Why is Norton Utilities So Bad?

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Used to use it on my PC prior to switching to the Mac platform. Seems like I have seen posts at AI basically saying to "stay away from Norton". Was just curious why?



Thanks for your input!



Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    they have horrible os X support... they used to be good on os 9, and still are very good on the PC side... but they just didn't do their homework on os X and it causes more problems then it solves (sometimes with EXTREMELY bad consequences...)
  • Reply 2 of 9
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Paul

    they have horrible os X support... they used to be good on os 9, and still are very good on the PC side... but they just didn't do their homework on os X and it causes more problems then it solves (sometimes with EXTREMELY bad consequences...)



    I agree/attest to that and I'm not a novice. It screwed several systems royally and I'm never going back.



    Zero Norton now and zero need for it. And happy.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Norton was good for PC's but I've had nothing but problems with the mac side. When I installed norton (1998 ) everything was fine and it found a few problems and fixed them. I was happy. 2 years later I got a laptop and OS 9. Norton would not run on my laptop and since I upgraded to OS 9 it stopped working on my Beige G3 too. Finally the disaster struck. A hard drive crashed.



    The only way to save files was to buy a new disk, replace the zip drive with a third hard drive, install OS 8* on first drive, download over 56K and upgrade to 8.5*, download again and upgrade to 8.6*, *Next day* install norton on the first drive, repair second drive, (didn't work), recover data from the second drive to the third drive, *Next day* format the second drive, restore the system folder from the third drive, replace core OS9 files on second drive with fresh OS8.6 files from first drive, insert OS9 update and upgrade OS8.6 files on second drive (now I have a new-ish "fresh copy"), remove first and third drives, boot off of second drive and went out to buy Tech Tool Pro.



    * I'm just guessing here but the actual versions don't matter. I still gad a bunch of upgrades.



    This was a long time ago and I'm sure I have a few things wrong but you get the idea.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ebby

    Norton was good for PC's but I've had nothing but problems with the mac side. When I installed norton (1998 ) everything was fine and it found a few problems and fixed them. I was happy. 2 years later I got a laptop and OS 9. Norton would not run on my laptop and since I upgraded to OS 9 it stopped working on my Beige G3 too. Finally the disaster struck. A hard drive crashed.



    The only way to save files was to buy a new disk, replace the zip drive with a third hard drive, install OS 8* on first drive, download over 56K and upgrade to 8.5*, download again and upgrade to 8.6*, *Next day* install norton on the first drive, repair second drive, (didn't work), recover data from the second drive to the third drive, *Next day* format the second drive, restore the system folder from the third drive, replace core OS9 files on second drive with fresh OS8.6 files from first drive, insert OS9 update and upgrade OS8.6 files on second drive (now I have a new-ish "fresh copy"), remove first and third drives, boot off of second drive and went out to buy Tech Tool Pro.



    * I'm just guessing here but the actual versions don't matter. I still gad a bunch of upgrades.



    This was a long time ago and I'm sure I have a few things wrong but you get the idea.




    Oh, come now. I am not a terribly big fan of Norton. However, it did not crash your hard disk. I have three beige G3s. After a couple of years, two of them suffered hard disk crashes within a couple of months of each other. I put it off to crappy IDE hard disks. The ones that came on my computers seem to have a well-defined finite lifetime.



    And another thing--your life would be so much better if you got at least one full-installation CD for MacOS 9.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Oh, no no. Norton did not crash the drive. It was working fine for 2 years than the drive crashed by its self. What I was saying was that it took forever to repair/recover the files and I got fed up and bought Tech Tool Pro which is much more compatible. (Works on different OS versions unlike Norton which you have to pay for each upgrade.)



    And yes, full installs are better but I travel the cheapest road.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ebby

    Oh, no no. Norton did not crash the drive. It was working fine for 2 years than the drive crashed by its self. What I was saying was that it took forever to repair/recover the files and I got fed up and bought Tech Tool Pro which is much more compatible. (Works on different OS versions unlike Norton which you have to pay for each upgrade.)



    And yes, full installs are better but I travel the cheapest road.




    If your disk has a catastrophic crash, it costs time and money to replace the disk. No surprise. If you can't recover your files with Norton, TechTools, or DiskWarrior, then a professional file recovery service will cost lots of money and time to recover your files. It cost me over $1000 and several weeks to recover my files after a crash on a beige G3 much like yours. No surprise there either. In that regard your argument is specious.



    As for the relative price of Norton upgrades compared to TechTools Pro, your argument is also specious. I have used TechTools Pro 2 and 3. I have no experience with TechTools 4, so I cannot comment on the latest version. I have also used Norton, including the last three major releases of SystemWorks for the Mac and SystemWorks 2004 for Windows. TechTools Pro point upgrades are free. However, full version upgrades cost money. SystemWorks/NAV/NUM full version upgrades cost money, to be sure. However, point upgrades are free. The difference is that Norton point upgrades are performed by the Live Update utility. TechTool Pro point updates required me to download the update from MicroMat's website and to perform the update manually.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    That's the thing. I didn't have to do that if I had TTP.

    I guess I didn't make my post very clear. I have had trouble with norton every time I needed it most. Finally I got fed up and bought Tech Tool Pro and it fixed everything norton didn't with no hassle. No opening the computer, no adding or removing drives. The difference is that norton will not run on different computers running different versions of OS's (OS 8-9). Tech Tool Pro does work on everything from my Quadra 650 to my Beige G3. That kind of compatibility is what I expect from a recovery program. I don't want to be tinkering with different OS versions to fool norton to do its job. I own TTP version 3 which works on everything from OS 7.5.5 to OS 9.2.2 and I own version 4.0.2 that works with OS X and i'd bet many future versions too. Lets see norton do that! I am not necessarily a die-hard advocate of TTP, it is just that I was screwed so bad using Norton I will never se it again and want to warn other people. My decision to use TTP, not Norton, is solely based on my user experience.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    jwri004jwri004 Posts: 626member
    And the amount of stories you here when Norton runs maintenance, and suddenly their drive is hosed, is too often for my liking.





    EDIT: ad 2 fix my gramma so da speilin poliss dont cum caling
  • Reply 9 of 9
    Nortons worked great for me with OS 7.6-8.6 but with OS 9 it sucks. I have all kinds of problems related to Nortons when running OS 9. My boss makes us use it and it seems to create more problems than it solves.



    I haven't used Nortons with OS X. I will use DiskWarrior or TechTool instead. I don't know what happened with Nortons but it seems that they got left behind by TechTool and DiskWarrior.
Sign In or Register to comment.