A year ago, I would not be praising Norton. In fact, if you mentioned a Norton product I would have told you to uninstall it. When friends and family asked me to fix their machines, one of the first things I would do was uninstall any Symantec Product on their system.
But times change, and I was impressed by Symantec Norton Internet Security 2009. The install time was under 50 seconds for me. The resources it used were far less than previous versions of their software.
But Norton 360 isn’t Norton Internet Security 2009. It’s a full fledged Security Suite with Backup Solution and System Optimization. Norton 360 is a combo of Norton Internet Security and what used to be called Norton System Utilities. Knowing this, I was kind of afraid of Norton 360, because I believed the bundling of Utilities and Internet Security caused previous versions of Norton to be bloated and slow.
So I didn’t think Norton 360 would live up to the expectations I now had for it because of my great experience with Norton Internet Security. Even after a briefing I had with Symantec last month where they showed that it would install fast and not gobble up System resources, I couldn’t just take their word for it. I wanted to test it out for myself. I basically bugged my contact at Symantec to get me a Gold Copy of the software so that I could check it out before it was released Today.
I will never doubt Symantec again. They are NOT BULL SHITTING US when they say their software will install in under a minute. Norton 360 ver. 3 installed on my system in under one minute. I SHIT YOU NOT.
I timed it at 52.3 seconds. Little slower than NIS 2009, but Norton 360 has more to offer than NIS 2009 does so it’s expected.
One of the biggest complaints people have with previous Norton Products was that they are impossible to uninstall. So, I uninstalled Norton 360, and it did it in less than 3 minutes. The uninstall process did take longer, but most uninstall processes do.
I then installed Norton 360 again; this time it took 56 seconds, but that’s still under a minute. I honestly still can’t believe it. I know that NIS 2009 installed in under 50 seconds for me. It just literally boggles my mind that they are able to install this security suite on my system so quickly. I literally can’t wrap my mind around it sometimes.
After having my mind blown away at how fast Norton 360 installed, I began playing with it.
Norton 360 is split up into 4 Categories: PC Security which handles Virus Scans and your Firewall, Identity Protection which manages your passwords and protects you from phishing attacks, Backup which pretty much is self explanatory, and PC Tuneup which helps you keep your system running fast.
Let’s start with the PC Security Category. Here you will find all the tools you have to protect your system from Viruses, Hackers, Spam and Spyware. There are tools that will scan your incoming Instant Messenger Files to SONAR which basically seeks out viruses on your system. You pretty much need not do a thing. Norton Automatically does it all for you.
However, if you are an advanced user like myself, you can edit settings. You can change the schedule and even tinker with the firewall in a way previous versions of Norton 360 did not allow you too.
Now let’s talk about the Identity Protection Category. Here you find tools that will help protect you from Identity theft.
One of the newest features in this Category is Norton Safe Web. Norton Safe web is basically a web service that notifies you if you are visiting a bad website.
For example, you go to Google.com and you search for something. Norton will place a green check mark next to the link if the site is safe.
If you hover your mouse over the green check mark or the grey question mark, you will be given a little info about the site.
If you click Full Report you are then taken here.
If the site is dangerous it will tell you what the site does that is bad. If you are a webmaster and your site is identified as bad and it isn’t, there is an easy and quick way to have Symantec scan your site again. If they still feel there is something wrong, they will notify you where and what they think is wrong. If their initial scan was wrong, they will correct the status in a few hours unlike other similar services.
In the identity protection category there is also a password manager which makes it easy to keep track of all your passwords. This has been present in the last few versions of Norton 360, but what is new in Version 3 is you are able to categorize your logins.
Then, there is the Backup Category which again is self explanatory. Norton 360 Version 3 allows you to easily configure how you want to back up your data. They even offer free online storage (2GB). This is not enough for the average person in my opinion, but you can purchase more storage if you need it. The cost for additional storage is $29.99 for 5 GB for a year.
Personally, I feel that Online Backup is not cost effective. With the time it takes to back up your data and the amount of storage the average person needs, an external hard drive is more cost efficient. I personally have 18 GB of Pictures alone that I want to back up, another 10 GB of videos, and loads of documents. My total backup is close to 32 GB and it grows by about 30 to 50 GB each year. The 100 dollars per 30 GB I would have to pay per year is a lot of money. I wouldn’t want to pay 500 dollars for online backup in 3 years when I can buy a Terabyte external Hard Drive for 150 dollars. I can buy 2 for $300. If I am really worried about losing my important data in a home fire, I can back it up to the 2nd drive and stick it in my safe deposit box at the bank. They charge $25 – $50 a year if you bank at Chase. They may even give you one for Free if you have the right account and Status with the bank (no minimum monthly deposit amount required). If you don’t have a safe deposit box at the Bank, you can go to your local office supplies store and get a Sentry Fire Proof and Water Proof safe for about $150. I actually bought one during Christmas on sale for $79.99.
