The price, companys like AVG offer the same sort of product for free.

well, I can't tell you why everyone else hates it, but I can tell you why I do... I had the entire Norton protection suite installed on my PC last summer, and still got a bunch of viruses that made me have to reformat my hard-drive. it was a total waste of money for me. I bought a Mac shortly after that happened, and couldn't be happier. I don't have any kind of antivirus or firewall installed, and I've never had any problems since the switch...

it's a nazi and it tries to decide what you are and aren't allowed to do with your computer.

I don't know why Norton would be popular at all. It's caused me nothing but trouble. My second computer was KIA because of it...I actually think it gave my computer those viruses.

It's a big fat memory hog!

In addition to the reasons stated already, All of the Norton products I have used seem to want to "take over" my 'puter and make my decisions for me. Not to mention they use a lot of hard drive space. While it may in fact be one of the top rated products on the market there are many better and most are free. I highly recommend the AVG antivirus. Safe, simple, fast and free! http://www.grisoft.com/

I have used Norton and McAfee for years as well as other products and I certainly have never had any problems with Norton.

I've used several different anti virus software programs and at the moment I use Norton. AVG & Panda were a tad too sensitive. Since I've started using Norton I've had no probs at all and all the reviews I've read, written by experts in computer security have given it high marks.

I hate it because when I was working in a repair shop, it was the cause of 70% of the software incompatibilities I had to fix. It was responsible for most of the blue screens of death I saw, too. In general, Norton products are riddled with bugs. Sometimes they are so severe that the program won't work at all. Getting technical support in a timely fashion is nearly impossible. Getting it at all is only slightly more likely.

I don't know. I have Norton and its fine in my book!

I am going to have to defend Norton. i have the business edition installed and the firewalls have firewalls. i have had absolutely no problems with Norton and i highly recommend it to anyone. This edition is a little pricey, but its worth the money. once its properly installed, you can forge viruses, popups, etc. it takes care of them all. Every two days, you have to let Norton virus run a virus check on your computer. it constantly upgrades firewalls and eliminates invaders. I love it.

According to some experts, Norton will slow down you computer speed almost 20%. Norton Anti Virus is too bloated, it is like adding molasses to your PC.

I have norton and all I hear from people is that it is garbage. Last week I did something stupid and opened something in my junk e-mail that I shouldn't have. IMMEDIATELY Norton informed me it was a virus. I ran a scan and it took care of it for me.

I had many problems with Norton, so I went to McAfee and I do not have any problems like I did with Norton. I am sure they are both good products, I just prefer McAfee.

Norton does take up a lot of system resources. I have currently uninstalled Norton and am using NOD32 (heard a lot of great reviews) 'cause I am finding Norton slows down my computer.

First off, popular does NOT mean good. If everybody else stapled their left nostril to the ceiling, would you? As for the ratings it receives, I've seen it in the top three of a few tests, though most have had less than ten entrants and I have yet to see it win outright. Then we get into price, memory usage, disk space requirements, and one other fact. Norton isn't out to keep computers safe or fast; it is out to enhance shareholder value by marketing a passable product with built-in obsolescence. Give me something lean, mean, and free. Something with a small RAM and CPU foot-print, FREE DAILY updates, and a success rate about at least 5% higher than Norton.

Because Norton is for noobs.

I had Norton antivirus for three years and was unsatisfied with the large hard drive space taken and the high price. A friend told me about AVG, which is just as good and free. I've used AVG ever since.

All anti-virus software uses system resources (CPU time, memory, etc.). The ability of anti-virus software to limit this usage is what makes the software bearable or not. Norton is just not good at limiting system usage. Kaspersky is well-known throughout the underground world as being an excellent anti-virus tool, and it uses MUCH less resources than Norton does. On the other hand, viruses themselves will eat your memory and CPU usage, and they will slow down your computer significantly (amongst other nasty effects). An anti-virus program will do just about the same thing (slow down your computer and eat a dedicated chunk of memory). So, in essence, you are actually asking this anti-virus software to perform many of the same tasks that a virus will do on your own computer, just so you can keep away a virus that will do what your anti-virus is already doing. Whoa. That's a funny thought. Alternatively, you can run Linux instead of Windows and forget about viruses and anti-virus software altogether. I do, and I'll never look back. I don't remember the last time I rebooted my computer because I installed or changed something.

