Review by A. H.

I’ve used various Norton products since the 1990s and have used their utilities/tools packages before. However, their software became increasingly demanding on system resources and sometimes caused problems for other programs. So I started trying other products, like Registry Mechanic and iolo lab’s System Mechanic.

I was interested in trying this latest version of Norton out after using competing products for the last several years. It didn’t win me back over. I find the iolo System Mechanic interface easier to navigate, and their software doesn’t cause any problems. Norton’s package, on the other hand, sometimes seems to go too far when it cleans things up, causing problems. For example, I set Norton’s latest loose on a three-year old build recently. (I build my own PCs.) It’s an AMD Phenom II 965BE-based machine running Windows 7 Professional. I allowed Norton Utilities to make some of its suggested changes. Then various programs stopped working. Norton deleted several .dll files that it contended were extraneous. However, programs needed them. Adobe Reader stopped working, among others. I had to repair several program installations after allowing Norton to savage my system. I never had a similar problem with System Mechanic or Registry Mechanic.

Worse, I have a SSD (solid state drive) in that build. Norton Utilities wants to defragment it! You don’t defragment SSDs. iolo lab’s software recognizes SSDs, treats them appropriately, and can even perform proper optimization on them. Norton, on the other hand, wants to treat SSDs like mechanical hard disks. Bad news. Norton badly needs to improve their software to address newer technologies.

The Norton software doesn’t seem as resource intensive now, but it just doesn’t compare to other products I’ve used recently in terms of general trustworthiness. Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, Norton, shame on me. Install at your own risk. I’m going to be removing this software from my PC promptly, hoping that it didn’t do more damage than what I’m already aware of.