Page 1 of 1

Alternative to Norton Utilities?

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:14 am
by Ree
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. :wink:

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:15 am
by Benjamin
What exactly are you wanting to accomplish?

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:16 am
by thiscatis
I don't know if it has all the same stuff but i'm using a custom made Admin Power Pack 2006
or Hirens Boot Disk 5

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:18 am
by Ree
astions wrote:What exactly are you wanting to accomplish?
Just checking alternatives.

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:58 am
by AKA Panama Jack
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.

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:05 pm
by Benjamin
<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.

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:09 pm
by Grim...
Free, non-intrusive and seems to spot everything (so far, at least): AntiVir.

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:55 pm
by Ree
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.
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: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.
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.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Might as well stick with what you have.
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.

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.

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:49 pm
by matthijs
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 :)

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 3:03 pm
by Ree
Do you use McAfee antivirus only or have you had any experience with other utilities such as System Mechanic, Registry Power Cleaner (those are just a few from available on their site)?

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 3:32 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
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 some ways that is true but I feel it is better to be SAFE than SORRY. :)

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. :)

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 3:37 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
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).
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. :) I would recommend that people look for NU 2003 or NSW 2003. You can usually find them dirt cheap anymore for a couple of bucks and well worth it.

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 3:39 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
matthijs wrote:From what I've heard, Norton takes up a lot of resources.
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.

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 4:16 pm
by Benjamin
AKA Panama Jack wrote:In some ways that is true but I feel it is better to be SAFE than SORRY. :)
All my important files are on a Samba share with permissions set via linux. Even if windows were to get infected, windows doesn't have access permissions high enough to do any damage.

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 4:43 pm
by matthijs
AKA Panama Jack wrote:the last version I think was their best, uses about 20-30 meg of ram depending upon
That's not bad. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut if I haven't tested it myself :)
ree wrote:Do you use McAfee antivirus only or have you had any experience with other utilities
Sorry, only experience with mcafee virus and firewall..