I've just about had it with Norton Anti-Virus. I've been a Norton customer since…well, somewhere here I still have a 5" floppy of The Norton Utilities with a photo of Peter Norton printed on it. That's how long. I don't think Mr. Norton has anything to do with the current software products that bear his name, which may be part of the problem.
Norton Anti-Virus probably does a decent job of protecting me from dread computer viruses…although it's failed me a few times, once because I contracted a virus so new that no one in the anti-virus community had heard of it yet. If I'd gotten it a week later, I would have been fine…but some things are beyond our control. My big problems have to do with the fact that it doesn't play well with other programs. Four times now on my three computers, I've installed or uninstalled something else and Norton A-V has gone kablooey. Each time, the solution has been the same. I wait 15-20 minutes for someone I'm pretty sure is not on this continent to come online for a "live chat" and they tell me to do a complete uninstall, including running a program to cleanse my system of all Norton and Symantec products, and then do a reinstall. This takes around an hour each time…and I can think of so many other things I could do with that hour. For instance, I could wait on hold for the people who handle tech support for Microsoft Money. I think they have two guys and they each work an hour a month.
My computer guru Bill Goldstein recommends that I try AVG instead, and I intend to give it a try. I'm also instituting a new policy. I can't do anything about Microsoft products but otherwise, I ain't installing anything that has a fee-based Tech Support phone number. I never called the one for Norton but every time I saw they had one, it made me think they're not all that unhappy when their product doesn't work properly. In any case, the next uninstall I do of Norton shall be my last.
(And don't write me and tell me I should buy a Mac. People who have Macs remind me of myself when I had Beta and I kept seeing movies I wanted to own come out on VHS only.)