Upgrading to windows 8.1 does i need to uninstall my norton 360

[Pawelk198604]

Does i need to uninstall Norton 360 before upgrading windows.

[sjwt]

Its always recommended that you back up all your data and do a fresh install. But otherwise, yes, I would remove Norton's and disconnect from the internet if your worried about security.

[Pawelk198604]

Its always recommended that you back up all your data and do a fresh install. But otherwise, yes, I would remove Norton's and disconnect from the internet if your worried about security.

What do you think about Windows 8.1 i downloading it right now.

[Nibb31]

You can trash Norton, it's useless.

Windows 8.1 is a nice step up from Windows 8, but it still lacks a proper start menu.

[Pawelk198604]

You can trash Norton, it's useless.

Windows 8.1 is a nice step up from Windows 8, but it still lacks a proper start menu.

I just upgraded Windows and re-instated Norton 360, i still have 107 days licence, i bought it so why trash it, but i think about switching to Kaspersky, does is better than norton?

[BlackBicycle]

This is my personal opinion... both Norton AND Kaspersky are trash.

Been using Avira for like 10+ years. Never had any problem (well, I am what they call "advanced user").

And why would you want to upgrade to Eight-whatever anyway? I just got me a new rig, set up 7, more than enough.

[Aghanim]

In my laptop I don't use AV because I'm careful with downloading stuff from the internet (no next clicking randomly), but my sister that also uses my laptop doesn't do the same, putting a lot of spyware on my laptop so I'm forced to install AVG. Although, my computer uses Linux

[Raven.]

Does i need to uninstall Norton 360 before upgrading windows.

My personal opinion, uninstall Norton 360 and leave it off; get rid of it as fast as you can. You can save quite a bit of money by switching to a free anti virus, such as AVG, Avira, and Microsoft Security Essentials. Zone Alarm also has a decent anti virus/firewall that's free, although it has some annoying ads.

[JumpsterG]

Free antivirus options are more than enough for most users (Microsoft Security Essentials gets a bad rep, but is pretty sufficient and lightweight), but if it's a corporate level machine (provided by employer), or you legitimately use it for sensitive business work (for example, I routinely have copies of customer databases containing financial details and personal contact information on my machine), it's wise to use the paid services.

I personally would choose Kaspersky over Norton for a single computer, but that's just opinion based on feeling that Norton takes too much control over the computer while Kaspersky provides some pretty awesome tools for free:

http://www.kaspersky.com/virus-removal-tools

For company-wide protection, I'd say Norton is the standard, but I'm not an expert in network security. I've just seen the majority of businesses I work with using it.

[Raven.]

For company-wide protection, I'd say Norton is the standard, but I'm not an expert in network security. I've just seen the majority of businesses I work with using it.

Security Essentials is actually a stripped down version of Microsoft Forefront, which is another corporate level anti-virus that is part of the System Center 2012 & 2012 R2 suites. What they stripped out was the central management components that reports to a UTM (Unified Threat Management) server. It is also built into Windows 8 and 8.1 and renamed to "Defender," which is not the same Defender that we knew from Windows Vista and Windows 7. The big four when it comes to corporate level security is Symantec (they bought Norton), McAfee, Sophos, and Microsoft Forefront, and those four are usually locked down to where you cannot uninstall them. And if you do have those, you also would not be able to upgrade to Windows 8.1, as that option is disabled on corporate machines that are domain bound.

JumpsterG is correct, if you're just using your computer for personal, non-commercial use, then a free anti-virus option is more than enough; there's no need to pay money for a paid anti-virus product. However, if you have a personally owned machine that you use for a business purpose, then:

1) You should be running a paid product, such as Nortons or McAfee.

2) You should be running a Professional edition of Windows with an encryption product installed (encryption not supported on home editions). You are required to protect any client data that you have stored on your computer, especially if the data is education or medical related (FERPA & HIPAA regulations).

3) You should have a IT technician on your payroll or on contract if you don't know much about computers. There are plenty of them looking for jobs.

[Guest]

Security Essentials is actually a stripped down version of Microsoft Forefront, which is another corporate level anti-virus that is part of the System Center 2012 & 2012 R2 suites. What they stripped out was the central management components that reports to a UTM (Unified Threat Management) server. It is also built into Windows 8 and 8.1 and renamed to "Defender," which is not the same Defender that we knew from Windows Vista and Windows 7. The big four when it comes to corporate level security is Symantec (they bought Norton), McAfee, Sophos, and Microsoft Forefront, and those four are usually locked down to where you cannot uninstall them. And if you do have those, you also would not be able to upgrade to Windows 8.1, as that option is disabled on corporate machines that are domain bound.

JumpsterG is correct, if you're just using your computer for personal, non-commercial use, then a free anti-virus option is more than enough; there's no need to pay money for a paid anti-virus product. However, if you have a personally owned machine that you use for a business purpose, then:

1) You should be running a paid product, such as Nortons or McAfee.

2) You should be running a Professional edition of Windows with an encryption product installed (encryption not supported on home editions). You are required to protect any client data that you have stored on your computer, especially if the data is education or medical related (FERPA & HIPAA regulations).

