EDIT: That's for Windows.
Alternative to Norton Utilities?
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Alternative to Norton Utilities?
I have been a user of Norton AntiVirus + Norton Utilities for as long as I have been working with computers. I know there are quite a few antivirus alternatives (and free ones as well), but I'm not sure about the same for Utilities. Anyone could recommend something worth checking?
EDIT: That's for Windows.
EDIT: That's for Windows.
Last edited by Ree on Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
- AKA Panama Jack
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Might as well stick with what you have.
I have been using Norton Utilities 2003 since it came out. I haven't had any reason to upgrade as the newer versions really don't add anything new other than changeing the displays. :p Heck I still using Norton Ghost 2003 because it is easier to use and better than Ghost 10 in my mind. What turned me off on Ghost 10 was the requirement to install .net for it to work and I refuse to install .net.
As to the Antivirus I am using NAV 2005 and it works like a charm. I may upgrade to NAV 2006 when my current subscription runs out.
Another nice thing the 2003 version of Norton Utilities and Ghost do not require activation if you have to reinstall windows but the later versions do.
I have been using Norton Utilities 2003 since it came out. I haven't had any reason to upgrade as the newer versions really don't add anything new other than changeing the displays. :p Heck I still using Norton Ghost 2003 because it is easier to use and better than Ghost 10 in my mind. What turned me off on Ghost 10 was the requirement to install .net for it to work and I refuse to install .net.
As to the Antivirus I am using NAV 2005 and it works like a charm. I may upgrade to NAV 2006 when my current subscription runs out.
Another nice thing the 2003 version of Norton Utilities and Ghost do not require activation if you have to reinstall windows but the later versions do.
<rant>
I don't use antivirus software. There are no viruses on my computer. I don't need to run any utilities to speed it up. There is no spyware on my pc. Ad Aware might complain about a few cookies if I run it but that is about it. I'm hidden behind 2 firewall's and a router.
It doesn't matter what utilities you have on your pc. There are hundreds, if not thousands of backdoor applications that antivirus software won't detect. Just watch what you install.
If your trying to gain performance, buy more ram. Get a faster CPU. Run msconfig, dig in the registry, defrag your hard drives. Most of these speed boost programs just sit in ram act important.
Ack.
</rant>
The new free AOL has free utilities you can use. Zone Alarm and Ad Aware are free as well.
I don't use antivirus software. There are no viruses on my computer. I don't need to run any utilities to speed it up. There is no spyware on my pc. Ad Aware might complain about a few cookies if I run it but that is about it. I'm hidden behind 2 firewall's and a router.
It doesn't matter what utilities you have on your pc. There are hundreds, if not thousands of backdoor applications that antivirus software won't detect. Just watch what you install.
If your trying to gain performance, buy more ram. Get a faster CPU. Run msconfig, dig in the registry, defrag your hard drives. Most of these speed boost programs just sit in ram act important.
Ack.
</rant>
The new free AOL has free utilities you can use. Zone Alarm and Ad Aware are free as well.
I have never had any viruses in my life (except one crappy stuff in my early days which tried to clog my HDD, but it was an easy manual fix). I have no spyware and never will. I am behind a router with a firewall too. And yet I still need antivirus software since I always scan content downloaded from the net (yeah, even that downloaded from 'trusted' sites).astions wrote:I don't use antivirus software. There are no viruses on my computer. I don't need to run any utilities to speed it up. There is no spyware on my pc. Ad Aware might complain about a few cookies if I run it but that is about it. I'm hidden behind 2 firewall's and a router.
It doesn't matter what utilities you have on your pc. There are hundreds, if not thousands of backdoor applications that antivirus software won't detect. Just watch what you install.
Norton Utilities is not something that magically boosts your PC nor are there any programs from the package that stay memory resident if you don't want that.astions wrote:If your trying to gain performance, buy more ram. Get a faster CPU. Run msconfig, dig in the registry, defrag your hard drives. Most of these speed boost programs just sit in ram act important.
Well, I have been very happy with Norton stuff but my happiness was greater when I was still using Win 98 than it is now on XP with SystemWorks 2k5 installed.AKA Panama Jack wrote:Might as well stick with what you have.
First of all, I dislike their current AntiVirus because it does not allow me to easily right-click-the-file-and-scan-it if some Antivirus processes aren't running and I don't want them running since I don't need Antivirus running 24/7 on my PC. Just let me scan myself when I want it, damnit.
I also had a few problems with Utilities such as Disk Doctor refusing to fix problems, WinDoctor not providing any solutions for found problems, LiveUpdate failures or Speed Disk not defragging a few hundred files (not sure if it's actually a problem, may be a valid case).
I just thought maybe something similar but more lightweight could be more useful.
From what I've heard, Norton takes up a lot of resources. I have good experiences with mcafee so far. I use it the same way as you do: scanning documents I recieve and download. I certainly don't trust MS Word docs I get from people on ancient win 98 systems etc ..
But I do think that by far the most important thing is being careful. To be honest, I might have had only a couple of virus warnings in 10 years time. I suspect half of them are bogus false-positives (to scare me and buy upgrades from mcafee).
I just don't click on links I don't know/trust. I do not download all kinds of programs and stay away from the "obscure" sites. I remember a couple of years ago when I still was in favor of "borrowing" software I visited some nasty sites, with bad popups and other sh*t happening all over the place. Full system scan necessary after each visit
But I do think that by far the most important thing is being careful. To be honest, I might have had only a couple of virus warnings in 10 years time. I suspect half of them are bogus false-positives (to scare me and buy upgrades from mcafee).
I just don't click on links I don't know/trust. I do not download all kinds of programs and stay away from the "obscure" sites. I remember a couple of years ago when I still was in favor of "borrowing" software I visited some nasty sites, with bad popups and other sh*t happening all over the place. Full system scan necessary after each visit
- AKA Panama Jack
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In some ways that is true but I feel it is better to be SAFE than SORRY.astions wrote:It doesn't matter what utilities you have on your pc. There are hundreds, if not thousands of backdoor applications that antivirus software won't detect. Just watch what you install.
In the past year Nortons Anti-Virus has only detected maybe a half dozen virus files and thaose came in through my Newsgroup Reader. NAV just notified me and deleted them.
Sure it uses some memory but it doesn't slow down my computer at all so it is worth a few meg of ram.
- AKA Panama Jack
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- Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:21 pm
Well, I will admit than I am not fond of their newer SystemWorks packages. They started requiring certain things from Microsoft to be installed that I refuse to install. That is why I stick with NSW 2003. It basically does the things the newer versions do without all of the extra crap.Ree wrote:I also had a few problems with Utilities such as Disk Doctor refusing to fix problems, WinDoctor not providing any solutions for found problems, LiveUpdate failures or Speed Disk not defragging a few hundred files (not sure if it's actually a problem, may be a valid case).
- AKA Panama Jack
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I don't know about the newer versions but the 2003 version, the last version I think was their best, uses about 20-30 meg of ram depending upon what you enable and that includes NAV 2006 on my computer. And it doesn't use any CPU that I have noticed.matthijs wrote:From what I've heard, Norton takes up a lot of resources.
That's not bad. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut if I haven't tested it myselfAKA Panama Jack wrote:the last version I think was their best, uses about 20-30 meg of ram depending upon
Sorry, only experience with mcafee virus and firewall..ree wrote:Do you use McAfee antivirus only or have you had any experience with other utilities