Norton Internet Security worse than a virus

Norton doesn't always work on XP

[shady]

When I told a friend of mine that he should use Norton on his PC, he said "I would rather rebuild my machine every six months due to a virus, than have a machine that runs slow the whole year round"

At the time, I thought this was a less than sensible approach, but am beginning to wonder whether Norton is worse than having a virus anyway :)

I run Norton Internet Security under XP (both current versions) on my brand new laptop (XP 1500+). Norton has made the following changes to my machine!:

Ran like a Ferrari - Now runs like an old Cortina
Emails are replaced by "Symantic Email Proxy Deleted Message" with no details of original
Had to turn off privacy control/Ad Blocking, as even at their lowest settings, many "proper" pages are unuseable (e.g. cannot post data to cgi scripts)

I DO like many of the features (particularly the blocking of viruses :) ) but it does seem to cause more trouble than its worth - particularly in the way it makes an XP1500 run like a P200!

I have a permanent connection to the internet via cable, but my work is done on a laptop, behind a windows 2000 network. Do I need a firewall installed on the laptop anyway?

Is there any alternative antivirus to Norton, which works well on XP without killing the machine?

Will I EVER learn, not to install Norton software? :(

[mat]

Norton AV as a standalone is a good enough product (even though we've found it can cause slowdowns for LAN traffic under XP), but I'd drop the entire suite product and just go for dedicated AV and a dedicated Firewall (again, we've had problems with many firewalls under XP, but ZA can work, as can Outpost firewall from Agnitum - others like the Tiny firewall from Kerio).

(e.g. cannot post data to cgi scripts)

I'm surprised that this doesn't get mentioned more often. Norton security suite blocks the http referrer header, hence ANY cgi script that has referrer checking enabled - and many do by default - will fail.

Mat

[shady]

Thanks Mat :)

Actually, I tried submitting to dmoz for 3 days before I realised it was Norton blocking my IP that was causing the failure!

In addition, I have Norton Internet Security installed on the desktop which is connected to the internet and running win2k. Do I actually need a firewall on the Laptop which is using the shared connection of the desktop and not directly connected?

[mat]

If it was me, yes, irrespective of whether or not there is a firewall running on the 'connecting' box - which there should be. The script kiddies are running automated IP scanning software 24 hours a day, just looking for those open ports.

Our LAN connects through a router with built in firewall, yet we still find that software firewalls on the boxes behind the router are still catching stuff, both in and out-bound.

[Edited to add]

Mat