Norton and HP?

[Cognition]

Hi,

 

I have Norton running on my (old) HP desktop and since a few days, I was unable to go online. Now I turned off the firewall from Norton and it works fine. But also I have some kind of user-problem. I am unable to start programs by double-clicking on the short-cuts: I can start the program by right-clicking on the short-cut and start it from there, but it is more tedious.

Also some of my option (e.g. software) in the control panel are just not working anymore. I remember having this problem before (a long time ago). My virus-scanner doesn't show any problems. What is wrong and what can I do about it??

[RyanJ]

Hi' date='

 

I have Norton running on my (old) HP desktop and since a few days, I was unable to go online. Now I turned off the firewall from Norton and it works fine. But also I have some kind of user-problem. I am unable to start programs by double-clicking on the short-cuts: I can start the program by right-clicking on the short-cut and start it from there, but it is more tedious.

Also some of my option (e.g. software) in the control panel are just not working anymore. I remember having this problem before (a long time ago). My virus-scanner doesn't show any problems. What is wrong and what can I do about it??[/quote']

 

People tend to have a lot of problems with Norton as a whole./

 

the first step I reccomend is looking and testing too see if other firewalls have the same effect

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[Cognition]

I don't think they do, because I use ZoneAlarm on my laptops with AVG and Avast. And I never had any problems there, but this is the second time I had this problem on the HP desktop (Norton came with the computer and it is very hard to remove it completely from the system)

[RyanJ]

I don't think they do, because I use ZoneAlarm on my laptops with AVG and Avast. And I never had any problems there, but this is the second time I had this problem on the HP desktop (Norton came with the computer and it is very hard to remove it completely from the system)

 

 

So no programs can access the internet?

 

Have you tried the Norton FAQ's for example, those are a good place too start

 

http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/home_homeoffice/products/npf/npf_2006/index.html

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[5614]

Norton was almost designed for people who can't use a computer so well, and that is where they went wrong!

 

Seriously... Norton's default settings ensure the user is asked very little and Norton makes all the decisions. Which is all very nice as a novice user wouldn't know what to do it asked "Should ___.exe be given net access?"... however it's also where the program fails.

 

What if Norton makes the wrong choice? Decides that your new game isn't "safe" so you can't play it on the internet.

 

I believe this Norton problem is solved if you know how to properly configure it, and then I personally think that the Norton Firewall is one (if not the) best firewall out there.

 

Having said all the above, Norton doesn't make the wrong choice often and it's not a mega flaw in the program, Norton is still a market leader and they haven't screwed up big time, but in making the computer make decision they're open to possible problems if the computer choses differently to what the user would chose.

 

Having said that Norton wouldn't stopp all programs from Internet access (unless you enabled some internet shut off like in Zone Alarm) where nothing can access the net when enabled.

 

The easiest way to test that is disable Norton and see if something works, if it does then Norton is almost certainly the problem.