I used to use Norton a longggggggg time ago, and its crap!! I did a test with Norton scan a couple of files with really bad viruses and it didn't detect nothing! I use AVG and Clamwin dected all the viruses! I recommend you getting AVG or Clamwin as your anti-virus scanner. Also it isn't a memory hog either!

Well I know there are a lot of answers, That I'm not reading. So here are the reasons of most everyone I know. One: Resource hog (it takes a lot of ram and cpu to run) Two: Mainline anti-virus is usually the first to target, meaning viruses are developed to hide from these things and so its a main target to hide from. Three: It wants to control every, I hate those. U wanna delete this file? yes. You sure? yes. Norton pops up... Possitive? YES! Four: Usually conflicts with software... Gamers hate it for this because it usually screws up xfire, games and other software by going psyco and killing all ports and processes. Five: The start up on it is long and stressful on the start up programs selection in the registry.

The reason I hate it is that the programs get virus updates from the server very seldom. I have one computer (work computer) on which I have to manually check for new definitions from time to time (despite the automatic setting). It also requires quite a lot of processor capacity. I prefer F-Secure. It requires very little cpu capacity, updates very frequently and the Finns running the company are very fast in updating with new virus definitions. I guess the reason so many people are using Norton is that comes is bundled with many computer offers (including Dell, HP etc).

norton is a popular program so its a hackers dream to corrupt it knowing alot of people use it.........dont use it.

I have used Norton in the past.. from what I have read here from others that they have good reason not to like it or use it, I can't add another comment except that they are correct.... I say this with my own experience with Symantec/Norton. I read an article from PC magazine regarding performance of several antivirus programs.... seems that AVG didn't rank all that high along with a few other brand name antivirus programs... BUT!!!! NOW READ THIS.... PC Mag. rated Kaspersky quite high... I'd suggest that the people that are reading this start reading about Kaspersky Anti Virus Program. I am now using Kaspersky... and have found a big difference! If you are willing to do some reading... "reviews on Anti Virus Programs"... click on the links I have provided. ----> http://www.firewallguide.com/anti-virus.htm http://www.consumersearch.com/www/software/antivirus-software/index.html http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2135514,00.asp Said n Done!

Norton is hated because these days people want speed in their computers. In some cases of old computers Norton added about half a minute to the booting time. It doesnt seem like much but when we pay so much for something that we think suits us best we dont want any hindrances. Also even though norton is one of the top rating softwares does not mean its the best. It simply means that it was regarded to be around the area of such other antivirus systems like AVG, NOD32, Karpersky (I think thats how you spell it...). In my personal experience Norton seems to take a little too much HDD space for me. So i use Nod32 which hasn't given me any problems to date.

Did I mention I just put all my faith in Norton.

Many people don't know or are to lazy to set up Nortan the right way. i don't get clearance from Nortan it gets clearance from me. Nortan if confusing to alot of people, i recommend it to everyone who knows how to read. (Im sorry but it's true) Its not too difficult to set it up correctly. Only thing i don't like about it is the cost!

I think I'm in a somewhat unique position on AB as perhaps the only person who actually worked on the Symantec source code. Day after day, I slogged through the mountains of ancient geologic code layers, trying to fathom how anything could become so convoluted and bizarre. As a software engineer, I would say the main problem is that the code base is so old, and has been patched up so many times in an attempt to add more functionality, that it's become spaghetti -- nobody can really fix it, because any radical changes run the risk of introducing massive bug counts.

