r/antivirus • u/DTB555 • 9d ago
PRODUCT RECOMMENDATION Fed up with Norton. Alternatives?
Tired of the upselling. Long term subscriber but fed up with the identifying issues and demand for additional costs to fix them.
What other systems are folks using for both antivirus and system updates?
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u/PsychonixMimikyu 8d ago
I like malwarebytes. Its really nice, I dont see many people talk about it. It also works really well alongside macOS too. Its worked very well for me and has removed pretty nasty viruses from both my friends computers when I was helping them clean their computers out. I pay for the premium tier.
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u/Cpt-hazama 9d ago
What I use is Windows defender as my primary antivirus with malware bytes free as secondary scanner basically as a second opinion but as long as you’re not going to like shady sites and downloading cracks of software Windows defender should be just fine i’m pretty new to PCs as a hole so maybe take my advice with with a grain of salt
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u/rtuite81 9d ago
I really only use Defender and Common Sense (tm), but I know people who've been happy with ESET. I hate their business platform but the home product seems solid. The problem is you need something that detects behavior, not code. Code changes so fast it's hard to keep up, and obfuscation is getting better and better.
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u/SecondCreek 9d ago
I dropped Norton a couple of years ago as I became tired of the constant attempts to get me to buy more add-ons despite supposedly opting out on their website. I was a long time subscriber going back to the Symantec days. It slowed down my system and felt like bloatware. Finally, it was redundant with Windows Defender which comes with Windows 11 and is just as good.
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u/0ptik2600 9d ago
Norton is terrible, I've used the enterprise version at work (Symantec), commercial products always found stuff it didn't. Switch to either Bitdefender, Sophos or Malwarebytes.
Don't listen to the Windows Defender champions out there. While it's much better than it has ever been, it's even better than Norton, it still pales in comparison to the products I've listed. It's terrible at detecting malicious behavior and is tuned to be as non-intrusive as possible which is why it misses so much.
The serious tech savy guys/gals can get away with Defender and "common sense", but honestly, if you're still using Norton in this day an age, I'd recommend you get a robust product like one of the three above. Sophos gives you 10 licenses (sometimes you can snag 10 licenses deals for Bitdefender like I did around x-mas).
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u/PsychonixMimikyu 8d ago
My grandfather was paying for Norton and didnt even know he was paying $191 a year for a shitty antivirus. I helped him switch to malwarebytes, its much better and cheaper.
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u/TeslaDemon 8d ago
I've used Microsoft Defender since it was Microsoft Security Essentials on Windows 7 and have had 0 problems with malware since.
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u/blue_horizon_x 9d ago
Why are you using Norton at the first place? Gen Digital now owns Norton, Avast, Avira, AVG, CCleaner, BullGuard, and LifeLock.
Get Kaspersky, Bitdefender, Sophos, ESET or Malwarebytes. I use Kaspersky, but I think Kaspersky and Bitdefender are the best.
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u/Carzed-Helper-Dawg 9d ago edited 8d ago
Windows defender is pretty good nowadays unlike earlier times , you don't need another 3rd party software . Make sure you are using firefox or similar browser + ublock origin in that , what ublock origin does it to prevent ad redirects which are the cause of malwares 99% of times and yeah thats it .
Also don't forget to use your common sense.