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Monday, July 07, 2008

Way to start the week

You may remember that about a month ago I had some computer problems. This inspired me to update my Norton Antivirus software and renew my subscription, as I was concerned that a virus could be causing my problems.

Unfortunately, ever since downloading the new software from Norton, my computer has been running even slower — painfully slow. I can't do things I used to be able to do just fine, such as run my scanner at the same time as I am running other programs. I suspect it is the fault of the Norton Antivirus, since the Norton processes are almost always using tons of memory, and since Windows now has to manually end one of Norton's processes (ccSvcHost) every single time I shut down my computer.

Although I've been having problems with computer speed, my email client not running properly, and other things all month, this morning I had the infinite pleasure of starting my week with some major problems. For some delightful reason, my computer froze right after checking my email, and my email client hasn't worked since.

I tried troubleshooting the slow computer problem in the first week after downloading the new Norton Antivirus software, but their instructions (of course) did not fix the problem. I've been meaning to go back and email them about the problem, so of course I tried to do that this morning.

What I found irritated me even more. On the Norton customer support site, you have three options: live chat, which requires you to download software; phone, which costs $9.95; and email, which is free. Since my computer is already running slow, and I suspect it's because of Norton's software, naturally I'm not going to download any more of their software, so live chat isn't an option. Nor am I going to pay ten bucks for them to fix a problem their own software caused. So I opted for email.

When you click on the email option, you are directed to choose your problem. Technically, mine is installating and running, but when I click on that it tells me the only option I am allowed is live chat. Clicking on the "return a Norton product" selection enabled me to email them, though, so that's what I did.

Screw this. I don't have time to be dealing with a slow computer all the time. I'll try a different antivirus software. Anyone have any suggestions?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Switch to McAfee. All the problems I had with Norton crashing my system constantly disappeared with McAffee. And they actually provide customer service.

Lori said...

I had the same issues with Norton. Hated it for that reason. Oh, and the fact that I still got viruses with it. What good is a software to prevent viruses that doesn't? Instead, I had to go to their website and walk through a painfully involved virus removal process. Uh, isn't that why I bought the damn program? So I wouldn't have to do this?

My daughter has McAfee. Not a great improvement in speed, but that's because she has it set to scan automatically on startup. Ten minutes to boot up? I'm working on fixing that for her.

Kathy@TheFlawlessWord said...

Totally agree with Devon. Norton severely slowed down my computer. Since I bought the new one, I've switched to McAfee as well and haven't noticed any slowdowns. They're both about the same price. If you're looking to save money, however, I've heard great things about AGV. They have both free and paid subscriptions.

Katharine Swan said...

Thanks to all of you for your input! As you'll see in my today's post, I've deleted Norton and am working on fixing the other problems. Once that's done I'll figure out what antivirus software to use instead.

Kathy, I'll probably check out AGV first -- I'd run across them doing a search of my own yesterday, too.

Devon, I've also been considering McAffee, but my husband thought it was owned by the same folks as Norton. Do you know anything about that?

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