Norton Internet Security 2005

Installation was hardwork though. You must deinstall NIS 2004 and then install NIS2005, what Norton don't tell is that if you have Systsmworks as well that you should deinstall that as well (because it common components like Norton Antivirus, even though it was not installed for obvious reasons, 2 copies of Antivirus running doesn't make a lot of sense). NIS 2005 isn't intelligent enough to figure that out and it won't install, you get in to an endless loop where it thinks you have NIS2004 or earlier still installed (even though you know you have deinstalled it). Oh, and you find this out after you have uninstalled NIS2004 and then have to go trawling around the internet looking for support with no Antivirus or Firewall. You have to take the whole lot off, even Norton Ghost as it part of Systemsworks and configure everything again from scratch. Now that's dumb...... (I guess unless you are smart enough to know what config files to save and reinstall etc. which I am not as an average user).

Norton's Support Web site great if you enjoy reading knowledge bases of vaguely related data at 3 in the morning. None of this was in their knowledge base when I installed. They do not like to interact with customers through email. They make it almost impossible to find and send in support requests. I guess we are too expensive to service.

Having said that it all runs fine now, but I am not looking foward to my next subscription renewal.

Have fun

I am now using Internet Security 2005, which initially seemed
good value both with Antivirus and Firewall coming in one
(cheaper) package.

Whilst the Antivirus and Firewall parts of IS2005 seem to work
fine the Antispam software does not work at all. Despite the
fact that my ISP has it's own antispam software that labels
suspicious emails as spam, and despite my creating a rule in
IS2005 that any email labelled (by my ISP) as spam should be
rejected it still lets every spam mail in, despite claiming
to work with "all standard" pop3 email clients. It doesn't.

IS2005 is also, without a doubt, the most annoying piece
of software I have ever used. Not only does it slow my PC
down (to a much greater extent than Antivirus 2004 and
Firewall 2004 ever did) it seems to be, if possible, a
totally paranoid and scaremongering piece of software. If
you ever try to turn any part of the package off, such as,
for example, the virus scanning of outgoing email, it
pops up warning messages stating how serious a risk this
will be. How? How will sending an email harm my own PC?
And it doesn't work anyway. Today I wanted to email some
large files I had just created myself (and which were
therefore free of viruses) to my own email address at work.
I turned the outgoing scanning off as past experience
told me IS2005 would take forever to scan them (and got
a warning that this was really serious and my PC was at
risk) and sent the mail. Which IS2005 then spent 5 minutes
scanning anyway, with no cancel scan option.

In other words, as soon as you try to change any option
away from the standard "reccommended" settings it pops up
lots of annoying messages stating how bad this could be.
Why? To scare people?

The warnings that "you are not protected against one rapidly
spreading virus" are also pointless. Why? Why tell me that?
I have auto-update turned on. Why doesn't it auto-update
my protection against this rapidly spreading threat, rather
than making me do it manually?

It seems to me that all these warning messages are to try
to scare people into thinking that if you connect to the
web your PC will instantly die, and only IS2005 can stop
it. It's scaremongering of the highest calibre.