My personal history with anti-virus programs goes back to the early days of Internet access.  My frustration with this most essential of software also goes back equally as long.  Some of most memorable moments of virtual smashing have taken place as a consequence of mal-formed anti-virus software code, interfaces, and integration.

I long ago swore off any software with the  McAfee name.  Sometime in the 90’s – and I forget the exact year – I had done considerable research on a  new personal computer.  In the days before Dell’s total ascendance, there were many choices.  My normal practice is to buy just about the highest specification at the time of purchase because with a few RAM, OS, and power supply upgrades throughout the years, I get more use per dollar by following this practice…

I was thrilled to bring home a new HP that was loaded for the time and was anxious to fire it up.  Once properly wired and ready to go, I turned it on.  I was immediately confronted by a “jumpy” and “sticky” mouse that I could not move around with ease – a difficult issue for someone working with Photoshop often.

Suffice it to say, that several days of research identified the McAfee anti-virus installation as the cause whereby I tried to remove it – using the common and safe software removal practices for windows of the time – and found it not so easy.  To make a long story short, about 9 days after I had brought my new computer home, McAfee was gone and my new pc was working, well, like a new pc.  That was a bit of lost productivity, and, suffice it to say, the last time a McAfee product appeared on my computer.

I bring that horror story because of some experiences I have had with Symantec today…

I have had Symantec’s Norton anti-virus on several PC’s over the years.  At some point, however, they have all become corrupt and required removal in favor of a non-McAfee alternative.  Although I have 5 pc’s in my home and own a business with many, I traditionally use Bit Defender (more about that in a moment).

The PC I am using now, however, was an emergency purchase that was store bought and came pre-installed with Norton 360.  I decided to give it a try and, admittedly, it has been relatively problem free.  Yes, the scans eat up the disk and make the computer unusable while scanning, but I typical do a daily scan while sleeping.

Well, today I had to update a driver which resulted in a reboot and my Symantec settings changes upon the reboot.  In effect it was not scanning email or online surfing.  There  was no real time protection. Symantec has this little button called “Fix”.  The problem with that is, if you have ever stored something on their “back-up”, it takes you through a whole back-up process to try to sell you more space and also does a scan – and a Norton Scan makes mince meat out of your productivity by cranking your hard drive as hard as it can.  I don’t want to do this, so I explore other options.

First, I go to settings and try to turn on the protections that were inexplicably turned off.  It will not let me.

I try to close and reopen Norton 360 and go to settings again to manually turn them on.  The program stops and crashes.

I try to restart Norton 360; it will not start again.

I reboot, and Norton comes up sans the settings for real time protection again.

I then decide to go to their “back up” settings to turn the pesky “back up” command thing off.  There is no option to do this.  Once activated, apparently, Symantec keeps wanting to run it no matter what your choice.

I then uncheck all the files I am backing up – this takes some time for Norton to bring up your configuration to actually alter it.  I figured that not backing anything up will at least shorten that function should I click the “Fix” button.

Now, I am two hours into this and I click the dreaded “Fix” button.  First it shows that my settings have been fixed – why I cannot go into the settings area and configure them myself is beyond me.  But, then, in the middle of my workday, the dreaded scan starts and completely destroys my ability to constructively work on the web or my pc as most things I do require speed.  But, I think I can just stop the scan.  Nope, the software crashes.

Ok, I reboot again and see my settings have not been updated.  I have two choices now, try again and let the scan run or go to my traditional default.  Although I remember past fiascos from Symantec products eventually not updating or crashing, I give it another try.  I hit the “Fix” button and go to lunch. 

Two hours later, the thing is still scanning.  So, I do some paperwork.  Two more hours (I have a big disk), and paperwork done, I need to get some work done online.  Ooops, Norton is still scanning and every java drop down menu I go to online takes 2-3 minutes to show the menu items.

At this point, I am ready to smash the pc and anyone and everything around me, but I remembered my old stand-by solution:  Bit Defender.  So, I go to the Bit Defender site, download it, install it, and uninstall Norton 360.  The whole process takes 30 minutes, Bit Defender is running, I am protected from incursions and viruses, and I can configure the settings the way I want to and run the scan at my leisure.

Which leads me to a conclusion that I have long ago reached, use Bit Defender as your anti-virus software and uninstall any thing MacAfee or Symantec related.  For what it is worth, I normally have experienced better virus protection from Bit Defender as well.  Even PC World has called it “the best value for your money” amongst anti-virus programs.

But, I am not here to give you a sales pitch.  And, I apologize for the length of the message.  But, if you are having similar frustrations with Symantec and McAfee products, Bit Defender is a lighter code, runs more effortlessly in the background, has arguably more up to date definitions, and is easy to buy.  In fact, when going to buy it, I found this link that includes a special discount offer that I will provide for your convenience…

Click Here for Bit Defender Discount Link

Regardless of whether you are looking for a solution now or in the future, my best recommendation to eliminate uneeded frustrations experienced due to a balky anti-virus program is to try Bit Defender..

Rant over, thanks for you patience.

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