Computer advice please

[Sam Edwards]

Hi
When I bought my laptop I bought a norton antivirus package I always thought if you bought it that was it you had it... apparently not I am now getting notices to say that my one year purchase of Norton Antivirus is about to rund out and its telling me Im going to get hacked, my id stolen and as many horror storys as possible all with a click this button to buy another years antivirus ..... The way they doing it is getting my back up and making me not want to use my money with them. But if they the best I will??

My know how about these things is ZILTCH. So please help, what would you do if it was your laptop do I renew with them or is there a better deal to be had out there??
Thank you all you computer fundies....

[cujimmy]

Well, you'll definitely need some form of protection: we use Bitdefender at home, which is downloadable and much cheaper than Norton or McAffee: just as effective, too, and they have reasonable customer services. (See bitdefender.com for price details)

The trouble is that it's notoriously difficult to uninstall Norton (I think they do it so that people stay with them rather than going to their rivals) so you can expect to spend quite a few happy hours trying to remove them from your system...

Good luck!

[yarrumsg]

Hiya, yup basically with all Av products you get a years worth of updates. the problem is after that year you are still protected, but only with whats on your pc, on condition noone writes some new code and updates the virus you will be fine. But some 12 year old trying to make a name for himself will always try and outdo the 13 year old (last year's 12 year old).

If you bank with HSBC they used to give you a year for free as well. the idea being, hey we'll give you a free year then ur hooked, so u will just pay...

many people use AVG (search on google for AGV Free.)

as Jimmy says Norton inbeds itself worse than most virus' and is a pain to uninstall, check their website they have loads of uninstalls (basically if u can't do it easily as Jimmy says u just leave it there, but if u really need to get rid of it u can.

Technically speaking as long as you have some form of firewall protection and don't visit gambling sites or dodgy sites, and don't open dodgy mail u technically don't need an AV but it's safter to have one.

[Sam Edwards]

Cool thank you for the advice.. I am due to go visit Mr Chick on my next break he is very clever with computer stuff so I will get him to try uninstall the Norton.

[yarrumsg]

oh or if all else fails back ur docs pictures and itunes up, and then use the recovery stuff that is on the laptop and basically reset it factory defaults, will give you another year of updates (the package won't be the latest version but it will catch most nasties)

[zimboykie]

Avast is another free AV that l use

[boards]

yeah I like avast... and Exzim recommended SpyBot to me which works a treat!