I do'nt know where you got the idea that Norton tops the polls. It's rubbish, apart from the reasons stated above, they only upgrade the database weekly not much use when there are numerous new viruses hourly.They recently were hit by a virus themselves, AND knocked out thousands of computers around the world by posting a wrong solution to a virus problem.Some security. as above popular DOES'NT mean good, Check out Kaspersky Labs and Bit Defender,two of the best on the market.

These r heavy software and slow down the processing speed of computer.Most of them look for updates from the internet and takes a lot of bandwidth Suppose u hava dog in ur house to get safetly but most of the times its ur relatives r coming in house..and dogs r barking seeing everyone...... Same is with Norton...they r making u threat and warnings for small small things The biggest virus is Antivirus

A few years back, I used Norton antivirus and it worked really well. It would do automated scans and had options for more in depth actions if you knew what you were doing. I got McAfee free from my internet service for a while, and when I switched to a new provider I bought Norton 360 to replace it. I hated how the program would not let me modify anything other than the most puerile settings that had little or no affect on how the overall product ran. It basically said "Don't worry, I am protecting your computer" without giving me any information on what it was actually doing. It is a fine piece of software if you just want your computer to be protected and you don't need any special settings, but it did not suit my needs. I now have McAfee Total Protection and I am much happier with the way it works.

I never knew how bloated and over priced a piece of software could get until Norton came about.

As some one who works on computers, I have seen one to many that have had Nortons as their only protection. The PC will have come to the point of a speed of a slug and the owner will tell you the only thing they do is check thier e-mail and play fantasy football. I removed Nortons, put AVG, AVG anti spyware, SpyBot S&D and found between them over 3000 items. guess Nortons wasn't working so well and it was all up to date. I personally have run it also, and not the cheap one either, last time I bought it I paid over $100.00 for it. The only thing the disc is good for is to run Win Dr off it for the registry repair, that part works great. any Nortons disc is good for systems works and run the registry repair part just don't install. So I"ll keep recommening to people the above programs as they are free and work much better take up less Ram and HD space too. But thats just my opinion

Avira out detects, outperforms, and uses less system resources than Norton. Avira has one of the highest detection rates of all AV scanners on the market, it even bests AVG and Kaspersky in the majority tests. Norton lives on the reputation Peter Norton made for his products in the 1980's but after Symantec bough him out, just like other companies they canabalize (Sygate, powerquest, etc) the software tends to not work as well as it did before. Norton AV has a poor detection rate, Norton Internet Security is full of holes, Norton AV sucks the life out of your computer even when it's at idle. As an added bonus, my packet sniffer (ethereal) found Norton was sending packets to known advertising servers. Stay away. http://www.virusbtn.com/index http://www.av-comparatives.org/ I have also done a lot of my own personal independent testing using real virus' and have found Avira to be the most bullet proof AV scanner on the market as of this post. Products Tested: A-Squared AntiVir ArcaVir Avast AVG Antivirus BitDefender ClamAV CPsecure Dr.Web F-Prot Antivirus F-Secure Anti-Virus Fortinet Ikarus Kaspersky Anti-Virus NOD32 Norman Virus Control Norton Antivirus Panda Antivirus Rising Antivirus Sophos Antivirus VirusBuster VBA32

in the last 2 1/2 yrs mos of the PC's I have worked on that ran Nortons or MacAFee's had major issues, and to top it off the both take up so much space, cost alot, and many people with out realizeing it will let their copy expire and then think they are being protected when in fact they are not. one of the last ones I wrked on the people were good friends of mine, and the only check e-mails and use camera to put pic on it, and he plays fanasty football, and it had reach the speed of a snail. they are not computer smart, this PC was so loaded down with virus that I had to break out the heavy duty programs to clean in safemode called XoFtSpy SE, its a paid program I keep on disc. then when into reg mode and use AVG and AVG anti spyware, spybot for the rest. Just because some thing cost alot does make it better and as for rateing they sometimes go on what virus they clean, but not the total amount they clean.

