Malwarebytes alongside Norton Antivirus

[russy23]

Is it needed to have both installed, i prefer malware,its non intrusive, but not sure just having that with be sufficient, TIA

[Schrute_Farms_B&B]

You want to stay as far away from Norton as possible.
It makes you wonder, that people in 2022, still use this kind of crap. Seriously.....

Norton software was already unbearable and bloated as hell a decade ago, let alone now with all their adware BS.

Win Defender + Malwarebytes if youre downloading all kind of stuff without using brain.exe.
If you dont, Win Defender on its own is more than enough.

[Cathulhu]

Norton was fine back in the 90s, the last 20 years? No so much.

[[N]ebsun]

Get rid of Norton if you can... usually there are traces of it left over that are difficult to remove, a re-install of windows should fix that.
Use Nod32 / ESET / Kaspersky / MBAM / Sophos and then a firewall like Comodo with hips

[Supafly]

1. Norton sucks. even uninstalling it leaves parts of it on a system like you'd expect from some Malware.
2. Shouldn't be running 2 at same time anyway. Stick to one. Malwarebytes is more than enough and would only be picking up stuff Norton missed and screws up anyway

[russy23]

Ahhhhh shucks, the only reason i got norton was it was through a payback site so i think ill get rid of that, malwarebytes premium i got for free with natwest, ill stick to malware no issues with it..

[Schrute_Farms_B&B]

Originally posted by Nebsun:

usually there are traces of it left over that are difficult to remove, a re-install of windows should fix that.

You are right but unfortunately it wont be completely removable. Norton, or any other 3rd party antivirus software for reference will compromise the registry so deeply, that the only way to get rid of all the bloatware would be to manually delete the registry strings or use software like FRST, which I dont recommend for beginners.

edit:
Needless to say that even uninstalling these kind of bloatware, wont get rid of everything and it will eventually cause problems with Win Defender or even block the security_service. Most people have to reinstall their OS because the damage is already too severe and it cant be undone.

[russy23]

im slightly concerned now, haha, so a windows reinstall is th best thing to do, not long build the pc and reinstalled, how annoying, but its a simple process windows reinstall

i think ive still got access to ESET actually, but malwarebytes on its own will be fine?

[Supafly]

Originally posted by russy23:

i got norton was it was through a payback site s

Norton and McAfee are often supplied for free because the companies peddling them for 'free' do so at a heavily discounted price themselves. Unless you research or know any better people think it's a good deal.
Samsung started including McAfee security on some of their devices. Can't uninstall it without rooting my phone and tablet but I can and do prevent it doing anything. I'd have paid them another 10 to have it not included, Unfortunetaly, that's not and option. If it was I'd have paid to get rid of sooo much more bloat not preinstalled it'd look barren

[Supafly]

Originally posted by russy23:

im slightly concerned now, haha, so a windows reinstall is th best thing to do, not long build the pc and reinstalled, how annoying, but its a simple process windows reinstall

Can't say I've tried Reevoo for Norton or similar but I'm sure it'll do a better job than Norton uninstaller or Windows. Could try that

https://www.reevoo.com/en/

[idester]

Protegent is clearly better /s

unironically i recommend anything from the r/techsupport has some pretty good antivirus tips among other things for malware removal.

The Aforementioned Link

don't use norton, its so bad and its just cringe stinky software, and if you're considering using McAfee im going to start uncontrollably laughing

[Mittens]

Originally posted by Schrute_Farms_B&B:

Originally posted by Nebsun:

usually there are traces of it left over that are difficult to remove, a re-install of windows should fix that.

You are right but unfortunately it wont be completely removable. Norton, or any other 3rd party antivirus software for reference will compromise the registry so deeply, that the only way to get rid of all the bloatware would be to manually delete the registry strings or use software like FRST, which I dont recommend for beginners.

edit:
Needless to say that even uninstalling these kind of bloatware, wont get rid of everything and it will eventually cause problems with Win Defender or even block the security_service. Most people have to reinstall their OS because the damage is already too severe and it cant be undone.

Leftover reg strings won't do any harm though. The registry is just a database that apps can store strings in, and it also holds system information and such.. If there's old strings in there that aren't accessed because the app is removed it just lies there.. There's no code stored in the registry, or anything of that nature.

It's more problematic that some apps leave services installed that continue to be active - like (example) Armory Crate does. And Armory Crate is a horrorshow to remove completely, really need to re-install windows - just like Norton etc..

[Schrute_Farms_B&B]

They do though, right in the moment when the OS isnt able to access a missing string/bad string which leads to nowhere. Youve the imagine the registry being a huge database that manages every single service/resource/config for applications on your OS. Missing registry string -> limited/corrupted execution

Youll find thousands and thousands of threads, where people complain about Win Defender not running anymore aftter removing a 3rd party antivirus solution. Why you think is that ?
Ive seen 3rd party scanners removing strings for VPN services, WAP, RPC, SNMP, SSDP, SSTP and all kind of stuff and replacing it with their own one but not restoring the original string after being removed.

edit:
The things you said might apply partialy to regular registry strings but not to high security strings which are mandatory.
Thats one of the many downsides of Adware&Bloatware, disguised as a antivirus scanner.

[plat]

There's at least one question of "Can I run Malwarebytes with so-and-so?" on the net. Here's one that pertains to Norton:

https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/247787-malwarebytes-compatibility-with-norton-security/

It talks about creating exclusions for each also in that thread.

I like Norton's Power Eraser a lot (a free on-demand scanner). When I've submitted false-positives to Norton, they were handled very promptly. Now the crypto part of the antivirsu--whoa. Bad ju-ju. But some must want it or it wouldn't be offered. But I read it was a bum deal there.

Someone mentioned Norton's uninstaller, and Revo. You can also use HiBit (I use it also for junk file cleaning) but it may be blocked by SmartScreen as the executable isn't signed. (These things are expensive). But the dev is awesome.

[Haruspex]

With every computer I've ever serviced for someone in which they complained that it's slow, the first thing I would do is remove Norton and/or McAfee. The system would immediately become more responsive, and only after doing that was it usable enough for me to do the rest.

Sometimes clients were resistant to me removing the offending anti-virus software, particularly if they paid for a license. Even if it was the sole source of every problem they experience, they paid good money and they wanted to get their money's worth. In these instances where I could not convince them, I would optimize the best I could but they were never really satisfied with performance after. A few times I managed to convince them to let me uninstall it, and they called me back complaining that it's slow again. Upon arriving I discover they simply reinstalled the offending anti-virus. They never put two and two together.

My recommendation is always "Less is best". Keep Windows up to date, let the built in Windows security do it's thing. Use a decent browser with an ad blocker installed. (I recommend UBlock Origin). If you feel compelled to add more software for "better security", or things like driver managers, registry cleaners, memory cleaners/optimizers... Just don't.

[russy23]

Thanks for the advice guys

Im now just running walwarebytes and Windows defender is active..that should be fine by what I've seen..thankyou