Norton Internet Security 2005 Review

Norton Internet Security 2005

Internet security package from norton.

I chose Norton's Internet Security suite due to Symantec's excellent reputation, and previous experience with their anti-virus product. I was sadly disapointed. This product is exceedingly difficult to set up and use. If you disable automatic updates, Norton Internet Security seems to update automatically anyway!

For example, when a new program requests access to the internet, Norton does not check the program against a list of known programs or known viruses. The program asks you to approve access without providing you enough information to make a good decision.

In the end, I uninstalled Norton and went with McAfee's internet suite. It is much easier to set up and use!

Your Comments/Opinions

Very disappointed too! Problem with firewall. After installation, service tray gets an icon with a red X through it with error "Firewall client is not configured properly." Tried and researched everything to correct it to no avail. If Symantec had a live

Alan

Do not purchase this if you have a previous version of NIS. Uninstall of the previous version will fail, and of course the 2005 version will not install over any previous versions. You will spend countless hours reviewing help web sites, reviewing Syman

Disappointed in the

Installed Norton Internet Security 2005 - couln't acces internet at all. Completely blocked my internet access. Had to uninstall it to do anything. Not a happy bunny

Colette

Installed Norton Internet Security 2005 - couln't acces internet at all. Completely blocked my internet access. Had to uninstall it to do anything. Not a happy bunny

Colette

have had problems since i installed it. it is junk! tech support is a joke.

kevin

Installed Norton Internet Security 2005 - couln't acces internet at all. Completely blocked my internet access. Had to uninstall it to do anything.

uknown

worse thing i have ever bought nis 2005 spent a full week trying to put it right had to go back to factory settings to put everything right be warned do not buy this item not happy with norton at all

paula

Did not install properly, and cannot even uninstall it now Not happy with Norton either

mARGARET

This Norton 2005 is total crap, block my internet access, unistalled it and return it to Norton.

Keye

I've been using NIS 2004/2005 somewhat successfully until early May 2005. After a Live Update session, I would go check either 'Connections' or 'Firewall' options under the Log Viewer application and it would freeze the app., requiring a manual power-off (hit the power button!) Also, when I went to add sites to the 'safe' list, changes were not saved. I contact support and they say it's a problem w/the downloaded version of the product (no) and that I should reinstall. And oh by the way, if you downloaded the product over 90 days ago, you will need to buy the download service since they don't send media when you buy NIS online. McAfee here I come...

Rob

I've been using NIS 2004/2005 somewhat successfully until early May 2005. After a Live Update session, I would go check either 'Connections' or 'Firewall' options under the Log Viewer application and it would freeze the app., requiring a manual power-off (hit the power button!) Also, when I went to add sites to the 'safe' list, changes were not saved. I contact support and they say it's a problem w/the downloaded version of the product (no) and that I should reinstall. And oh by the way, if you downloaded the product over 90 days ago, you will need to buy the download service since they don't send media when you buy NIS online. McAfee here I come...

Rob

Glad Norton Internet Security 2005 is not just my problem. Suddenly found that not only could I not access internet, but also could not delete it either - tho did eventually using internet exlorer. I never used to get 'Windows Protection' errors until I spent £££££ on Norton. In fact, once I deleted it found there were no errors at all.

Rosethorne T

for all of you who got no net access once installed, there is a way around this that i found. that is go to the options on the internet security part and choose don't auto start on boot. this then disables the firewall on next boot up and your internet will now work but make sure you have XP firewall enabled. i am still hunting the real reason why it blocks net access. it's a stupid product if that's what it does on install !!!

nate

Grrr hate NIS 5, it has just crashed on itself, i tried unistalling the damm thing, but then that crashed, it wont let me get rid of the dam thing,

Grant

Upgraded from norton 2002 to 2005 and wished I hadn't bothered. Messed up my PC and was a swine to install / uninstall.

sparky

Installed NIS 2005, and it works like a charm. Seems just as good as McAfee, anti-spam component works faster, so does email virus checking. Pretty good software suite.