The problem I see with Norton is that it is quite a heavy program, it most certainly takes over your PC, scans it on its own and does whatever they want, they even change your settings. I was a huge fan of Norton, used their products for years till I found them scanning my PC and my setting were changed. This truly bothered me, if I have certain settings I have my reasons for it and no one should be changing them without authorization, I don't remember to ever have sold them my PC. Kaspersky was an excellent alternative, but they have learned certain very bad habits from Norton and MS. Thus now Ubuntu-Linux is my hero.

I don't hate Norton Anti-Virus. This product is pretty good, but still not as 'lean' as other offerings. The product I have the most trouble with is Norton Internet Security - which isn't just an anti-virus program. It also includes a firewall, pop-up blocker, spam filter and parental web filtering controls. In my experience, these all encompassing suites are overkill. They do their job fairly well for the user who wants set-and-forget security, but because these suites intertwine themselves so deeply with your OS and software, they tend to get too intrusive. What I mean is that when things start to go wrong, the suite is often the culprit. Norton Anti-virus - just the anti-virus part of the suite, which can be bought separately, is a good product. You pay for a very good virus detector and remover. The only issue I have with this product is that they keep wanting more money even after you bought it (in the form of subscription renewal fees) Some people have discovered that they can get anti-virus protection for free, a-la AVG or Avast, etc. Why would you spend money on Norton AV? For me, the answer is simple - if you are an experienced user who practise safe computing, the free products are all you really need. You don't care that they don't remove as many viruses as the paid programs, because you know where to go to find manual removal instructions. You are less likely to become infected, because you use the computer in a manner that reduces your risk to almost zero. So your product is being used more like insurance, not as pure defence. Just like anything else, you have to weigh your priorities. If you just want basic protection because you have the means to reduce your risk, free products like AVG are all you need.

I have used Norton for years, not only the antivirus but the whole suite, on about 360 Dollars for my area. I then tried to buy it online, paid it with my Credit Card, got the download but never got the discs. I send them numerous emails claiming for my discs, suddenly 30 days later they froze the suite and said my 30 trial period had expired. Again I sent them numerous emails with full info on payment with my Credit Card, nothing happened they kept the money and I got nothing. I then switched to McAfee, but if an elephant did not get through, it is because there are no elephants where I live. I then asked my tech and he said Panda was great but extremely heavy. So I went for Kaspersky, that is what I now have but the company has learned some nasty things from MS so I am about to do something about it. I am switching to Ubuntu-Linux with its corresponding safety software and I will forget this unpleasant subject.

it wants you to pay for it every year. it makes up viruses that dont exist :D

For me i like most the Norton antivirus. It is really effective. Because before i use AVG free version of antivirus that cannot read by AVG antivirus. So i prepare the Norton.

its ok i just like virus protection that automatically protects you norton you have to scan and guess you got something

I specifically dont like norton not because it is bad software but because I am a PC tech and when norton goes wrong it goes SERIOUSLY wrong and cant be easily uninstalled or re-installed also if you attempt to install a different AV program it detects norton and insists you uninstall it, which you cant. to fix this back in the day it took HOURS of manual registry editing to remove norton completely although now i use registry tool to delete all reference automatically(i forget what its called at the mo but i always keep a copy on my USB key) norton is the WORST software for this particular problem though Mcaffee comes a close second, you can get the same problem with ANY antivirus software but it is most common with norton. due to this issue i dont bother with norton as it has caused me unnessary work in the past, i tend to go for much less bloated AV programs like AVG or AVAST as norton is just so damn BIG and slows down many PCs to a halt. also these smaller programs are often simpler to fix when they go wrong

I used to hate Norton but then I got a laptop, now it's fine.

because it will slow our system. eset nod32 is the best antivirus.

Norton "antivirus"? Your mean the Norton virus? I'd rather get a virus than to have Norton in my system!

a reason i hate norton is no fault of it's own. it is so widely used that when viruses are made, norton is often considerd and negated. i once had a virus that oppened noton and bagan a scan...while simentainiously showing me the viruses progress on the screen that was other wise unresponsive. when i finally returned to my screen, the nortaon scan showed "no hreats" and the virus's bar was full showowing a rude message about how is was doomed...LOL

i don't hate norton, but lots of them not like norton. and finaly i use NOD32. and for the spyware remover. i just use the free one. SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition. that very good more then others. this software can remove antivirus 2008/9. thanks ti NOD32 and SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition.

