Posted 01/07/2009 at 05:57:09pm

I was surprised and delighted to see the review about Norton. I had used NAV quite a ways back but it became a resource hog and I ditched it for a free AV (Avast). So, I spent the money and purchased NAV, since I really don't mind paying money for a valuable piece of software, like AV protection. Well, that speedy scan the first go round (in the mag) took over a couple of hours on my machine (which is moderately loaded since I just did a complete system reinstall recently). Then the problems started, screwy stuff that I couldn't figure out, like why my machine mysteriously restarted in the middle of the night, then I would lose internet connection and Firefox would mysteriously crash and burn. Hmm, wonder if it could be Norton? I opened the program and saw all types of blocks that it had applied without my knowing it. Unknown processes it had stopped, Spybot it had blocked from accessing the internet, and dozens of other unexplained blocks which could not be undone. So, I unloaded Norton and low-and-behold my machine is back to normal again. Hmm, so much for your review. Back to Avast, which I love. Yes, the first real-boot time scan is slow and the interface looks hokey, but other than that it just works well. But, hey you can opt out of the real-boot time scan and do a regular scan before you go to bed.

Posted 01/01/2009 at 06:35:12pm

As Microsoft said, they started working again on 1 Jan 09. It was a leap year timing issue. They intend to release a firmware fix before 2012, the next leap year. No big deal. Mine went down but is back up running today.