Paul

good one. It was useful

gan

Do not buy this product. After using previous versions with no problem I bought the upgrade. What a mess. It shut down my mail server, it killled my Instant Messages on AOL and it hogged the memory. It does what it wants - granting access to certain proprams through the firewall would not do anything for me. In a nutshell it shut down and screwed up my computers. Do Not Install this product - it is pure crap. Bye Bye Norton - and Symantic - I have had it with you and all your products.

Charles

Hi, I did a post earlier about NIS2005, it went wonky yet again, I did as Symantec said, by doing this, then doing that all to no avail, so I did a complete re-install yet again...! Symantec words not mine, "down to a unstable live update programme", I'm getting peed off now, the darn thing happens again or when it runs out next July IT COMES OUT, for I do not want to be doing a complete re-install every couple of months and having to waste time on 'updating'. It's high time, since Symantec suppose to be a 'Corporate Company' that they 'digitum extractum', in plain English "get their finger out", imagine the problems caused if I had a large company using their product - they must have these problems as well. My advice is try AVG or any other, you won't be any worse off, seriously considering AVG pro myself. - at least it won't 'hog'. I say this with heavy heart because I like the Symantec format - the only nice thing I can say about them at the moment. If they want me to use their products again then I want a reliable version with a reasonable discount fir the hassel I have had with this product. Yes I know there are lot's of problems that could be caused by the 'user' but live up date is 'just ain't one'. Dave

dave

Just got a new dell laptop with NIS 2005 installed. Changed screen fonts DPI to 96dpi, rebooted and NIS2005 refused to run and insisted it was reinstalled. After reading the comments above, I don't think I'll bother

jon

Many of these issues come from failing to read the instructions presented onscreen or the documentation. The review incorrectly states that new programs are not checked against a list of known malware - this is incorrect: when there is no autoconfig and the program asks for user input, the popup gives a short blurb explaining that the program does not match any known bad programs (if that is the case) nad giving other information. Just read the text in addition to the buttons!! Norton can be somewhat complicated, but it offers much more power to the user than other firewalls. Also, while McAfee is a good name in antivirus aongside Norton, their firewall is decidedly inferior -- ZoneAlarm is your best bet if you don't like Norton, plus it has a very effective free version.

Tech

VERY disappointed with Symantec for NIS2005. Ditto on the Tech Support is a joke, their answer to everything is uninstall and re-install..about every three weeks so far. I am currently in the process of disabling everything except Antivirus and installing Zone Alarm as a firewall. AAARRRGH!

Beth

The Antispam sucks, I can't remove from myoutlook toolbar. Does anyone know how. I have use Norton products since windows 3.1. The may be the final straw!!!

Peter

Do not use NIS 2005 firewall and antispam. Turn them off. Instead Download free versions of Sygate or ZoneAlarm.

Spydr

well apparently nis 2005 has an error on my computer...so i cant even get rid of the shite that sstpping me speak to my friends on msn and access sites...error after error...grrr...can any1 help with the unistall of norton

scott

I have NIS 2005 and have had to re-install it when a update went wonky, I did'nt have any trouble with un-installing or installing. I did uninstall by inserting the NIS 2005 CD disc and clicking un-install. I could be wrong here, but if you are using the add remove programmes to remove Norton you have to ensure that all Norton activity is stopped, as it may well be running at start up. Yes NIS does cause system drag, so much so I'm looking elsewhere for AV and firewall, it's quite suprising how faster the system ran without it and I run XP pro with 768Mb of RAM along with a AMD 2000...! XP and Norton will slow the system down considerably if only using 256K of RAM which is about the bare minimum because the RAM gets filled up quite easily with Xp and Norton, XP don't help any with all the added updates which also eats the RAM up. To ininstall without the disc, simply follow Grants & Paul H advice and get the tool from Symantec. Dave

Dave

I had a problematic start, as many of the other reviewers had (numerous failed installs and uninstalls, along with having to uninstall every other Norton/Symantec product installed - 7 total, - blocking all internet access, and the crashing ... oh the crashing). Then I found the key, buried deep in one of the support pages, ****use MSConfig (WinME/XP) to disable all of the statup items. After that NIS 2005 installed like a champ. I cancelled out of the internet configuration, which left my internet access enabled.**** After the install, I just selected the normal start option and proceeded to reinstall the apps I didn't want in uninstall in the first place. Now NIS 2005 is working fine. The only problem that I am having is that it disables ZoneAlarm, whether the Norton firewall is enabled or not. All in all, I should have just bought the antivirus extension, instead of upgrading.

