall that one of their technical support people said it was a good idea to reformat one’s hard drive every so often. Instead, I bought Frisk F-prot (same annual price for virus definitions) and it has worked fine for 1.5 years.

(4) I can’t uninstall Norton Antivirus via Windows Control Panel. If I disable the registry keys, it jams Word for Windows and every other Windows program that calls for a virus scan. In other words, even though I no longer use it, it still takes up space on my computer and I can’t get rid of it.

I was an advocate of Symantec products five years ago. My more recent experience is that its software is of poor quality, and it has nothing but contempt for its customers.