You are asking for trouble if you use Norton 360
Written: Jul 20 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good concept, and good ideas, but the product doesn't work
Cons: Backups are problematic, terrible tech support from India.
The Bottom Line: Norton has many good products, bit this one is problematic. I suggest using a separate antivirus program and separate other software tools.
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| glenhamilton's Full Review: Symantec Norton 360 All-In-One Security Annual Sub... |
Overview:
My review rating is not going to be any better than other reviewer opinions on this product. In fact if there were a zero rating possible, that is what I would give to this product. Symantec has a good idea and concept by trying to incorporate an all-in-one package for antivirus, system backups, defragmentation, automatic updating, and support, but that is where the product’s advantages stop. This product was released by engineering and marketing long before it was ready to go to market. I don’t say that lightly after having been a software engineering executive for over 30 years. If I can’t get this program to work then I wonder what will be the fate of a typical user who has little or no software knowledge. I will be looking to get my money back on this product. I know why Symantec named this product “Norton 360”. They must be referring to 360° in a circle. Well, they will certainly have you spinning in circles trying to figure out how to use this program and how to get it to work properly. I would give it the name of Norton 180, referring to the fact that they’re doing things exactly the opposite of the way a good program should work. I apologize for the extreme pessimism that comes through in this review. If you read my other reviews you see that I quite favorably like most of the products and services I have used. This is a rare exception. I can’t get into of positive frame of mind about Norton 360.
Cost:
$59.95 at the time of this writing. It’s about $59.00 more than they should be charging.
Features:
It attempts to be an all inclusive protection product by providing file backup, antivirus protection, hard disk defragmentation tuneup, and some AntiSpam capability. It does about half of these jobs well. The jobs that it doesn’t do well are the ones I mention below.
Backup Doesn't Work:
If there is one thing you need to have work reliably in a software application, it is the backup program. The fact that I was never able to get this backup program to work in five weeks is enough to cause doubt that other parts of the program may not work well either. The “backup and restore” has numerous problems. If the program is configured to save backups on a second internal hard disk, the program reports it can not back up the files. Interestingly enough, if the configuration is set to save backups to the same hard disk, it works marginally better. However, the whole idea of being able to perform a backup is that the program should be able to save files to a secondary hard disk. It does little good to have a backup on the same hard disk as the one that might fail. In my case the second hard disk is an identical drive to the primary one. Two other backup programs on my computer have no issue with performing reliable backups to the second drive.
The second issue is that the backup program has difficulty saving some files that are not even open at the time of the backup. They are reported as not being able to be backed up because they are in use, when in fact they are not open at all. In comparison to two other backup programs I have on my computer, they can easily backup all files on the drive even if the files are open at the time of the backup.
Automatic Updates Don’t Work:
At one point I clicked on the “support” link when I received a backup error, I received another non-related second error informing me that a component was out of date and suggested that I click the link to perform an automated Internet update. I performed the update as directed, it downloaded and appeared to install, yet I was caught in this endless loop of receiving error messages to indicate a component was out of date. Therefore I was not able to connect with a support group to ask them about my original error. I worked around the error so I could contact a support technician.
Sluggish response:
Some program dialogs take extraordinarily long amounts of time to display completely. This occurs mostly in the backup program. Example, when opening the configuration dialog for selecting folders to be backed up, the program begins with a discovery phase to scan the hard disk. This is very annoying and often takes more than 2 or 3 minutes even on my new Dell top-of-the-line duo core computer. Likewise when opening the dialog to select a backup destination, the program takes at least one minute to display a list of backup locations. This should appear in the blink of an eye.
User Interface Design:
Symantec designed the interface to be simple, but this means that it gives you few options and little information about what it is doing. Furthermore, the program constantly annoys you with a message that an action needs to be performed in order to keep your computer updated and protected.
When making selections within any of the dialogs, it will open numerous other dialogs. This is not a programming error, yet the poor interface design leaves you sequencing through six or eight open dialogs while trying to figure out what you’re doing. Norton needs to consolidate those dialogs.
A 2nd poor design concept is that you are not able to “cut and paste” from any of the dialogs that are displayed. Often when an error message is displayed, you want to be able to quickly copy the error into an email or other window. You can’t do this in Norton 360. It is especially annoying when you have the support window open and the support representative asks you to execute a particularly long command that you have to meticulously and manually enter into another window. A sample cut and paste ability would have allowed faster, easier, and more accurate use.
Support:
This is a joke. The only one good thing I see about support is regarding the concept that Symantec has implemented. The idea is to be able to contact the support group while you are in the program at the point where you are having difficulty, and for Symantec to be able to quickly obtain valuable information about your computer and program configuration. I tried using this option. The first thing I noticed is that I was put into a queue where I was 95th in line. I was performing some other task on the computer while observing how long it might take for them to get to me. An occasional notice popped up in the chat window to inform me there was unusual heavy workload and that I should be patient. At least Norton wants you to think it is an unusual situation, when in fact this is a typical wait time for that company. It was over 40 minutes until “Mohamed” arrived in the chat window. After more than 20 minutes of trying to communicate the issues with Mohammed, I finally ended the chat session. He didn’t have a clue as to how the program worked, he was clearly following some automated database instructions, and his grammar was equivalent to that of a five year old child. My advice for Norton or any other company that is considering having their product support done in India is to at least find a company that can compete with the intelligence and communication skills of a technician in America if you’re going to be taking jobs away from Americans. Wait! I have a better idea. Let’s find some outsourcing companies in India that can perform the task of senior executives in America. Hmmmm, I bet the trend will stop very quickly if this is suggested. So much for my sarcasm :-)
Conclusion:
There are simply a lot better programs out there. One positive note is that Norton 360 seems to be doing a decent job of antivirus protection, but that is about it. I bought the program primarily for the antivirus protection, yet I expected the other features to work equally as well. They don’t. You’ll be wasting your money if you’re buying a product for the all-in-one purpose.
My personal recommendation is to use the “backup MyPC” that is included as a part of the Roxio Easy Media Creator program, or use Norton Ghost 12. Those two programs seem to work reliably during my many hours of experimentation. I will run a simple anti-virus program and leave the other functions to programs that perform better. I have tried Norton's SystemWorks and their Internet Security product and had great success.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
glenhamilton
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Member: Glen Hamilton
Location: Northern California
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
Engineering Executive (electronics and software)
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