Charles C.

anyone know how to disable norton from doing automatic updates

Matthew

I've just upgraded from NAV 2003 to NIS 2005. My (fast) PC now runs really slowly - about 2 mins from booting to becoming responsive. It seems difficult or impossible to set things up as I want - for example, I run SpamBayes for anti-spam filtering, so I turned off Norton's anti-spam features. Problem is, I can't remove the Norton toolbar in Outlook, even though the tool is disabled in the Norton control panel and I have removed it in Outlook options - it just comes back on restarting Outlook. I can't even hide the toolbar permanently. This is particularly annoying as Outlook is now running an alert every so often warning me that an application is trying to access my address book (presumably Norton's antispam tool), with no option in the dialog box but to enable access (declining doesn't work, so why ask me at all??) Basically, NAS does not seem to play nicely with Outlook (for an Outlook add-in, this is a bad thing), and doesn't allow me to uninstall it or even disable it properly. In addition, some of the internet security alerts seem idioticly paranoid, and the method of getting more information is stupidly convoluted. If Norton tells me there is more information and I click to see it, why not just show it to me, rather than lead me off to windows with hidden sections that I have to reveal and links to other pages? Some alerts identify threats which do not appear in the NIS list of threats, so are they real threats or not? I have no idea. I've also discovered that my PC no longer recognises my digital camera, which was working fine before the upgrade. Was it Norton? It looks that way. I wish I had stuck with NAV alone, which gave me no problems at all. NIS 2005 has introduced many more problems than it has solved.

JJ

Was Offshore for 6 weeks in which time a virus had been picked up by my wife. I bought NIS 2005 and installed the virus did not allow the activation to be received via the internet. I uninstalled as there were other problems appearing. After re-installation the same problems. Uninstalled again and re-installed this time MS Word and Excel programms would not open at all! I use Mizilla so didn't have any internet issues. Now I cannot remove the NIS2005 at all!!!, will try the Symnrt.exe tool sugested above. Very disappointed with this as 2003 was good...

Alfie

Using Windows Uninstall only partly removes earlier versions of Norton products. Symantec offer additional downloads which gets rid of nmost of the remainder. The final recourse is to search the Registry for items beginning with Symantec, then Norton, and deleting the relevant keys.That should clear out enough of the earler version to let the newer one install.

Paul H

Upgraded to NIS 2005 on my XP machine - so far no problems. Did the same on my wife's Win98SE PC and have subscription problems which stop the loading of latest virus patterns. Symantec's support pages suggest 4 solutions, none of which fix the problem.

Phil

argh. this software is a pile of poos. i've spent two days installing, reinstalling, deleting registry keys, temp folders etc, and it still doesn't work. no error messages, installs fine, but when you click on its icon or the icon of any part of the security suite, nothing happens, just nothing. i'm glad this came as a preinstall, cos if i'd paid for it i would be very VERY unhappy.

caid

Since installing NSW and NIS 2005 the View Activity Log in Log Viewer refuses to open...I've tried every conceivable thing I know to configure this thing and still can't view the logs, which is vital to running this software..so what good is it if I can't view the logs...I can hear the cclgview.exe rev up on the hard drive but I just keep getting an error. Going to try another software...