It's bloated, running a virus check takes hours, it's a huge memory hog. . .and removing all of it's components can be a real pain. Norton does provide a tool for removal though. I know if you remove it from the add/remove programs utility, bits and pieces are left behind.

It doesn't like to run with some programs, not sure what they were. I got AVG, but if they ask you to sign up for e-mail alerts... don't, they spam your e-mail a lot, so I just put them on the spam list and continued on.

It's annoying. It pops up at just about anything, and usually prevents the installation of legitimate programs. Solve the issue. Get a mac 

One of the reasons could be that it uses up lots of ram thus slowing down your computer.

Norton has come a long way in the last 2 years, but it used to be the worst out there. They may have finally got there crap together... However I still think they are the ones who create the virus's, just so they stay in business!

I don't hate Norton. Many times Norton prevented hacking my computer. It blocked the intruder. I think it's a good program.

all i can say is the minute i uninstalled it my computor worked so much better!

i ve used most of antivirus software avail in mkt but kaspersky,nod32 and mcafees the bestones dont go for avg it can not detect "HEUR" by kaspersky evenk if after update thank you

The reason people hate nortan is that it slows down your system as soon as it is installed. Nortan is one of the top rating softwares but it comes with a load od rubbish that you dont need whoch lags the system and then eventually it will slow it down. I use Nod32 whoch is about 27mb and my computer is still fast. Look at how much Nortan takes, see for yourself. It is a good Anti-Virus software i have to admit but it just slows down your system which most people dont want.

As has already been stated, Norton is REALLY pushy, it is not customizable past very surface issues, you have to jump through hoops to allow things, and its not free, whereas programs that do just as much as norton are free :)

Well, look at it this way. One thing that makes viruses a problem is that they take hijack control over your computer. Then they are also hard to get rid of. I have used Norton in the past and it gave me those same issues. It lagged my system down, kinda like malware would. It hijacked control of my system, like malware would. And when I finally went to uninstall it, it left traces of itself on my computer always bugging me, like mal-ware would. So if a program that is supposed to help protect you from the effects of mal-ware ends up taking on "some" of the unwanted traits of the mal-ware it is supposed to protect you from then it is worthless to me. Bear in mind this was a few years back that this happened with me, but if they did it to me once, why shouyld I think they wouldnt do it to me again. :P

It's buggy, it has holes you could sail a hundred viruses through, it eats up system resources, and it's virtually impossible to remove from your computer once your tired of putting up with it's uselessness.

It is YES, in-fact it is a very very good Anti-Virus but it slows down your computer, i only recommend it to people who have a lot of memory, Norton actually has very good protection, its just one little problem that Norton has, Memory.

I still prefer NOD32.

It is hated because it lags your pc.

Every time I have seen it installed it had slowed the computer way down, perhaps tenfold. It may stop some viruses, but what's the point with that kind of performance degredation?

It turns a 3.0Ghz PC with 4GB of RAM into an IBM PC-XT (circa 1985) Norton Antivirus over scans everything degrading the performance of the computer. It's the Borg man, it's the Borg!

Yes becasue they have a corporate monopoly. Independantly it's crap as it uses too much resources is too bulky has poor response and is too pricey. It was the best at one time but the bigger you get the more fat you put on.

I love it, never have any problems and I go to sites you wouldnt believe, and this thing has never crashed and is fast as hell.

I tried Norton and although it seemed to protect well, it slowed my computer to a crawl so I switched to something else.

If you've used AVG for 2,5 years and i'm using it now . there is nothing wrong with it.

Norton is too heavy and almost it hangs when we run on the PC. you can try SpyHunter 4. To get this visit https://www.betterblocksphilly.org/spyhunter-4-key-crack