Uninstalling Norton - hints or tips?

I'm going to attempt to uninstall a (some time) out of date Norton internet security, antivirus and antispam from my girlfriend's Windows XP Home Editon SP2 computer.

Does anyone have any advice as to what problems I may encounter with this process and could you recommend any good, free replacement AV/Firewalls etc? CCleaner, Spybot S & D and Windows Defender are currently installed and are used regularly, but obviously something may well have been undetected so would installing an up to date AV program detect any problems?

Thanks

 

I was recomended to use AVG Free Edition and ZoneAlarm Free Edition, they both seem to do the job pretty good.

Also in the malware tutorials on here(MG) they recomend A-squared Free which you can download off here. This picks up a lot more problems than all the others put together.

 

One problem you may encounter is trouble getting rid of Norton completely - I've noticed that mentioned a few times here. Do a search in this forum and you'll probably find all the information you need to do the job properly.

 

Oh, and I've been using AVG Free, Zone Alarm Free and Ad-aware from Lavasoft and Spybot along with Spamfighter, all of which are free (unless you choose to donate) and I find them all quite good. We have the occasional thing slip through but pretty rare and no major problems except the day my son hit a site that offered viruses instead of what it claimed. But that can't be blamed on the programs. AVG and Spybot both started jumping up and down but were dreadfully overwhelmed and sneakily bypassed too.

Also, check what's available on Major Geeks (the bottom of this page has links and so does the home page here: www.majorgeeks.com) - the good thing about looking for stuff here is you know it will be reputable.

 

this will surely help you
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Norton_Removal_Tool_SymNRT_d4749.html

 

hmmm?confused
i dont get it! whyconfused
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/2007/04/02/another-norton-horror-story/

 

Personally I like running Avast AV and Zonealarm Firewall, both downloadable from MGs.

I've never had any issues when I've uninstalled Norton. Run CCLeaner after uninstall and also use the issues button to clean the registry of dead links etc.

 

I too use Avast, Used it for 4 years now. very dependable

 

Avast, AVG, AntiVir: they are all pretty good. Personally, I use AntiVir and have used it (most of the time) for about 3 years and never had any problems with it. There is an expiration date on the free license, which can usually be renewed by downloading and installing the newest version after the expiration date. Comodo AntiVirus is pretty good too, it's free, and Comodo also has a good firewall for hand-in-hand protection. You might want to look at that also. My personal favorite firewall is Sygate. I've been using it for about 3 years also, and never had any real trouble with it either. A rumor has been circulating that Sygate is no longer free, or will soon become no longer free.... I have mine installed and it's running fine, so I'm not sure how much truth there is to that rumor....

hopperdave2000

 

You may want to check on the Symantec website for their own tool to thoroughly clean out (or at least MORE thoroughly clean out) stuff that often gets left behind when using Add/Remove programs to remove Norton/Symantec programs (or when using the Norton/Symantec uninstall link in the Start menu to uninstall). You can download the tool for free and it does scrub some stuff out of the registry that otherwise remains after a "regular" uninstall.