Norton Antivirus: Activation is Seriously Broken

Written By
Loyd Case
Loyd Case
Published: Nov 24, 2003
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
1 minute read
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Once a loyal customer of Norton Antivirus, Loyd has switched to a competitor. Why? Because Nortons activation scheme breaks too frequently, leaving his computer at risk.

Putting Customers at Risk

Until a couple of years ago, Id never been much of a user of antivirus software. Mostly, it was because I had been lucky. After getting a broadband connection and finding a worm on my home network, though, I decided it was time to bite the bullet.

PC Magazine has always rated Norton Antivirus [NAV] highly, so I bought it for the first time back in 2002. Actually, I bought Symantecs Norton SystemWorks 2002, but eventually unloaded everything except the antivirus software. It worked great. It was unobtrusive, mostly compatible with the PC games I used, and saved my bacon several times as various e-mail viruses made the rounds. Later, I upgraded to the 2003 version — mostly so I could get rid of the remaining detritus left behind by SystemWorks.

As my one-year virus definitions subscription drew to a close, it was only natural to upgrade to the 2004 version.

Loyd Case

Loyd Case came to computing by way of physical chemistry. He began modestly on a DEC PDP-11 by learning the intricacies of the TROFF text formatter while working on his master's thesis. After a brief, painful stint as an analytical chemist, he took over a laboratory network at Lockheed in the early 80's and never looked back. His first 'real' computer was an HP 1000 RTE-6/VM system.In 1988, he figured out that building his own PC was vastly more interesting than buying off-the-shelf systems ad he ditched his aging Compaq portable. The Sony 3.5-inch floppy drive from his first homebrew rig is still running today. Since then, he's done some programming, been a systems engineer for Hewlett-Packard, worked in technical marketing in the workstation biz, and even dabbled in 3-D modeling and Web design during the Web's early years.Loyd was also bitten by the writing bug at a very early age, and even has dim memories of reading his creative efforts to his third grade class. Later, he wrote for various user group magazines, culminating in a near-career ending incident at his employer when a humor-impaired senior manager took exception at one of his more flippant efforts. In 1994, Loyd took on the task of writing the first roundup of PC graphics cards for Computer Gaming World -- the first ever written specifically for computer gamers. A year later, Mike Weksler, then tech editor at Computer Gaming World, twisted his arm and forced him to start writing CGW's tech column.

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