Computer's been crashing for months. I fixed it by uninstalling 1 piece of software. What was it?

[Pale Blue Dot]

Go ahead. Take a wild guess.

[Parche]

1. Your Wangdoozle Nut Needed Tightening?

:shrug: :shrug: :hi:

[GOPisEvil]

2. This just in: Norton sucks.

But then, you know this.

[DS1]

3. Norton is the CNN of computer software

It started out very strong, and Ted Turner Peter Norton was hugely respected in the industry. Then it all when to hell, and we have the bloated piece of shit that's Norton Internet Security.

[newmajority]

22. I remember when it was "Peter Norton's Utilities" and it fit on a 5.25 floppy disk.

Now it eats up a few hundred MB's of hard drive space and adds an unbelievable amount of weight to the Windows Registry, much of which does NOT get cleaned up with the built in Norton uninstaller.

Might want to run Crap Cleaner just for the Hell of it. It's freeware, so you can't go wrong.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

As for Norton Internet Security itself, there used to be a great little firewall called "@guard". It also fit on one floppy disk. Norton bought them out and bundled a bunch of other shit with it, and turned it into NIS. I don't think the firewall itself was ever any better than it was as the freeware floppy.

[petronius]

42. And the 5.25" floppy was the most useful thing in the desk drawer

Now, all I see when I read "Norton" or "Symantec" is an application that seems expressly designed to limit my productivity...

[Blue_Tires]

54. very true

[Pierre.Suave]

4. Norton sucks

FYI...

:P

[texas1928]

5. Uh, Norton?

Am I right?

[Deja Q]

6. iTunes!

:spray:

Just jivin'. It would be norton - company's been crap since that wanker John W Thompson left IBM for Symantec... (He ran the OS/2 division, and by 'ran' I mean 'screw everything up that he could before leaving with a golden parachute')

[AlCzervik]

8. works just fine on my machine.

[truedelphi]

20. How would you know?

It might not be turning your hardware into noodles, but it could be NOT doing the vurus protection and other stuff it is supposed to.

[AlCzervik]

21. itunes?

why would itunes be doing that to my mac?

[crimsonblue]

28. why would you ever use norton on a mac?

mac doesn't need antivirus software.. and if you insist on one, there are some free opensource apps that won't fuck things up.

[AlCzervik]

31. i don't.

[crimsonblue]

33. ok.

and I've never had any problems with itunes on my mac. although, I've had my fair share of problems with Safari...

[Mojambo]

57. God, iTunes crashes constantly for me.

It's been even worse since that big iPod software update.

It's synch and hold my breath. Every time now.

[AlCzervik]

7. #4.

[Kutjara]

9. I knew it was going to be Norton before I clicked the link.

It's the single worst piece of software ever invented. It also totally hosed people who installed XP Service Pack 3 and Vista Service Pack 1 (although there's some sort of fix for this now). I haven't used the crap in five years and I never will again.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

10. Same thing happened to me...

I've had 0 problems since switching security systems. Amazing. :bounce:

[MadMaddie]

17. What security system did you change to? I have been

contemplating getting a new computer because it runs like crap.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks,
MadMaddie

[GoddessOfGuinness]

24. AVG...the free version.

I had my doubts when I first heard about it; but folks here on DU swore by it. When RoyGBiv recommended it, I was sold. Removing Norton was the best thing I ever did for my computer.

Before you buy a new computer, try uninstalling Norton and installing the AVG free version. It won't cost anything to try.
Here's the link: http://www.grisoft.com/

[Kali]

26. RoyGBiv is my hero!

actually all the denizens of the DU computer forum are.:applause: :applause: :applause:

[RoyGBiv]

32. Y'all make me blush ...

I thank you.

But there are people in the computer forum that have forgotten more than I ever knew about computers. Good people there.

[RoyGBiv]

30. Pssttt ...

Avast is good too.

:)

Seriously, I did recommend AVG a lot. It's still good, but there were a few problems when 8.0 came out. Nothing earth shattering, but somewhat obnoxious. But if it's working well still, stick with it.

And, yes, Norton still sucks. A lot. Or hard. Which may mean it sucks well, but that means it's bad, but not bad in the cool way of being bad, but bad in the ... well, not hot way ... ummm.

Bad like Republicans are bad. There. I found my analogy. :)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

56. Well I really appreciate your help...

:hug::hug::hug:

[MadMaddie]

59. GoddessOfGuinness thank you for the information. At this

point I will try definitely try it.

MadMaddie

[kedrys]

11. Vista?

Just kidding. Norton. :P

[City of Mills]

12. Hahah good call

Whenever I find that Norton bloatware on a PC i'm working on I advise the owner that I am removing the software. If they insist on keeping it, I refuse to work on their computer. Why waste my time trying to optimize a computer when I know the biggest resource hog is just sitting there in their system tray?

[Frank Cannon]

13. I said "Norton" before I even clicked on the thread

In my experience, Norton ranks right up there with RealPlayer in the Fuck-Your-Computer-Up Hall of Fame.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

14. Windoze.

Easy peasy.

[ironflange]

39. Worked for me

I dumped XP from this laptop a couple of months ago, finally settled on Pardus Linux, and haven't looked back. Sure, programs sometimes crash, but the system always recovers immediately, and I've yet to see the whole OS crash. It's amazing.

[texanwitch]

15. I had AOL crashing my lap top, wasn't even using it.

My computer is running great.

