NORTON slowing down your computer?

Question

I have a pretty good computer, and when i first start it, the desktop loads very fast. Internet access is immediate, my messengers come up very fast.


But when i put in norton internet security, it starts going slower.

ive seen the desktop and its parts take up to 2-3 min to fully load.

Is there something in Norton i can change (a setting) that will help this?

Answer 1

I don't believe it. I mean are you running a pentium 2 still? Because nowadays computers aren't likely to be slowed down by anything. I have a simple 3ghz with 1024 ram.
I run Norton and Sygate. At same time I might be burning a DVD while watching a movie and in the background I might have 4 torrents going. And frontpage still open from this morning. I can also zip big files while this is happening and also have outlook check mail every 2 minutes. I can open a browser session and it'll take 20 secs for Firefox to display.
I bet your prob is the same as everyone else's, you are using a huge hard drive where you store all kind of files together with your OS. You need to partition your drive, give your OS a piece of it then leave your OSalone.
Never trust the Avg brigade, especially if you do internet banking etc, Norton will keep you safe and well.
[e-mail] if you spent 6 hours trying to uninstall a program you are not fit to give any advice to anyone.
By the way, your website at http://sbcglobal.net/ doesn't come up unless you use the www. in front of the domain, this is an easily fixable problem, now that you are aware of it you are half way there, perhaps another 6 hours of your time.

Answer 2

not really.... The reason why you computer is loading slower after Norton Internet Security is due to the algorithm Norton takes to scan your computer.

Like all software firewall, it takes all bits of packets for a file and connects them. Then it scans the files.

It does not have what they call packet filtering nor packet signature reading. This makes the memory utilization very intensive and hence, slow computer

I would recommend to think about a firewall appliance which offloads all the resources Norton takes to another device that will do the work for your network. For AV, I recommend Grisoft/AVG which does a great job on low priority packet scanning and get a hardware firewall (like Linksys Firewall router as example that is cheap and does a decent job)

Answer 3

I renewed my Norton virus protection, and then had to spend six hours trying to uninstall and reinstall the new one. I can't even remember the details of the ensuing nightmare, but it was crazy. I even brought in an IT specialist, and he had the same difficulty. We FINALLY got Norton removed, and then replaced it with NOD32, which is much better than Norton, and is not invasive like Norton. It absolutely does not slow down your computer.

The software is made in Slovakia, but is sold all over the world, and is updated just as often as Norton. The biggest difference is that NOD32 is not invasive, doesn't slow down your computer, and doesn't clutter up your screen with pointless messages and graphics.

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In response to the snide comment by: a58392
The reason it took six hours is the program would start uninstalling but would do so at a comically slow pace, both to uninstall or install. As I said, I brought in a true expert: he runs the computer department at a large company here in Prague, and he had the same difficulty. It would just go in a big circle. Even when we uninstalled Norton, it kept telling us that we had to uninstall the previous version (which we did, and rebooted). It was one of those frustrating situations I would prefer to forget. As for qualifications, I have my MCSE, but have preferred to go into another field of work (a good decision, I'm sure you'd tell me) :)

Answer 4

How fast your applications executes depending on.
1.RAM
2.CPU
3. HD
Then more applications running in background then slower it seems to run. Norton security suite has number of applications running in background and it runs all the time also if it scan you computer on startup that could be a problem. Since this process usually pretty intensive and takes half of yours computer resources. Also remember it does work in background all the time checking incomming and outgoint traffic from you computer ..etc. You can try to disable some of this features and see if it makes difference.
But as somebody mentioned before Norton not very good product and creates more problems then results.

Cheers, DS

Answer 5

Norton is notorious for slowing down PCs because it is a clunky useless heap of trash. It totally destroyed the hard drives on three PCs at my office last year. Replace with something that works.

Answer 6

Yes - its working. Things slow down as they are security checked. Imagine an airport where each person gets frisked.

You can replace Norton with AVG.

http://free.grisoft.com/

Also, consider the upgrade to Linux / Mac OS X as then you won't need to have anti-microsoft-malware wasting any resources at all :)

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Answer 7

I do not believe so. Many corprate (by corprate I mean, major known antivirus companies that you have to pay for) slow your computer down A LOT! My computer came with McAfee and I uninstalled it so I could run my own. I use AVG antivirus. It's great and I've never had a problem with it or a virus.

Answer 8

Yes, Norton can slow down your computer. Consider change to NOD32, it has better virus detection and it's the fastest. If you want to keep Norton, you don't need to uninstall it, only disable the 'real protection mode', since only one antivirus can be loaded in memory.

Answer 9

The setting may actually be in windows update. I have seen the same thing on several computers after installing Norton. Go to windows update and make sure that under the options you are set for Windows updates and not the Microsoft Updates.

Answer 10

Just delete norton it is a resource hog and soon will start telling you what you can and can not do on your own computer(Kind of like VISTA). I would recomend Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Recently converted, and now my computer runs great.