A suggestion to Norton, if you want to increase the Online Storage Market, make the pricing reasonable. You may have to work with ISP’s to prevent them from capping and throttling users who are backing up large amounts of Data to your servers.
But you don’t need to use Norton 360 Online Storage for your backups; you can use a hard drive on your computer, an external hard drive, CD’s or DVD’s.
I personally have Norton 360 backing up to my Western Digital My World Book Edition NAS. While My World Book came with a free copy of WD Anywhere Backup, the Norton Backup Solution is 100 times better in my opinion. Sorry WD.
Now let’s move onto the PC Tuneup Category. Here is where you will find tools that optimize your hard drive. This helps speed up your hard drive. The registry cleanup is here; this helps keep your registry clean and error free. It also has a start up manager that is easier to understand than MSCONFIG.
You can even run a diagnostic report on your system. While that might sound scary, Norton has actually made it easy to read and understand. If you are an advanced user, you can dive deeper into the report as well.
Norton 360 Version 3 is an amazing product, and I still am shocked at the speed of its install. I also ran a virus scan, and that was super fast as well. It really helps that Norton 360 has Norton Insight which pretty much tells the Virus Scanner which files it can ignore because they are trusted.
Overall, it’s a fantastic product and a definite Must Have for any PC owner. If you just purchased a new PC and Norton 360 version 2 or lower is on it, upgrade to Version 3. You won’t have to pay a dime for Version 3 as long as you have time left on your subscription. If you don’t have time left on your subscription, buy it because it’s a great product. Because it’s so great and as we said a definite Must Have, we award Norton 360 Version 3 our March 5 Star Must have Award.
To get your copy of Norton 360 visit http://www.norton.com it’s worth every penny. Version 3 retails for $79.99 or $99.99 for the Premier version.
Comments: (40)
Colin Rich on Fri, Sep 11th, 2009 at 02:19 AM
Upgraded Norton 360 V2 to V3 and I cant do Live Update, Norton reports that it is up to date but my virus defs report it is 180 days old with red flag. Fix this with intellgent updater “50 Mb every time” and its ok for a week but still cant update?? Revert back to Ver 2 it works like a charm. reload Ver 3 and the problem is back. This ver is Norton360 Ver3.00.135. I will have to go back to Ver2 and also run Anti Malware with it as norton fails detect all malware and the PC gets compromised. Ive had 2 Technician trying to resolve with no success “15 hours and 1Gb of bandwith later still no joy”
Mike on Wed, Sep 16th, 2009 at 08:02 AM
Take note of the Lisence keys for the program, run the Norton removal tool and reinstall.
I had a problem with first install, and safe mode was even not working : /
Ran the tool, hit the app, all was good.
Colin Rich on Wed, Sep 16th, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Have now uninstalled with norton removal tool 3 times and reinstalled 3 times with no joy, and then I installed Ver 2 and it works perfectly but with ver 3 I still dont have any joy. This must be a ver3.xx problem and Ill have to wait till a new one is released. I even tried the trail ver3.00.1.24 and still tries to update but in the end norton V3.00 informs me my defs are all up to date but they are not.
Please note this is on my PC and my Laptop and they have the identical fault.
Mike on Wed, Sep 16th, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Well, at least we have a place to start.
Which OS are they, SP / Updates, any custom software, those kinds of things. Something that could be playing with the Windows Registry perhaps?
I would think if you sent something like a Belarc snapshot to Symantec they could tell you if you may have a conflict somewhere.
Clearly not instant action, but if it’s machine-related, it should be addressed as an individual issue, even if experienced on two machines.
Try grabbing the D/L again first, the standard 3.0, not premium. I did that the wrong way round and it hosed my laptop.
Colin Rich on Thu, Sep 17th, 2009 at 04:42 AM
OS = Win XP SP3 on both PC and Laptop
PC is all internet related Apps Eg Firefox, Skype, Google world, Outlook express etc
Laptop is for Video work
Differnt apps.
Ver 2 works no problems.
This was a upgrade from ver 2 to ver3 I have downloaded the upgrade file from the server twice.
Checskums are identical and instll is 100%
Even the trail ver3 which is a diff ver3.xx does not work.
I think it is now up to Symatech to fix, Ive done my bit now, search on google Norton Ver3 problems and count the number of hits. Maybe Norton must stand up and be counted or I will not renew it again. I still have 300 days of protection left with Manual update which is req Every 4 days at 50 Mb a pop.
