Norton AV 2004 beta - anyone try it? Good bad what?

I saw that Symantec released a NAV2k4 beta and was wondering who here has had a chance to try it out??

I was curious about this too. Any new features?

I tried there last beta and it was awful. Caused hella crashes. SO I'll wait till it comes out

It's been my opinion that most Symantec desktop apps peaked around the 2001/2002 versions.

NAV CE 8 seems to be the exception to that rule.

Norton Antivirus 2004 beta seems to run great on my computer. The only difference I see from the 2003 version is they added scanning for sypware and adware. The virus scanning engine itself seems to be the same as well as a few other options have been added. Because it seems to be not much different then version 2003, I don't see the justification in buying it and I will continue to use the 2003 professional version. The activation feature might be a real problem if you reformat your hard drive and need to reinstall. Which brings back many happy memories with the Windows XP acivation feature. Yes, Norton Antiviurs 2004. has to be activated through the symantec server. Will they have the same problems as Intuit (Quicken) did and get sued too? Time will tell.

Hmm, I dislike that activation feature but unfortunatly what can you do you really need an anti-virus app running now a days.

As for the spy/adware scanning, that's a nice feature but I currently use AdAware for this. I wonder if it will be as good or not.

I personally am not concerned about spyware. That's due to using Mozilla Firebird (cannot be activex hijacked), and being careful of what gets installed.

Sounds like Symantec is trying to offer the spyware/adware scanner as a compensation for its product activation.

www.sophos.com
www.grisoft.com
www.antivirus.com

Always put these way ahead of NAV. Figured ya folks might wanna check out the competition.

i try it and it sucks

yeah i have the beta running now, it seems to be pretty good, though activation is not going to go over well.

Not going well for you, or that's the general opinion?

Must it be activated before initial use, or does it give you x uses before activation?

How tolerant to hardware/OS changes is the activation?

I think it will run about 15 days before it will force you to activate it or it will stop working. As to the tollerance of hardware changes, those are questions Symantec has yet to answer. As usual, the consumer is left in the dark and guessing. Can the activation feature be circumvented? I can only hope that a hacker will be using his talent and a patch will appear on the net. I will not buy any product that requires activation. One time all I did was install the new nvidia Nforce drivers and it caused my windows to require reactivation and I didn't even change any hardware. Nope, don't buy any product that requires activation, vote with your wallet and send them a message.

I can see how piracy would force a company to implement activation, but then again look at programs like winzip... This program has been around for almost 10 years if not longer, and the reg keys are still the same as they were from day 1. Are people going to pirate software yes it is inevitable, but the more money you waste trying to stop it (activation, different registration calls, etc), the more you will lose customers and money you could be spending on other things like innovation. Then again any program that makes you buy a new one each year isnt exactly the best thing since sliced bread.

Yes, I agree. Too much time wasted and annoyance to customers as a result of anti-piracy and product activation equals a substantial loss of money for the company.






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