Originally Posted by lvon98

When I re-installed 7.0, my computer noted that the address (i.e. C:\Program Files....AVG7.0) was present [which surprised me given that I thought I had uninstalled the software earlier]

When you un-install software, quite often a few files or folders are left behind like mabe the folder and read me file etc

I was a Norton user previously and found it to be just as mentioned ,a system resource hogger and it missed or allowed many viruses on my system.
It really annoyed me to pay a yearly subscription and for the software not to do its job ,i only found out in the end by performing a free Panda scan after my comp ws running sluggish and programs were frequently crashing or locking up.
I too have read and heard so much bad stuff about Norton time and time again.
I wont pay for any retail software now when free antivirus software is just as good IMO,im using Avast at the moment it works fine and does a good job preventing viruses.

I was a Norton user for years and after I had updated .....if I ran an online scan using Symantecs online scanner it always said my anti-virus needed updating......

I was asked to bail some friends out this past summer with multiple worm/virus issues.

Just for my OWN info I twiddled with both Norton and AVG before I "healed" the infected systems.

In one case, AVG failed to recognize 2 worms.

In another case, Norton didn't see 1 worm infection (but later with 24 hours did with subsequent downloaded definitions).

(these are in comparison to each other) So, as it seems, the bugs will continue to become smarter than the scientists? I have stayed with Norton and was able to upgrade recently to Norton 2005 System Works/Firewall/Antivirus for a net price of $15 at CompUSA.

The most reliable source for antivirus testing is Virus Bulletin. See the results here. AVG have failed just one test with the latest version (7). This was due to a couple of False Positives.

Symantec haven't had a fail since 1999, but either way, it is still a resource hogging program.

The best antivirus program there is NOD32, which has only had 3 fails out of a total of 32 tests! See here.

Dear Owen:
Thanks for posting this valuable resource. What do you mean by Symantec hasn't failed since 1999 (is this per their site or your experience). My PERSONAL experience is that AVG, at least in one case (it was a repeatable result experiment on 2 different computers), beat them to the punch in protection for one particular worm. I prefer Symantec b/c I regularly use their System works utilities to keep my system clean along with the virus and firewall protection.
Respectfully,
Kavotta

Of course, as long as it does the job and it suits your taste, by all means. We all have our personal opinions. Same with this, I only object when the software really is tripe.

Not from personal experience, I only learnt what an antivirus program was in 2003. From the site.