Ramblings of an old Doc
Published on December 24, 2011 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

 

Hey… Doc loves a freebie, especially a good one that’ll point out shortcomings in security and performance.

So, it’s taken Symantec years to rehabilitate its name, and I read a review that really amazed me: Not in a good way either.

AnandK (a regular reviewer at The Windows Club) wrote a review of this free tool made by Symantec, which you can read here:

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/trust-norton-pc-checkup-tool

In short, not good at all: It finds “false” threats (regular, simple cookies), and doesn’t detect your own security software (if, I hope you have installed) and tells you that you are vulnerable. It’s suggestion to fix this? You guessed it: Buy Norton software.

It also tells you your PC performance is poor. Maybe, but AnandK is a fiend with his computer. He reviews suites and MS solutions regularly, and I believe him when he says his machine is lean and mean. He also made numerous restore points which the “diagnostic” software didn’t detect. Well, maybe it only detects Norton made restore points. If so, what’s the point?

So, Norton PC Checkup is at worst “scareware” and at best “adware”: 11.5 Megabytes of it.

Avoid it. Doc rates it two thumbs down. Maybe they’ll fix it, but its rep is shot.

If you want a good tool, try Secunia's, here:

http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/

To those celebrating, Merry Christmas from me to you and yours!


Comments (Page 1)
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on Dec 24, 2011

If I even thought of using Symantec software, I would need a checkup! 

on Dec 24, 2011

Agreed.

on Dec 24, 2011

I too agree, Norton is horrible security. It's a shame companies actually sell this poop to consumers.

on Dec 24, 2011

I gave Norton the boot soon after setting up my Toshiba. MSE, Threatfire, MalwareBytes plus some clean up utilities like CCleaner and Glary Utilities. Don't need more than that.

on Dec 24, 2011

roflmfaoo
a shame companies actually sell this poop to consumers

Actually this is free. It's just not worth it.

on Dec 24, 2011

I was talking about Norton as a whole product but yes even free it's still not worth it. Merry Christmas to all.

on Dec 24, 2011

DrJBHL
Actually this is free. It's just not worth it.

LOL

Is anything Norton 'worth it'?

on Dec 24, 2011

Knew someone would catch it. Their Internet Security Suite is ok. Each vendor has its ups and downs... taking the long view? I try to win free software when I can.

Is anything Norton 'worth it'?

Yup... Ed Norton, "The Honeymooners" (Art Carney).

on Dec 24, 2011

They are making it hard to go back, once bitten ...

on Dec 25, 2011

Even freebies should work. Mine do and if Norton was half as good as they claim to be ...well we all know the answer to that one.

on Dec 25, 2011

actually Norton products are not as bad as described. Im neither do commercial for them also im not trying to protect the product current bad status but i was using Norton back in 2008 and it was one of the safest security options you could have as a total unfamiliar www user. Back then it was a quality product that  was under the top 3 places in security solutions.And it always have been that way that shareware wasnt as good as the full software licence ( any Norton user knows ) The worst part is that Norton got slower and slower with each new version...But there is even worse than Norton...much worse Even if i dont agree completely on the article i thank you for warning others to keep them from filling the recycle bin more and more with unusefull products that only are sufficiant when it becomes a full product.

on Dec 25, 2011

Here's irony for you...

I clicked on the first link link in the story to check out the review and it opened up a fake antivirus attack.

The irony in this is look what stopped it...

 

At this moment I'm pretty happy I have Norton's Internet Security on this machine, else I would be spending the day cleaning up the fall out from the attack.

on Dec 25, 2011

I don't understand how it did that, CarGuy1. I check links before posting. I just checked it again. Led to the article I described.

I'd like to hear from people who don't have Norton on their machines where the links lead them.

My MSE, Threatfire, WOT and Bitdefender give no such warnings...

CarGuy1
At this moment I'm pretty happy I have Norton's Internet Security on this machine, else I would be spending the day cleaning up the fall out from the attack.

If it were a true warning. Another Moderator has checked this and has not found what your Norton did. He does not use Norton.

on Dec 25, 2011

The link took me to the article also. This on my XP laptop which has NO A/V installed......and I'm still alive!!

I trust Doc's links, I can't say the same for Norton.

on Dec 25, 2011

Which link? All the ones I see are ads. I'm curious to see if mine can pick up what CG's did.

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