MS AS & Spybot S&D vs. Norton?
 

So I'm wondering...when I reinstalled (and upgraded) my Notron AV suite a while back, it made me delete MS Anti-spyware and Spybot S&D. It didn't really say why but it said something about conflicting blah blah blah. Can anyone tell me if this is bullshit? Seems to me like Norton does dick about spyware and I'd like to be able to do real spyware scans again (I use Ad-aware SE Personal and Xoftspy...but those only get so much stuff). Then again, I don't want to install something and have my computer crash on every boot up or have shit stop working. Your thoughts?

Alright, I'll break my 5-month forum sabbatical to put in my two-cents...

That seems a bit excessive on Norton's part...but not really surprising. Basically, Norton is telling you "I am all you'll ever need, so delete these other programs because I don't know how to co-exist..."

Now people may jump all over me for this, but I'll give my opinion.

My opinion is Symantec's antivirus and security products suck. I've given them chance and chance again. Poorly coded programs coupled with obscenely high memory usage has made me dump my subscription and never look back. It's inability to remove most spyware and other infections helped my decision also.

I currently use AVG 7.5 (free), and have had no virus issues. I run a spyware scan every couple of months or so using a-squared (free), and have nothing more than cookies. These are my results. Yours may vary.

On my laptop, I use NOD32 from Eset. This is very impressive, although not free. For the money, this is an impressive piece of software, and blows Norton out of the water. It does what it does extremely well. It would be worth looking into.

I would also say reinstall microsoft's defender software (or anti-spyware, if you like the old version), for its background services. If you find it works for you, by all means reinstall it. As I said, I do not use it, as I don't seem to have the same malware issues as others have.

Good luck.

Thanks Aaron. I pretty much feel the same way about Norton. I'm so sick of their bullshit. What I particularly love is when they give you the old "You've got a virus, but you AV software can't fix it" message or when my simple (and free) software picks up shit that their shitty and overpriced stuff can't detect. As long as there aren't any command line conflicts or anything I might try reinstalling. Worse comes to worse I can always run safe mode and delete what I need to.

The only thing I really use Norton for is the anti-spam feature which is the best I've found so far.

Aaron, do you have a recommendation for an Anti-spam program better then the one norton includes in their Internet Security suite?

At the moment, I do not. I use Gmail for all my email needs, and their spam filter is quite good. This October was a very spammy month, and I started to receive all sorts of fun porn related spam. However, within that month Gmail adjusted the filters and now it all funnels straight into the spam box.

So no, I have no experience with what anti-spam apps work best. Does Norton allow you to only have the one component you want? Because that would be ideal...

Sorry I can't be more helpful on that.

No the anti-spam is part of the complete software package.

I happen to use domain specific email address for business. I have gmail for personal use, but it's not approperiate for business; nor is it practical.

I was able to set up gmail to send and receive using my business domain name. So not only do I have the option of sending mail as a yourname@gmail.com, I can send as a yourname@businessdomainthatiown.com. I just recently figured that out. I knew that I could point any mx record to whatever email i wanted, I just didnt know I could send as that as well.

I wonder if this would work for your purposes? If so, I can tell you what to look for in Gmail.

HOw do you send out with that email though?

I'm not a fan of Norton's spam filter, to be honest. Not because it doesn't work (which it does roughly 50% of the time), but I don't like the kind of control it has over things like Outlook. In my experience anything that can automatically graft itself to other programs like that usually leaves a ton of broken command paths and junk files if you decide to remove it. I haven't ever tried to remove any of Symatec's stuff, but I'm betting if I do it's going to seriously piss me off.

On average I get around 150-200 spam messages a day. Norton accurately removes 98% of it according to its reporting.

Steve, I normally agree with you however this is just something I cannot avoid seeing how MS has no spam filter that works.

I actually have a seperate account that I'll use from time to time if I'm entering my email into a place where I think I might get spam from. I check it from time to time just to keep it active, but mostly to delete shit. Even when I did get a ton of spam on my old account Norton would miss half of it...at least. And it wasn't stuff that looked like anything legit...it was obviously spam.

to send mail as any address (that you own), you log in to your gmail account, click on settings. There will be a tab that says Accounts. There is a section that says Send Mail As. Click Add Another Email Address.

Once you add another one, there will be a drop down menu when you are composing new mail. Its pretty handy. So if I need to send business mail, I just choose from the drop down. If its personal, I use my base gmail address.

also, I was reading a very cool article in the December 2006 issue of Maximum PC, talking about different Gmail functions that I didn't know existed. A lot of the ideas where logical progressions if one just thinks about Gmail's power. I found the tip on a different site, but this one might help you guys with spam issues:

When asked for an email address, use something like "john.doe+amazon@gmail.com". That way, whenever you get future emails addressed to that address, you'll know that it's either from Amazon directly or from someone to whom they sold your email address. This can be a somewhat effctive way to track spam. Just be aware that not all email systems recognize or accept "plus" addresses. In fact, some spammers even strip it out completely, but it's a cool tool, none the less. THe best way is to just try it and see if it works for your application!

--I got that from this site: http://g04.com/misc/GmailTipsComplete.html

i hate norton system hog applications. lately i have been very happy with the trend micro virus scanner at work. it finds and removes pretty much anything.