[whistler162]

16. Coulda told ya' that 20 years+ ago...

when Symantec bought Norton.

[TroglodyteScholar]

18. Too funny!

Before I even opened this thread, I thought to myself, "Norton is to blame for this."

Shame on them for continuing to take people's money for such destructive software.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

19. i don't see Windows Vista as an option...

that would have been my guess.

sP

[DarkTirade]

23. My only question is... why the futz did you have Norton on there in the first place?

The only reason it's an anti-virus program is because it hogs all the system resources so that the other viruses can't get a process or memory sector in edgewise.

[TreasonousBastard]

34. Pretty much all new machines come with Norton or...

McAffee installed as "trial" versions. The vendor gets a cut if the sucker, errr, customer actually buys either of those bloated shitbags.

Trick is to find a way to get a nice virgin copy of genyoowine Microsoft XP or Vista without all that shit, most likely from the little guy in the mall who builds machines to spec.

(Half the problems I had or heard of were from the bullshit "freebies" and "enhancements" Compaq, Dell, and the rest throw at you)

[DarkTirade]

40. Yeah, that's something I'm afraid might happen if/when I get a laptop.

My computer I built from scratch myself. But it's a regular PC, not a laptop.

[newmajority]

43. Comcast also offers a free download of McAfee's security suite to their customers.

Of course you can ONLY use it with Micro$hit IE. If a "security suite" won't let me run Firefox, then I really ain't interested in what they call "security".

[TreasonousBastard]

44. But if you REALLY cared about security...

you'd be running Opera. :p

I don't think I've ever used IE much, unless a bank insisted, and even then there was the Netscape option. Dunno who invented tabs, but I discovered them way back at Opera 2 or 3 and fooled around with Mozilla and a few other browsers but Opera was always one or two steps ahead in features and stability. And Opera always was the fastest and safest.

Now, after seeing the latest IE and Firefox, I'm not convinced there's any real difference in stability or safety any more.

It's no fun being a browser snob any more.

[newmajority]

45. I've tried Opera.

It's alright. nothing that made me want to drop Firefox though. But I'm definitely not on the Firefox 3 bandwagon.

[Kali]

25. ...

:rofl:

[crimsonblue]

27. Norton IS malware

my mom, bless her heart, couldn't get her internet to work last week. However, she could still send and receive ping requests (and thus, AIM et al). After trying to figure her problem out on phone (and failing), I told her to call Dell. After 4 hours, they fixed her problem, but how you ask? They had her DL and buy Norton internet security. You see, I thought I had deleted that POS from her computer, but then I remembered that it WOULD NOT ALLOW me to delete it. Months went by until Norton decided to be complete asshats and make her internet not work. Fuckers... the FCC needs to investigate, fine, and slam EVERY norton employee in jail.

[TreasonousBastard]

29. Mine was McAfee who is in competition with Norton...

to be the first to destroy all computers in the name of "safety."

It was absolute hell to clean every speck of AOL and McAfee (and the "free" games!) from the drive. Had to dig deeply into the registry :scared: and it took months for the demons to be properly exorcised.

[DarkTirade]

35. Yeah, McAfee is almost as bad.

[RoyGBiv]

36. A Norton Story ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=242&topic_id=8959&mesg_id=8959

[TreasonousBastard]

47. I read that, and I remember when...

I used to hang out with a lot of bitsmashers working in IBM shops. Old school-- most remembered when they had plugboards and punchcards were the new big thing.

Gawd, they loved their Norton, and the XT was the greatest thing on earth. No Apple II's or Trash 80's in their world. CP/M? Xenix? Perish the thought.

But, they never seemed to actually use their new little machines for any useful work. (Was it because Norton was wiping heir hard drives?)

Then, when I had to actually do useful work on mine, I discovered PCTools, and a whole new world opened.

[quakerboy]

37. It was either Norton, AOL, or Outlook

It always is.

[pokerfan]

38. Antivirus programs are so nineties

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10789_3-9994679-57.html

[Blue_Tires]

55. aww man...i JUST re-upped McAfee security suite....

at least the subscription is only for a year (which is all i'm expecting my computer to last for, anyways)

[Lethe]

41. all of the above?

virus scanners are the biggest scam on the average consumer. Don't even think about installing one unless you are 99% sure you have a virus or malware.

[Joanne98]

46. It screwed mine up too. I guess I should uninstall it. But what do I replace it with?

[KG]

49. AVG

www.grisoft.com. download the free version.

[KG]

48. way, way back when i was much more clueless about computers, i installed the

nortons that came bundled on my HP. immediately things started fucking up. it was a nightmare to uninstall that crap.

its been good ol' AVG since then.

[PVnRT]

50. I took that Norton shit off my computer years ago and never used it again

I warn everyone I know not to use that worthless fucking software.

[Dangerously Amused]

51. I was going to guess AOL until I saw the poll.

The only thing that has EVER messed up ANY of my computers. And boy, was it bad. And then I couldn't get rid of it no matter what I tried. And I tried just about everything because at that point it became a personal quest. Ha, it beat me at every turn. I wasn't rid of it until I got a new computer.

Curse you, AOL!

:shakes fist:

[redqueen]

52. Glad I read this...

I'm using some security software that came on a disk my brother's gave me. I need to find something better.

[kmla]

53. I bet it was the malfunctioning Fetzer valve...

And did you replace those 30 weight ball bearings?

[regularguy]

58. Norton?