Norton or McAfee, ? which is best ?

Question

i currently have norton anti virus, i switched on one day and instead of welcome christine, i was greeted with welcome giselle ? this has led me to question my security. im a novice so i asked for advice at my local currys store and was told norton is rubbish and slows your system down. they recomended McAfee, i found this strange as i bought the laptop from them with 3mths free norton on it ? all advice most welcome thamks chris,

Answer 1

Antiviral. (free)

AVG free. Excellent protection available from: http://www.Grisoft.com

Don't use two antiviral products together as they may be incompatible. If your Antiviral trial has run out, then remove product from your computer and get the AVG installed.

Anti-spyware (all free)

O.K. Some quick links to get you out of trouble

Essential products are: Adaware SE from: http://www.lavasoft.com

Spybot SD http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html

Spywareblaster http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Windows Defender - http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Spycatcher
http://www.tenebril.com/consumer/spyware/spycatcher-express.php
Ewido http://www.ewido.com

PC starter kit at download.com 20 of the best recommended programes for people new or less advanced in computers. Check all three pages, at bottom see Security/Tools/Fun

http://www.download.com/PC-Starter-Kit/2001-12350_4-0.html?tag=dir
Now for some informed reading, courtsey of 2-spyware Research centre.
Anti-Spyware contains the list of all known legitimate anti-spyware programs that can effectively detect and remove spyware, adware threats and other kinds of computer parasites from the system. Listed programs have been carefully tested by the 2-spyware.com research center and successfully passed our strict tests. This means that all of them can quite precisely recognize a particular pest, completely disable it by terminating its processes, deleting its essential files, registry entries and other related objects and eventually clean the infected system ensuring that no unsolicited programs will stay and attempt to violate your privacy and harm your computer.

All the products in Anti-Spyware category really work, do not deceive the user by producing false positives and cannot damage a compromised computer while eliminating found malware. However, it is important to know that not all of them are recommended for daily use. Each spyware remover in the list comes with a review describing its positive sides, drawbacks and impression it left. Such review also includes program screenshots, information about its price, implemented features, performance and general effectiveness. We rate tested programs by giving marks from 1 to 100. The higher mark a spyware remover gets the more effective it is. Please carefully read each review, pay attention to the rating mark a program got and read comments published by other visitors. This will help you to make a wise choice and compare your current anti-spyware program with other modern solutions on the market.

If you cannot find a particular spyware remover in anti-spyware category, take a look on the category of corrupt tools. It contains the list of rogue, fake, illegal, even harmful applications that definitely cannot correctly detect and remove various security and privacy threats and therefore must be avoided.

Additionally we provide the list of recommended anti-spyware software that got the highest marks and therefore is the most effective. From the personal experience we can tell that one spyware remover is not enough, different programs find different parasites. You need to do a wise choice.
Anti-spyware tools:
Total Anti-Spyware products in our DB: 71
Recommended Anti-Spyware products:

Spyware Doctor

(91/100) - real time protection; deep file scan; optimal (low) system requirements; complete system scan; highly configurable
Spy Sweeper

(89/100) - real time protection; trial version available; deep file scan; complete system scan; highly configurable
Spybot Search and Destroy

(84/100) - quick performance; real time protection; free to use; highly configurable
Windows Defender Beta 2

(75/100) - real time protection; free to use; deep file scan; complete system scan



For more information from this site http://www.2-spyware.com/anti-spyware

C Cleaner.http://www.ccleaner.com/

This will tell you a lot about what is on your computer, such as running programmes,cookies, History, settings etc. and will help you clean up and remove unwanted items. Be careful how you use it as it is a very powerful programme and you should read the help index before you do anything with it.

Hope this information is of help to you and others.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Norton antivirus is a decent antivirus program but like all other Norton products it slows down a computer. A computer expert performed an informal test to see how various software programs can slow down a computer. Within the group of programs tested, Norton Internet security was found to slow down a computer the most (I included the article's title and URL where you can see for yourself).

McAfee is also a good choice. But, if you plan to buy the antivirus, you might as well buy the entire McAfee VirusScan plus, which includes a firewall and antispyware tool as well.

If you do decide to remove Norton antivirus, be sure to use their online removal tool. Unfortunately, slowing down a computer is not the only thing Norton is notorious for. It is notoriously difficult to remove their software, which is why they created their own tool because they received so many complaints from users. The link is: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039?Open

Answer 4

i've tried pretty much all of them, and i'd say that NOD32 is the best. Norton is great at detecting stuff, nod slightly better. Thing with norton and mcafee is that they can be heavy on system resources. Since installing NOD32 i've had things pop up that nothing else found, norton, f-secure, avast, avg, ad-aware, spybot.

as for free AV, seriously, they suck. AVG will tell you you've got a virus. Avast! will tell you a worm is sending thousands of emails, but they wont do anything about it. Zone Alarms is a great free firewall tho.

Answer 5

dear christine i would choose Mcafee anyday over Norton the reason being that i already have Mcafee installed on my computer and i find it the best internet security to date,it doesn't slow your system down,it's easy to uninstall if you don't like it ,unlike norton which is a pain in the *** to remove plus Mcafee are coming up with an upgraded security suite at no extra cost if you are already a subscriber.Mcafee internet security suite has everthing you want from,personal firewall,antivirus,antispam,antispyware,antiphilsher,privacy service which lets you dictate who goes on the internet with a password of your choice.

Answer 6

I have used both over the years and much prefer Norton. One thing in particular that I don't like about McAfee, is the number of false positives it gives on scanning for viruses.

Answer 7

In my experience, I consider Norton a virus in and of itself because its more hands-on and requires a lot of attention like a little child. I personally use Avast Home Edition. (www.avast.com). I've never used McAfee but if it's anything like Norton, you can better be sure I'd have it uninstalled in seconds flat.

Answer 8

It depends who you are talking to. I prefer Nortons AntiVirus Protection. The biggest problem with these programs is that a lot of people don't set up the options to protect there computer properly. One also needs to be sure they are getting frequent updates and doing regular scans. Be sure your virus protector comes on at start up and works automatically. McAfee is not compatible with my Sattelite ISP. So there are things to watch out for, so that it will work properly with your computer.

Answer 9

Norton and Mcafee are both JUNK. They spend way too much money on advertising .I recommend antivir free edition.

Answer 10

hi m8 i have had mcafee from the start of my short pc life and its been 1st class, i work with a pc expert uer shop man was correct norton is a hefty program and slows uer machine down ,i say yes 2 mcafee.