Norton 360

[tica]

Until last year I was a very satisfied user of Systemworks. I was talked into changing to 360. I have an older computer with only 256M memory, And as a result performance has gone way down. Also I miss things like "one button checkup". I am considering reverting to systemworks. Does anyone else have this experience? Am I wrong?

[Strider53]

I would agree that Norton 360 is less friendly than previous products I've used. I began with simple anti-virus and then went on to NIS (Norton Internet Security). I used that for several years and was well pleased. I fell for Norton's hype about 360 and have been regretting it the past year. My subscription to 360 is about to expire and I plan to remove 360 and go back to NIS.

I have two very similar computers, one runs NIS and the other runs 360. Guess which one boots faster? Guess which one is almost constantly telling me something needs to be fixed, quite trivial things like Temp files, etc.? And guess which one arbitrarily decides to turn itself off and thus prevent getting on the 'Net?

I'll stay with Norton because of past good experiences, but I'm definitely dumping 360. 

[MelodicWynd]

hi tica - i think 360 is not a good choice for an older system... bit of a hog that i probably wouldn't run on something with less than a gig of ram. i think the V2 is a bit better, and you can give it a whirl for free (it will use your existing subscription) at their upgrade page here.

if it doesn't work, your not out anything and maybe it will help a bit (although with 256 ram, i think it unlikely). which brings me to the point about advertised "minimum system requirements" - most game manufacturers provide pretty honest system requirements, but most other vendors seem to stretch the minimum requirement a lot... how about having "recommended system requirements" next time?

mel 

[Stu]

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Strider53 wrote:

I would agree that Norton 360 is less friendly than previous products I've used. I began with simple anti-virus and then went on to NIS (Norton Internet Security). I used that for several years and was well pleased. I fell for Norton's hype about 360 and have been regretting it the past year. My subscription to 360 is about to expire and I plan to remove 360 and go back to NIS.

I have two very similar computers, one runs NIS and the other runs 360. Guess which one boots faster? Guess which one is almost constantly telling me something needs to be fixed, quite trivial things like Temp files, etc.? And guess which one arbitrarily decides to turn itself off and thus prevent getting on the 'Net?

I'll stay with Norton because of past good experiences, but I'm definitely dumping 360. 

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Which version of 360 did you try?

How did you test what version boots faster?

[Dave]

Hi,

For the system that you've described, I'd stick with SystemWorks. To be quite honest, most software these days (including Windows XP+) requires a minimum of 512mb-1gb of RAM.

360 Does not have the 'one button checkup', however it is just as easy to hit the run button to start all of the scans. Norton 360 is much more sophisticated and secure that SystemWorks, however there is no way that it would run efficiently on the system you have. While I am very against using out-dated security software, some is better than none. 

[whbos]

I've considered the same thing myself.  While I think that the all-in-one strategy is nice, there are a few things left out of Norton 360 as far as disk management.  I always preferred Norton Utilities later renamed Norton SystemWorks.  Norton 360 is lacking in a number of things I miss such as Norton Recycle Bin, running a forced Speed Disk (Norton 360 doesn't allow this in version 2) whether it needs it or not (I will decide), checking drives if there is a problem (360 doesn't seem to do this), and a number of other features that seem to be absent from 360.  They might have been dumped from Norton SystemWorks, but I wish 360 had more pro features for those of us who like to run more advanced diagnostic tools.  Currently 360 is geared toward those who want hands-off performance.

I've been thinking of purchasing SystemWorks and Personal Firewall at full price and giving 360 away to my mother who's a hands-off person.  While 360 does the job, I want what was left out.  When I purchased 360 v1, I thought I was getting the whole package, but apparently not.  It's great for the hands-off person, but not for me since my old, crappy computer has ailments that only Norton Utilities can fix.  Whatever happened to the program that allowed you to uninstall programs within NSW?  It was great for removing everything that Windows uninstallers didn't.

I think Norton 360 is a great tool, but there should be a Norton 360 Pro version that includes everything that NSW and NPF have even if the combo price is the same.

[robertreynolds]

Hi Tica -

I know I'm not answering the question you asked, but thought I'd weigh in. If you plan on keeping your computer for a while, you might consider upgrading your memory to at least 1GB. It will make a world of difference in both performance and stability. Memory is really cheap right now as well.

NSW is dear to my heart since I'm the NSW product manager, but N360 really is a great product and will keep your computer running smoothly.

RR