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.

Norton Antivirus 2010

Symantec recently released the final version of Norton Antivirus 2010. Building on the success of Antivirus 2009, Symantec made a number of changes to the software for 2010 and included a new heuristic or behavioral detection engine with the program to help detect emerging threats. The new technology is labeled “Quorum” and incorporates a reputation engine named “Norton Insight” to respond faster to the mutating and hibernating threat using anonymous user data from Norton software users.

Norton Antivirus 2010 Installation
Norton Antivirus 2010 installs so fast compared to the 2009 and 2008 versions of the software, you may not believe that it really is Norton Antivirus. After initiating run on the installer, if you are running a decently fast computer, you will be live on Norton within minutes. During the installation of the software, you’ll also get asked to register to provide data to Norton Insight, but are not required to do so. It was very easy for me to install the software, and when running the Beta version, uninstallation was also painless.

Norton Antivirus 2010 Features

Norton redesigned the software interface for the 2010 version in order to make the non-power user feel more comfortable using the software. You can still peer deep under the hood at what the application is doing, but coupled with the improved performance and the addition of Quorum, Norton Antivirus 2010 is a hit. Using the Insight Protection feature you can view any “known bad files” located on your computer along with “unkown” and “known good files”. The new version also lets you see what the performance data of the program has been for the past 90 minutes if desired. The measure of performance is the amount of CPU usage Norton is using. Another great feature with Norton 2010 is a combined anti-spyware capability.

Norton Antivirus 2010 Performance
On top of the quick installation of Norton Anti-virus 2010, the scan times were improved for me over the 2009 version. Not a benchmark test, but on my personal laptop a full scan finished in about 1 hr 5 minutes with the Quick Scan taking just over a minute. The Quick Scan won’t rescan files already scanned. All-in-all, it definitely appears as though Symantec took on consumer feedback on desired improvements with this year’s software.
Norton Antivirus 2010 Conclusions

Norton Antivirus 2010 has everything that a home computer user needs for a home computer antivirus solution. The improvements in speed and potential of the Quorum technology make it worth checking out if you are looking for a inexpensive, commercial antivirus and antispyware solution. If you’re not sure if you want to purchase the software, you can download a free 30 day trial from Symantec.

Norton Anti-virus is one of the most popular anti-virus programs for home computers. It is also a popular anti-virus program that is bundled with new computers sold by companies such as HP and Dell computing. Many computer users will want to be able to turn Norton off if they have a preferred anti-virus program or need to conduct computer downloads or game play that are not compatible with running Norton anti-virus. Regardless of the reason that you need to turn Norton on or off, it is relatively straightforward to accomplish once you have done it once.

How to Turn Norton Anti-Virus Off Using the Software Interface

The easiest way to turn Norton Anti-virus off is using the program’s interface to secure the application. In order to so:
1 – Double left click the Anti-virus center icon in the right corner of your toolbar. Then, choose the “status and Settings” toolbar option.
2 – Now, you’ll select the “Security” menu option and select the “off” option on the subsequent menu.

When you restart your computer, Norton Anti-virus will be off.

How to Manually Turn Off Norton Security

Alternatively, you can secure Norton Anti-virus manually through the Windows Task Manager. To secure Norton in this manner:
1 – Open your computer’s task manager by choosing the “Ctrl + Alt + Delete” keys simultaneously.
2 – Choose the “Processes” tab that’s at the top of your computer’s task manager. You can then sort the application names by clicking the “description” program heading.
3 – Find Norton Anti-virus on the program listing. Single left click the program name and choose the “End Process” menu option. Norton will now be manually turned off.

How to Manually Turn On Norton Security

If you need to turn Norton Security back on, you will need to open Norton from your computer’s start menu. Then,
1 – Choose the “Options” menu option in the main Norton window.
2 – Toggle the “Auto-Protect” option in the Norton Options window and check the check box next to the “Enable Auto-Protect” menu choice. Norton will now be enabeld on your computer.

How to Enable Norton LiveUpdate

Norton LiveUpdate can be set to have Norton Anti-Virus to check for software updates automatically on a set schedule. When LiveUpdate is set to automatic, it will check for updates on a four hour frequency. In order to enable LiveUpdate you will need to:

1 – Choose the “Options” menu in the main Norton Anti-virus window.
2 – Click the “Internet” option in the options menu and pick “LiveUpdate”
3 – Then, choose the “Enable Automatic LiveUpdate” check box on the next window.

Norton Internet Security has been a sub-division of the Symantec Corporation since 1990. Norton’s products help you guard your computer against malware infection to include spyware prevention as well as malware removal. Their products also include firewalls, spam filtering, and protection against web phising. Norton’s products are normally updated annually. Norton also makes the upcoming version available for beta testing for user’s that register to test their beta products. Norton’s anti-virus products are fairly popular amongst regular computer users for malware and spyware protection due to the number of fake anti-malware and anti-spyware products that are on the Internet.

Malware Removal Tips – Updating Norton’s Product Key

A common problem for Norton product users is updating the product key for Norton software when upgrading to the latest version of software without having to reinstall their software. If you are having the same problem, here are the steps to update your Norton Product Key:
1 – In the Norton main program window, choose the Subscribe Now or Activate Now button.
2 – Then, pick the option to enter your Norton Product Key, input the key, and click the Next button.
3 – Put your email address in the Norton Account Window and click the Next button. When the activation is finished, choose the Done button and your Norton will be updated!

Thats it! If you have any problems just let us know!