Robert

Norton 2005 likes XP (with 512MB), overloads 95/98 and sometimes ME. Also be sure to manually uninstall any Norton products prior to installing 2005. I have installed it on a number of different sites/computers with generally good results. I recommend NOD32 if Norton does not work for you. Toy Man

toy_man

It is not so difficult to remove the dreaded NIS 2005 - just use the Symanntec tool symnrt.exe available on their site. It removes many other Symantec trash too

Grant

Since I upgraded to NIS 2005, I have had to use the 2003 disc in order to boot up my computer. Any suggestions on how to boot up without the disc? I, too, am extremely disappointed as Norton used to be great.

cheri

Since installing NIS 2005 i am unable to install any programs at all. Any advice please

gary

We have used NIS for a while but now we cant access MSN Messenger and get error code 80072efd. Also when we click on the Norton icon a message comes up saying Symantec Integrator has encountered a problem and needs to close... As we downloaded this from Symantec we cant even reinstall it. We cannot seem to get help from Symantec to solve this. Any suggestions please?

fred

Norton is NOT secure....!see following links http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,65744,tk,dn101101X,00.asp and http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=723 Well, after an virus alert update mine went pera shaped again, this time I had to do a re-format of the HDD it was that bad. I've ditched Symantec and using AVG7 for the time being at the least. Be warned Norton IS NOT secure...! Davy

dave

The Norton I.S 2005 has failed completely. It stopped working and will even prevent WinXp updating. First it came up with the info that a ll30.dll was missing. After that was downloaded and installed, it now comes up with the message: The Norton integrator is not started. There is no response from Symantec at all. Pee poor product, it seems, and sour service.

lleo

Downloaded upgrade to NIS2005 have spent the best part of three weeks without internet, getting very very angry with NORTON'S lack of support.

jezza_hemel

I agree. Norton is less and less effective from year to year. I have been trying to get rid of Ezula, downloaded a tool from Symantec site, delete the registry - still adware is there. Now, it gave me an error asking to reinstall Norton and I can't uninstall it first because of some "error 1006". This is embarrasing. I may get Trend Micro!

jan

installed nortan but can not uninstall as it does not appear in add and remove programs, how do i get it it off. it appears in prgrame file, but when trying to remove it, it say file is right protected

george

Just realised I should have added to previous posts. What use is Norton AV....? No, No think about it. Updates once a week, you update on Wednesday you catch a virus on a Thursday and its in your computer doing the 'nasties' until the next update a week later - aint exactly good is it? Is this why people say so and so brand of AV caught a virus that Norton missed...? Even free AVG7 updates daily but not Norton unless you have the Corporate version which you pay an arm and a leg for. An antivirus IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE UPDATES.

dave

'Lets see if Norton Internet Security 2006 is any better!'

admin

'Upgraded from 2003 to 2005 firewall did - not allow connection to internet computor slow to boot up e-mails take ages to receive and send .Uninstalled and tried to re install all sorts of messages now appear and I cannot log on. My computor operates on me and the 2005 is the only suitable Norton upgrade as reccomended by Norton. I now cannot uninstall because I cannot log on- can anyone help, as at the moment, I am unable to contact the Norton help pages.'

vic

'Systemworks 2006....Upgrade....Warning....Do not do this online. Support personnel range from average to dismissive. Don't damage your OS.'

bob_kapp

'Hmmm, after reading all the commentary just had to add my own. As a PC repair tech., I've installed NIS 2005 on hundreds of PC's and have found it to work very effectively. But the firewall must be set up properly... this includes doing the manual step of having Norton Firewall do a 'program' scan on your 'C' drive, as well as launching the 'Networking' wizard to detect your connection and any router IP addresses. Once these are run your connection problems and program exe's should perform as expected. Note if you do skip these stes in the Config., then yes connection problems and programs will not execute properly. Now a question - using NIS 2005, does anyone know where Norton keeps it's Anti-Spam email folder ? Having some trouble getting back emails that were identified as spam. Thanks !'

ck

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Uninstallers/Norton-Removal-Tool.shtml

Elliot

Norton Internet Security 2005 is the pit. I will not never purchase anything from Norton or Symantec. They do not stand behind their products. I can't uninstall Norton Internet Security 2005 from my PC. I am so angry with the crap Norton or Symantec is selling. How can you charge a customer for tech support(norton or symantec made the product.). The crap does not work and I am pissed. Can someone tell me how I uninstall this crap(norton internet security 2005)? I want my money back. I paid $99 for the bullcrap. I will protest this with norton and symantec. Help!!!!!!!!

D. R. Richardson

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