3) You should have a IT technician on your payroll or on contract if you don't know much about computers. There are plenty of them looking for jobs.

In my experience, which is limited to home computers for me, my family, and my friends over the past 30 years, of which anti-virus's have only been around for the last 15 or so as far as I can remember (my memory is not a good source of info by the way), anti-viruses cause more problems than they solve. Most machines I have seen get infected even though there are anti-virus's installed. This is do to one reason every time : the user downloads and runs something they shouldn't have because they thought they were getting some sort of free deal. Common sense is the best defense, not an anti-virus.

That being said, Raven, your post has raised my curiosity, which much like a cat, gets me into trouble more often than not. One would think that a major retailer like Target would have some of the best defenses available in place. How would you explain the fact that millions of people had their debit and credit card information stolen over the holidays? Just because a government regulation exists, does not mean that it is a best practice. Hackers can and will find ways around anti-virus's and security software. I ask this because you sound informed on the subject, or you work for a tech security company like Norton and are defending their supposed need, one of the two.

[Raven.]

In my experience, which is limited to home computers for me, my family, and my friends over the past 30 years, of which anti-virus's have only been around for the last 15 or so as far as I can remember (my memory is not a good source of info by the way), anti-viruses cause more problems than they solve. Most machines I have seen get infected even though there are anti-virus's installed. This is do to one reason every time : the user downloads and runs something they shouldn't have because they thought they were getting some sort of free deal. Common sense is the best defense, not an anti-virus.

That being said, Raven, your post has raised my curiosity, which much like a cat, gets me into trouble more often than not. One would think that a major retailer like Target would have some of the best defenses available in place. How would you explain the fact that millions of people had their debit and credit card information stolen over the holidays? Just because a government regulation exists, does not mean that it is a best practice. Hackers can and will find ways around anti-virus's and security software. I ask this because you sound informed on the subject, or you work for a tech security company like Norton and are defending their supposed need, one of the two.

No, I do not work for Norton nor any of the large tech companies. I'm just an IT guy.

You do raise an extremely good point about anti-viruses; they are not 100% effective. There are several reasons for this, one of which is because the entire concept of anti-viruses is flawed to begin with; anti-viruses are a reactive measure, and do not take any action until the security breach has already occurred. With that being said, I still recommend paid anti-viruses for businesses for two reasons: 1) the corporate grade anti-viruses will send log reports to a system administrator to be reviewed and 2) they can be part of what the industry calls a "defense in depth" strategy (more on that here in a bit).

The government, when requiring businesses to provide adequate protection for client's data, does not dictate how that data is to be protected. FERPA for example, simply states that disclosing a student's information, whether intentionally or unintentionally (this includes security breaches), warrants a very hefty fine. Attach to that several pages of jargon written in some language other than plain ole' English that adds exceptions, loopholes, etc. How most businesses approach this is push anti-viruses out to the entire corporation followed by an access control list defined in Microsoft Active Directory, and then forget about it. Even this is not considered best practice, but it's what most businesses do. My guess is that this is what Target did.

What is considered best practice is a concept called "defense in depth." This concept dictates that no single security approach can provide adequate protection, but rather a combination of security software and procedures that are applied in "layers." The idea is that if one layer is breached, the other layers remain in place. One layer might be requiring all corporate computers having anti-virus software that reports to a centralized server. Another layer might be requiring that all laptops have full disk encryption software along with a remote location software such as Prey. Yet another layer might be training users to not download stuff they shouldn't be downloading. All three of these layers are layers that can be easily implemented by both a small business and a large corporation. Other measures include firewalls with white/black listing, UTM servers, setting up dual authentication, "always-on" VPN connections, etc.

Typically when a large company such as Target suffers a major breach it's because the proper security measures were not taken, such as failing to provide multiple layers of protection. Target is not disclosing all the information about their breach, so the best that anyone can do is speculate. My personal theory is that they only implemented one layer of protection, and that layer was breached. Typically POS systems are not connected to the internet; they are completely isolated and they authorize their payments through a locked down proxy that is put under a microscope. The fact that malware was found on their POS systems and was able to forward information tells me that either 1) their POS systems were not isolated or 2) their proxy was breached in addition to the POS systems.

[Guest]

Thanks! Curiosity is satisfied. I'm also very impressed that you took the time to explain instead of just biting my head off. I also think that if Target had nothing to hide they would be putting more info out there. I have searched for more info as far as exactly what kind of security they had in place but got nowhere with that. I'm sure if all the details were made public, they would probably get a big black eye, along with even more civil and criminal prosecution than what they are seeing now.

Back on topic for O.P. : I don't think you have to uninstall Norton to do an operating system upgrade. But, like others have said, don't waste your money on something that really isn't needed. Free anti-virus works just as well, or doesn't work just as well. Personally, I won't install anything that sets up a constantly running process that monitors my every move online. I like the free version of malwarebytes, that only runs when I tell it to. One still has to be careful when installing malwarebytes however, because they will try to install free trials of their paid version if you don't pay close attention to the check boxes during installation.