I got a laptop a few months ago, and I have much fun surfing the web from the couch. I hadn’t bothered to pay for the subscription for Norton Antivirus, so my coverage lapsed after the first month.
I kept meaning to renew my subscription, but never got around to it. Until today, that is. I was merrily surfing the web, when abruptly a Norton message popped up.
I thought it was gonna be the same message as usual: “Hey Mike, Norton Antivirus rocks, yo! Your subscription has lapsed, and that aint a safe way to roll, aiight? How about you click here and we get you fixed up with some AntiViral goodness?”
But no.
This was a “Holy Shit, Brah! You’ve got some serious funk in your hard drive. I’m talking Clap, Smack, Finger, and Fist, dude. User BobJoy42 has got his busy hands all up-skirt and in your personal data. If you don’t subscribe now, your laptop aint got long to live.”
(Actually, it said I had 4 different viruses, but you get the idea)
So I go ahead and fork over the $35 to ransom my sweet, innocent young laptop from the groping fingers of BobJoy42.
I pay, I do the LiveUpdate, and then run a full system scan…
At the end of it, ZERO viruses found.
Perhaps the 4 Horsemen weren’t viruses, but AdWare of some sort. I run two different AdWare and SpyWare scans, from different providers.
Nothing.
Sigh. This is not the kind of behavior I expect from Norton. That kind of bullshit scare tactic is something I’d expect from a SpyWare hacker asshole.
I kept meaning to renew my subscription, but never got around to it. Until today, that is. I was merrily surfing the web, when abruptly a Norton message popped up.
I thought it was gonna be the same message as usual: “Hey Mike, Norton Antivirus rocks, yo! Your subscription has lapsed, and that aint a safe way to roll, aiight? How about you click here and we get you fixed up with some AntiViral goodness?”
But no.
This was a “Holy Shit, Brah! You’ve got some serious funk in your hard drive. I’m talking Clap, Smack, Finger, and Fist, dude. User BobJoy42 has got his busy hands all up-skirt and in your personal data. If you don’t subscribe now, your laptop aint got long to live.”
(Actually, it said I had 4 different viruses, but you get the idea)
So I go ahead and fork over the $35 to ransom my sweet, innocent young laptop from the groping fingers of BobJoy42.
I pay, I do the LiveUpdate, and then run a full system scan…
At the end of it, ZERO viruses found.
Perhaps the 4 Horsemen weren’t viruses, but AdWare of some sort. I run two different AdWare and SpyWare scans, from different providers.
Nothing.
Sigh. This is not the kind of behavior I expect from Norton. That kind of bullshit scare tactic is something I’d expect from a SpyWare hacker asshole.
If I were you, I'd get rid of Norton, and get Avast or AVG.
ReplyDeleteBoth are free, and work just as well as Norton.
In fact, I found that Avast actually works better than norton.
I hate Norton and McAfee, I've used both, and neither actually informed me when the subscription lapsed. They let me download updates, but it turned out it was just 'virus engine' updates, and not the actual virus definitions.
In other words, I thought I was protected...then my hard-drive melted like a 4th of July snowball.
LOL - little angry there.
ReplyDeleteMy computer never gives me those kinds of messages; I think she must be more reserved and proper, like a great aunt.
Definitely go with Avast, matey!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, Avast is good stuff.