bit-tech Shopping: Symantec Norton 360 2.0 ( PC)

• Microsoft Windows Vista Business
• Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
• Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Rating: 4

Time with product: 1 Year

Strengths: Update is satisfactory when it works. Anti-virus is ok.

Weaknesses: Slows down system. frequent crashes, have to reset expiration date. Annoying pop-ups from symantec. poor control

Summary: used it on 3 PCs. It often interfered with programs & ate up memory. Worst of all, after asking you to renew on line (multiple times a day for 45 days. It suddenly shut everything off, not just updates. It will not turn on if you don't renew. In addition you have no access to your on line storage (if you were foolish enough to use it). I like to review these products, & have switched around after looking at others, . This product holds you hostage and naked when renewal time comes around.

Rating: 4

Time with product: 1 Year

Strengths: Anti-Virus, Atni-Spam, & Firewall

Weaknesses: Too many pop-ups, Excludes don't seem to work, hard to manage

Summary: I would set cookies to be excluded and I was always getting pop-ups to Fix, Exclude, or Ignore. No matter what I did they still popped up. I would set the Virus Scan and Backups to run at a certain time when the PC usually wasn't being used and they would start when ever they wanted to. Couldn't WAIT for my subscription to expire!

Rating: 8

Time with product: 2 Weeks

Strengths: All in one utilities and security suite.

Weaknesses: Resource hog; unstable; could possibly crash your PC system; occasionally requires several reboots.

Summary: Norton 360 2.0 is a comprehensive security suite covering antivirus, firewall, antiphishing, antispyware, backup, performance issues, and online transaction security. It is almost like taking many stand alone Symantec security products and put them all together in one package. It sounds good on principle but by doing that the system may become unstable and may even crash as many users have experienced over time. Running system scan with Norton 360 takes several hours to complete even on fast CPU systems. Like its cousin Norton Internet Security suite, the zero day protection against malware continues to be provided by SONAR. So your system is protected from new threats even though when their signatures are not yet available. Users are recommended to backup their system right away upon installation of Norton 360 just in case it eventually becomes unstable.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 3 Weeks

Strengths: Complete security coverage with little effort on user's part

Weaknesses: None at this time, like most security software can slow system down

Summary: I have used and pretty much stuck with Norton products for many years now. This keeps me from having to learn how to use a different brand. Even though Norton updates each product every year, you know what to expect. When my Norton Internet Security 2007 recently expired, I chose to try the new 360 product especially now that a newer version was available. Very user friendly interface. It's set it up and almost forget about it - great for a "newbie". Website has great support. Using the Chat has mixed results, sometimes you get someone that can help. Great that Symantec always sends a follow-up email to ask if problem was resolved.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2 Days

Strengths: Very Good protection

Weaknesses: none

Summary: the product is very good and it backs up all your files and it is reasonably priced i would buy it again over any other brand of virus protection software.