"MikeCT" wrote in message
...

"Alan" replied:

Norton products do the exact opposite. Install one of their products and
it will always be trying to contact home and they are almost impossible
to eradicate from your system without a complete system re-build.
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I agree! I have ZoneAlarm Pro, avast! Antivirus, Spybot Search & Destroy
and a-squared keeping my PC safe. All but ZoneAlarm Pro are FREE,
*and* have kept my computer trouble free for at least two and a half
years.

MikeCT

Agree. Spybot (free!) found a trojan ("Ruins") on my other older PC that had
just walked past Symantec's vast and expensive internet security product.
What didn't help was that the invader could not be reliably removed by
Spybot, but was listed under a different name in Symantec's database -
despite which it couldn't actually see the trojan's files and registry
entries (this nasty POS nobbles Registry Editor and File browsing to conceal
itself, except in windows Safe Mode, which of course this year's Symantec
product won't run in). Had to resort to scary manual removal tactics in Safe
Mode in the end - this was possible mainly because I knew the exact date and
time when the infected files got in, otherwise I'd have had no chance.

Left wondering WTF I paid the subscription to Symantec for, particularly as
the memory upgrade I needed to run their latest offering and still be able
to open a word processor in less time than a kettle takes to boil cost me as
much again.

Please excuse bad language in form of TLAs (3-letter abbrevs).!

Ex-Symantec Customer

P.S. Back to gardening - I think in hindsight I lost an apple tree and a
chaenomeles to fireblight this summer. Will removing the infected plants get
rid of it, or does this lurk in the soil or unseen on other plants?

Duncan