Have informed Symantic but have only had two techies trying to resolve but cant and then they do a manual update which is only good for 4 days then it require another??
Not Happy Chappie
קריקטורות on Sat, Oct 17th, 2009 at 06:47 PM
I have used Norton for years without issue. 360 messed up all 3 of my computers and once you put it on, you can’t just take it off to fix the issues. If you have Quickbooks- watch out! This program has many compatability issues and will cause many more probems than it will fix.
Jackie Anas on Wed, Oct 28th, 2009 at 11:47 AM
I’m sort of at my wits end. On Oct. 13, 2009, I purchased online the Norton 2010 Antivirus protection (an online renewal.) I probably should have uninstalled the expired 2007 (No, I never installed an ‘08 version.)version, but I didn’t. I paid by credit card and my bank said the statement would read something like http://www.abd-???.com....sorry, I’m not at my home computer and don’t have the exact site.
The 2010 took care of the malware and spyware I had. (Which is what prompted me in a hurry to go ahead and purchase online.) I spoke with my son-in-law and he walked me through getting the icon on my screen.
Well, about 2 days later, nothing. The icon is gone and I cannot find anywhere that it says I purchased the product. I have looked in every record on the computer that I can imagine and nothing. I was able to go to the http://www.abd...site and gave them some info. and it does have a record of the purchase. But, you just cannot get in touch with Norton unless you have a product code. All I have is a registration code--a set of 16 numbers separated in groups of four. All I know, I WILL NEVER RENEW ONLINE!!! Now, I have nothing from Norton to show I spent $51.45 on this item. Can you imagine what could have happened? Thank you for any information.
רשלנות רפואית on Sun, Nov 01st, 2009 at 08:59 AM
No Firefox Support! Interface Has Its Problems. Norton 360 is a something I advise users to buy in the near future.
sara on Thu, Dec 03rd, 2009 at 02:16 AM
I want to remark that Symantec says, it has the fastest and smallest version yet of Norton 360, taking an average just one minute to install and less than 10MB of memory. Users of the security suite will also benefit free web, email, chat or phone-based technical support. And also Norton Safe Web, a web site rating service, is designed to extend protection to the users’ online experience – whether browsing, searching, shopping or interacting.
טכנאי מחשבים on Sat, Dec 05th, 2009 at 12:13 PM
I had a Symantec anti-virus program a few years ago and had a lot of trouble with it. I decided to give it another try. I had just reformated my hard drive and had my computer working great--and then I loaded 360 and it’s a load itself. I slowed everything to a crawl. I will now test their 60 day satisfaction gaurantee and see how that works! Why was the article so positve, but the majority of the comments are negative? Umm, makes one wonder…
טכנאי מחשבים on Sun, Dec 20th, 2009 at 09:47 AM
Don’t waste your money on this one. It will slow your machine to a crawl and not give you basic protection, then the factory will give less than any help brfore asking for more money. I paid about $100 for the program and to fix my computer they wanted another $100.00. What a waste of money, live and learn.
dumber on Thu, Feb 04th, 2010 at 06:13 PM
The complete review for the software application can be found on http://forums.techarena.in/reviews/1104941.htm
russell shaw on Sun, Feb 14th, 2010 at 01:39 PM
Hi, Im sure u already know what it says under this message of mine, Hope you can help Cos im sick of seeing it.
Its like a virus or some sick crud you cant get rid of,Im using norton 360 ver 3 & everythime i click tasks/run scans /comprehensive scan or let me choose ,I get the message ONE CLICK SUPPORT followed by that welcome to wel see it under this, Oh & i dont get any scan Just message UP TO DATE after its finished buggin the crud out a me, Sorry im just so unhappy i was ok b4 i used windows 7 /Its the one click support i think.
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Andy on Sat, Feb 20th, 2010 at 05:52 AM
A near-perfect all-in-one solution for brand new PCs, Norton 360 v2 may be hard to install and run on legacy machines. However, don’t count on Symantec’s time-consuming and expensive technical support for help.
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R Lewis on Fri, Mar 05th, 2010 at 12:59 PM
*** Norton NIS 2009 and 360 has Failed me 3 times this year! - and let viruses in my computer (and all was on and with mith a valis subscription). Then when ya try to use Norton support they want $139 to fix what they should have caught in the first place. That “XpAntiSpyWare2009” virus/malware went right by my Norton NIS and whacked me( dammage was aldeady done b4 Norton ever caught it!) - Norton support literally said they cant get em all… Oh No, Thats a real problem!
I think they goin downhill fast! I gotta move on cause Norton isnt gettin the protection job done! Others, (Kaperski, Avast, and AVG, etc) are rated much better protection with spy and malware… Gotta do something cause Norton isnt catchin what is should lately…
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