Product Description

Norton 360 delivers all-in-one security for everything the computer users in your family care about. Easy to use, it provides automatic and transparent protection from viruses and spyware, fraudulent Web sites, phishing scams, hackers, identity theft, and more. With a renewable subscription, up to three PCs in your household are continuously protected, safeguarding your family when they play games, send email, download files, chat, or surf the Web. And transaction security features allow you to shop and bank online with confidence. Norton 360 also keeps your PCs tuned for peak performance and protects the data on them by making it easy to back up photos, music, financial documents, and other files and restore them at any time. Flexible options allow you to back up your files to CD, DVD, and USB devices. For even more convenience, you can also set up automatic backups to an attached hard drive or a secure online storage service* to protect your important files in the event something happens to your PC. And for enhanced performance, a smart background scheduler automatically schedules key Norton 360 functions such as scans, backups, and tune-ups so that they don’t interfere with your PC activities. *Requires high-speed Internet access; 2 GB of online storage included, with option to purchase more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2635 in Software
• Color: 3-user
• Brand: Symantec
• Model: 11206515
• Released on: 2007-03-10
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft XP Media Center Edition
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: .45 pounds

Features

• PC security software offers comprehensive, automated protection
• Defends against the latest online threats; protects important files
• Safeguards against online identity theft; automated backup
• Keeps computer tuned up for peak performance
• Provides 1-year license for up to 3 PCs per household

From the Manufacturer
Norton 360 is a comprehensive consumer security solution. It offers you 360 degrees of protection, eliminating the need to purchase and manage multiple products. This full circle of protection combines Symantec's proven, industry-leading security and PC tune-up technologies with new automated backup and antiphishing features. Defend your PC against a broad range of threats, from online identity theft to common issues like lost files and weak performance. The software provides a one-year license for up to three PCs per household.

Features:

• Removes viruses from email and instant messages
• Blocks Internet worms at point of entry
• Stops spyware from tracking you online
• Authenticates popular shopping and banking Web sites
• Protects you from phishing sites designed to steal your confidential information
• Discovers new files and backs up that data automatically
• Automatically backup important files to a secure online service
• Local backup to CD, DVD, or external drive
• Automatically removes unwanted Internet clutter and temporary files that can slow down your PC's performance

Customer Reviews

Resource Hog - a Partial Explanation
Under the heading "Resource hog that causes applications to lock", S.Page posted this comment:
"I also frequently have the CPU at 100% problem. It's the process ccSvcHst.exe. You can't kill this from the task manager, but you can stop and start from Services. But that stops Norton 360 and after restarting it can't fix itself, so I have yet to find an alternative to restarting my PC."

I have had 360 installed since April of this year. From time to time it would hog cpu, but it would clear soon enough. But today I had the ccSvcHst.exe problem S.Page describes. Most of the time ccSvcHst cpu usage would be in the 90's; everything froze. Rebooting didn't help. Couldn't stop it in Task Manager, or assign lower priority. This went on for a couple of hours. Now and again cpu usage would drop to ~60%, at which time the PC freed up somewhat and I could do some digging into the problem on the net. I found this explanation - that it is not just ccSvcHst.exe, but a deadlock between ccSvcHst and Windows XP update download. Here is what the guy wrote:

QUOTE
I have XP Pro ... when I installed Norton 360 (2007) I experienced the same problem experienced by others. I agree that it seemed to be Windows Update and Norton Updates and Scans running simultaneously, either conflicting or vying for resources. Inevitably ccSvcHst.exe would use up all memory and virtual memory making the machine unusable. Re-boots would continue the wrestling as each program tried to complete its appointed update task.
Solution for me. Switch off Norton 360's automatic updates and scans and let XP evaluate and seek updates at startup. Discipline myself to manually direct Norton 360 to do its thing when I leave my desk for meetings or over night. I do this almost daily. No problems for over two weeks since I took this approach.
The frustrating thing is that the Symantec chat techs don't let on that Symantec has any inkling of this problem. If they would just acknowledge the problem and fix it, they would not lose customers like they are now. They do not have the same almost monopolistic status held by MS.
END QUOTE

I switched off 360 altogether and rebooted. Lo and behold - closing down took about an hour while XP processed a couple of big updates. I am now running without 360. ccSvcHst.exe is still in the task list, and occasionally gets some cycles, but is mostly at 0%.

