I have been a Norton Utilities and NAV, etc. etc. for DECADES since Blueberry iMacs and Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS,
Recently my Norton Utilities Premium tried to UPSELL me $50 or so to buy a Registry remedy called "Ultimate".
In my recollection, that kind of service was INCLUDED in plain old Norton Utilities (not branded with glitzy names like "Premium" and "Ultimate") !!! Right?
So now are they nickel and dimeing us to get the same old service with a fancy name and jacked-up price tag?
I have trusted Norton to protect me from scams. I recently read that an automatically (!!!) activated crypto miner was included in a very recent update?
Not what i was expecting from Norton AT ALL. Peter Norton was protecting us from scams, not becoming the scam, right? Who is minding the store now?
I remember those MSDOS days where Norton Utilities disk editor got down to it. You didn't need to be a programmer to fix something. NAV and such were great products. I forget the name of a couple of Norton Security spin-offs, I think it's "Bullguard" and "Avira"???, you can find them listed in the disclaimer at the bottom of the global terms doc for Norton. Anyways I downloaded one of those apps and noticed instantly this was Norton. Every aspect, VPN, Password Manager, Anti-virus etc are all separate components for sale and all are "upgradable" to something better. Now don't be harsh on them, a capitalist company in a country who is caught in the middle with US, Russia and China has issues. So threatening them for better customer service will yield nothing. The current volunteer guide for a self-help driven format is it. I am sure that you as have I have experienced the difficulty in reaching on the phone "person" whose knowledge depth varies, and the frustration of being hung-up on with no call back. Or since this division of services, the one knows not where the other hand is. But for us there are alternatives. I do not require excessive web trolling, just the basics. For now I am trying to recover what I can from false and misleading ads and a theft of use of my own Core router which offers never come as the can gets kicked down the road. So in capitalism, worthless companies die from no income. I think I will go with the "white paper" approach with made in USA pc-matic.
Totally agree with your comments, they are extracting the urine so to speak and like many I and many others will NOT be renewing when my current licence expires.
Make sure that you De-Select the Auto Renewal in your account is the best tip I can offer.
The choice of a replacement "PROPER, SUITABLE & FOR ITS PURPOSE SUITE" with no catches is down to the individual. It is a shame that they have totally ruined the best Suite that was available for so many years just to rip people off and feed their unbridled greed to make even more money from what once was a loyal following. Hopefully they will go down the Shute just like others have over the years by such marketing.