AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG

[telophase]

I run Norton Internet Security on my machine so I can have a firewall and an antivirus thing happening. Used to have MacAfee, but their firewall refused to play nice with my internet connection, and unless I could actually get on the internet, there wasn't much point in having a firewall.

It's been telling me with pop-ups when it tries to update that my subscription expires on September 22nd, and I wasn't going to bother to renew that until closer to the 22nd, only it finallyd ecided I wasn't actually good enough to get those three weeks and started telling me that it had completely expired.

So I get cranky and decide to go renew the damn thing. Oh look - upgrades available. OK, fine, I'll upgrade the damn program.

I should never buy software online when I'm cranky. I manage, of all things, to instead buy the upgrade to Norton AntiVirus, and not Internet Security. Which, inexplicably, installs Just Fine despite the original not actually being isntalled on my system. And AV won't update its virus definitions because the IS subscription-expired popup keeps coming up.

So fine. I can fix this. Let's email Support, explain what happened in clear English, and say exactly what I want to do: I want to get a refund for AV, delete it from my computer, and get the IS upgrade.

I get a response back in two hours. The person says that the pop-up problem occurs because I have a version of IS on my computer and I need to completely uninstall it before installing AV.

KILL MAIN DEATH KILL STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB

I've sent back a reply, point9ing out that he did not read my support request very carefully and detailing the two problems. If *that* doesn't work, I'm getting the damn refund and switching to something else. I had problems getting the subscription renewed last year - they had to send me a new registration code or something - and it's too much hassle to deal with.

So: anyone have recommendations for a firewall/AV that is *not* Symantec/Norton or MacAfee? (The free version of ZoneAlarm tended to kill my bandwidth, too, so I'm iffy about the pro version.)

Comments

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

After Norton was absolutely awful on my computer, I switched to AVG on the recommendation of the Bujold list, and have been very happy since - it is very unobtrusive and efficient and trouble-free so far.
http://www.grisoft.com/

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm happy with its performance, except for the subscription problems - it's been a dream and I haven't gotten anything on my computer except for one or two minor pieces of adware that it finds and kills. But if I'm going to have to argue with them for a few days every year when it comes time to renew my subscription, I might as well switch to someone else where I don't have to do that.

Thanks for the rec: I'll check it out. :D

[marith.livejournal.com]

Norton annoyed me so much with its popups (especially the way they would grab the screen focus in the middle of MMORPG combat to announce things) that I switched to Panda. So far, no problems.


(plus, you get a little icon of a panda eating leaves in your task bar every day as it updates, if that sort of thing affects your consumer decisions.)

[dusk.livejournal.com]

AVG. Works every time. http://www.grisoft.com, I believe you can find it there.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Panda Anti-Virus is what I replaced MacAfee with, after I got attacked by a massive spyware attack. http://www.pandasoftware.com

[obviouslyanon.livejournal.com]

I've heard good things about Comodo Personal Firewall (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1969207,00.asp)

[taer-silveroak.livejournal.com]

Heh, cute userpic. What series?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D Thanks! On behalf of whoever it was who made it who's credited in the keywords if you care!

It's Blade of the Immortal, a most excellent pseudohistorical manga with rockin' art and story. Published by Dark Horse here in the States. I actually meant to put *this* icon on the post, but since they both have Manji's name in the keywords, I managed to pick that one instead. Manji is a scruffy samurai-class outlaw who is cursed with immortality. He can't die until he kills one thousand evil men. He hooks up with Rin, a naive 16-year-old girl who is out to attempt to get revenge on Anotsu, whose men killed her father and mother. That's the bare bones of the story, there is more than one side to every person, almost nobody is pure good or pure evil, the entire situation is a big mess and oh my god is it excellent.

[taer-silveroak.livejournal.com]

Yeah, back when I worked in a comic/game store (6-7 years ago at least) it was one of the few mangas that the store carried. That and Crying Freeman both look interesting. I'll have to check them out soon.

[arkanefyre.livejournal.com]

If you download the Internet Security Suite from Zone Alarm, I can give you the key.

I liked it so far, but I had to tweak it a bit to get it to work with torrent sites and irc and such, but it wasn't too hard.

I don't know why it's dragging your bandwidth though... :/

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

So far, I like Avast. ..... I think that has a firewall.

McAfee is ew. I can't believe my parents still insist on using it.

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

I also have Norton Internet Security, and I like it. And here's the secret about NIS: when renewal time comes, if you uninstall the whole thing and reinstall it, it renews your year.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Oh, really...? That is a good thing to know. :D

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

Just to verify, I have NIS 2003. If you have something later than that, they may have fixeded it. But it's worth a shot.

Just be sure to physically disconnect your interweb before uninstalling, it's a nasty world out there without your digi-rubber on.

[mothoc.livejournal.com]

if you're running Windows XP, the built-in firewall is just fine.

For anti-virus, I've heard good things about AVG, Avast and Trend Micro.

Also, if you use your Google Fu, I know a couple places have done "Free anti-virus roundups" recently (in the last couple months), so they might be a good source of software opinion.

[lady-noremon.livejournal.com]

AVG is what I was going to suggest XD

[lady-noremon.livejournal.com]

I use AVG and Trend Micro Internet Security. Oh and Aliant (my internet provider) also has IS with it.

[estara.livejournal.com]

ditto