AVAST anti-virus is a popular computer security program for use in the home or business It can be downloaded and used in a trial version for free and has commercial options available. You may have the need to remove AVAST due to file corruption or purchasing a different vendor’s anti-virus product to avoid potential conflicts.

AVAST Removal Steps

The easiest way to remove AVAST is through the Add/Remove programs feature in your computer’s Control Panel.
1 – Select Start -> Settings -> Control Panel (This will slightly vary between XP, Vista, and Windows 7)
2 – Open the “Add/Remove Programs” menu option.
3 – Single left click the AVAST icon.
4 – Choose the “Remove” menu button and acknowledge the subsequent prompts.
5 – Restart your computer and AVAST will be removed.

Automatic Removal of AVAST

You can also make use of the Avast uninstall utility program in the event you could not remove it through the add/remove programs feature in Windows.

1 – Download the Avast Uninstall Utility
2 – Double click the ASWCLEAR file so it will run on your computer.
3 – Choose the folder where Avast is installed on your computer in the File Chooser of the removal utility.
4 – Restart your computer and Avast will be removed from your computer.

AVG Anti-virus is a home computer security solution produced by Grisoft. It can be downloaded and used in a trial version for free and has commercial options available. Sometimes you may find a need to uninstall AVG if its not working right and needs to be re-installed, has become corrupted due to virus attack, you’ve upgraded your email client program, or you just want to get rid of the program due to purchasing another anti-virus product.

AVG Removal Steps

The easiest way to remove AVG is through the Add/Remove programs feature in your computer’s Control Panel.
1 – Select Start -> Settings -> Control Panel (This will slightly vary between XP, Vista, and Windows 7)
2 – Open the “Add/Remove Programs” menu option.
3 – Single left click the AVG icon.
4 – Choose the “Remove” menu button and acknowledge the subsequent prompts.
5 – Restart your computer and AVG will be removed.

Automatic Removal of AVG

At the time of this writing, there was not an automatic removal tool produced for AVG. You can do an automatic removal, however, with the following steps.

1 – Download AVG to your computer
2 – Run the AVG install file
3 – Choose the “Uninstall Option” on the first menu of the AVG installation program.
4 – Restart your computer and AVG will be removed.

Norton 360 is the comprehensive computer security suite from Symantec. It enables you to obtain computer security, identity protection, computer backups, network monitoring, and computer tune-ups in one software package. The 2010 version of the Norton computer security programs were a huge improvement over past versions of Norton in that they run when your computer is idle in order to minimize the impact on your computer’s performance. When you purchase Norton 360 or other Norton products, you are entitled to load them on three non-commercial computers in-total at no charge. In order to do so, you must install the other copies of the software within 60 days to avoid a fee.

Steps to Install Norton 360 on Multiple Computers

Step 1 – Navigate to your Symatec Store Order status webpage on the computer that you desire to load the second or third copy of Norton 360. This will be the order page in the Norton account that you created when purchasing the software on-line or registering your product if buying from a store in a box.

Step 2 – Log-in to your Symantec account by entering either your loging ID and password or your order number and password. If you have forgotten your log-in ID, it is normally the email address that you used to register or purchase the product.

Step 3 – Choose the Norton product order from the menu that appears on the Symantec web page that corresponds to your purchase of Norton 360.

Step 4 – Now it’s time to download Norton 360 to the new computer. Choose the “Start Download” menu option to begin downloading to the computer. Don’t forget that if its been more than 60 days, you’ll have to pay another fee (less than buying a new license) to extend your “right” to download the product past 60 days of the purchase date.

Step 5 – After the download has completed, proceed with installing Norton 360 on the new computer. After you have installed the product three times you will need to purchase a new seat for Norton 360 for the 4th and subsequent computers.

Some warnings for the casual user:

- Your multiple installs of Norton products will not extend across computers of differing Operating Systems. I.e, if you run a Windows machine and your wife has a MAC, you can not install the same Norton product on both computers.

- Buy your Norton product from authorized re-sellers. If you buy the product from a 3rd party, you may not have rights to install Norton 360 or other Symantec products on multiple computers

Symantec products are popular computer security software programs that cover antivirus to data back-up needs for consumers. Norton 360 combines antivirus and antispyware protection along with data backup capabilities. The software program allows you to put 2GB of storage online for free as well as store greater data to a portable storage medium such as a removable hard drive, thumb drive, or burnable DVD or CD.

After you purchase and install Norton 360, you will want to configure or potentially change your original backup settings. Some of the reasons users decide to change their backup options with Norton 360 is that they add new folders or files to their computer not originally setup for back, their schedule has changed from the original one used when determining their backup schedule, or they have acquired a new hard drive that is being used.

Configuring Norton 360 Data Backups

To configure your Norton 360 options take the following steps:

1 – Open Norton 360. You can do so by choosing the Norton 360 icon on your desktop, from your application tray on your computer, or via the Programs on your Start menu.

2. – Choose the “Tasks” menu option and then pick the “Manage Backup Sets” menu choice.

3 – Check the drives or “My Documents” options on the What tab underneath the Backup sources from where you desire to backup files or folders on your computer.

4 – Choose the file categories under the “What File Types” that you desire to backup. You can also add additional files or folder by choosing “Add a File” or “Add a Folder” and then choose the files and/or folders.

5 – Click the “Where” tab to select or change the backup destination for your data to be stored. If saving online, remember that you will be limited to 2 GB of data storage, so if saving a large number of multimedia files you may exceed this capacity quickly.

6 – If you desire to change the backup schedule that Norton 360 uses, select the “When” tab and select a start time, day, or day of the month to conduct the data backup.

7 – Choose “Save Settings” and close Norton 360 and your data backup will now be configured.

The Norton Antivirus program is a widely used commercial antivirus program. Norton products are produced by Symantec and have been in the marketplace for a number of years. A comon problem for computer users that arises, however, is how to remove either Norton Antivirus or an associated Norton security product from their computer. This can either be due to a trial subscription running out of the product, or the desire to upgrade or switch to a different vendor’s antivirus porgram. If you do not remove the legacy Norton from your computer, there is a danger of conflicts with the new software arising during operation, or it just may not work properly.

Manual Removal of Norton Antivirus and Norton Security Products

If you need to remove Norton the following instructions will help you do so manually:

1 – Open your computer’s Control panel by choosing the Start menu and selecting Control Panel.
2 – Open the Add or Remove Programs menu option and then click on the Norton or Symantec product on your computer’s list of applications.
3 – Select the “Add/Remove” or “Change/Remove” menu option depending on your computer’s version of Windows.
4 – Left click once putting a check mark beside each Norton you desire to remove from your computer. Then, acknowledge the subsequent warning and choose the “Remove” button.
5. – You will see the software removal process on Windows step through the process of removing the Norton/Symantec application(s) from your computer. When it is complete it will ask you to restart your computer to complete the application removal. After you reboot the computer, Norton Antivirus should be removed.

Automatic Norton Product Removal

If your computer does not allow you to remove the Norton product for some reason, the company also produces an automatic software removal tool that you can download and run on your computer for free. It will only work on Windows versions that are newer than Windows ME, but will remove the majority of Norton products from your computer.

1. Click on the following link to download the Norton removal tool
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/Norton_Removal_Tool.exe
2 – Save the program to your computer’s desktop.
3 – Close all of the Norton program windows that you have open on your computer. Then, double click the removal program to start the tool.
4 – You will then be prompted to restart your computer after the tool runs.
5 – After rebooting your computer, Norton will be removed.