I will add a comment to this review when I hear back from Symantec tech support. I am interested to see whether they are in denial about the problem, as this guy asserts. Maybe there is an analogous political deadlock between MS and Symantec, each blaming the other for the problem.

May work well in the future, but avoid Symantec's online store
I purchased a new laptop and it came with Vista and 60 day trial of Norton Internet Security 2007. Because I am a registered user of a previous version of Norton products I received an offer directly from Symantec to buy Norton 360, 3 PC version for less than the Amazon price even with purchase of the download-for-a-year capability.

The good:
- The download and install of the product went smoothly in about 20 minutes.
- The protection is very broad and covers all the typical types of assaults.
- The controls are easy to manage and tweak.

The bad:
- After the download, whenever I go to PayPal the logon is prevented because the browser think's PayPal's security certificate has been revoked. Both PayPal and Symantec blame Microsoft, but it worked okay before 360 and it works fine on the Vista desktop I have protected by Live OneCare. The workaround is temporarily suspend anti-phishing protection, which 360 makes easy.
- 2 days after purchasing the software I went online to load Norton 360 on my second desktop. The site rejected my order number as invalid. When I logged in to the Symantec site, it shows I have an active license but doesn't show I have any orders. After 4 attempts I finally got a response from the Symantec email support team. It was obvious they hadn't read the details of my problem, only the header. They gave me the link to put in my order number to download, but of course that is the problem. The note also warns I shouldn't contact them about the same problem again for 7 days. I guess I could use my dime and queue up for who knows how long on their phone response support, but that doesn't seem cost effective for less than $50, especially when the result may be the same. I have contacted the email support team again, no response at this point. So I am less than a week into a 3 computer license with a year of download protection with only one copy working and no way to get the other copies. If they do not respond by the time my credit card statement comes I am cancelling the software payment and will unload the software.

I have happily used Symantec products in the past but was never reduced to using their download service or online support. It appears ignorance is bliss as my experience with the service and support is that they are extremely poor. So if you do want to try this product I strongly suggest staying away from Symantec's online store and get the CD. This should reduce the probability of problems and needing to interact with Symantec itself.

I would not recommend Norton 360 to ANYONE!
I was conned into purchasing Norton 360 when upgrading from Norton's antivirus program. What a mistake! It cost more than a regular upgrade, and I had been perfectly happy with the old program.

Listen, I'm not normally a complainer, but I have spent the equivalent of two days attempting to fix all kinds of issues with this product, most of which have required complicated solutions.
A few examples:
1. Live update stopped running four days after purchase, and I kept getting messages that my computer was in danger. When I tried to run Live Update, however, I would get a message that it was already in use, even when my internet connection was turned off!
2. To my shock, I found that anti-spam does not automatically come with this purchase. I was verbally promised an anti-spam upgrade within a few days after buying Norton 360, but they kept extending the date for this being available...and it is still unavailable. So I have had to filter through masses of spam myself.
3. Some of my Windows scheduled tasks were arbitrarily erased.
4. I have a PayPal store, but it has been impossible to get into my PayPal account. Norton won't let me!
5. Each time I try to upload files for protection, one of the components of this program, something goes wrong and it doesn't work.
6. Norton deleted my old anti-spam program, even though it had not expired yet.
7. To add insult to injury, four days after purchasing Norton 360 for $59.99, I received an email from Symantec offering me the same product for $20 less!
On and on it goes.

Getting support from Symantec is agonizing. I have been unable to find answers to the problems I've had through online pages. Tech support email replies, for which one must wait 2 days, are from non-native-English speaking people, which makes for misunderstandings. While having tech support in another country saves Symantec money, is a lousy thing to do for our country's economy.
When I complained to Customer Support about various problems and wanted to cancel the product, my issues were not addressed and all I received was a patronizing email.

This has been a frustrating waste of my money. Please be wiser than I was!