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True story.
I service computers for a living and I can tell you one nightmare story after another about Norton but today topped it all on a new Gateway FX Machine I serviced running Vista. All web browsers will not connect to internet, no software will update however he is able to send/recieve mail and in safe mode all browsers work fine and he has a valid IP address saying we are connected to the Internet. So after running a few scans and the computer being 100% squeeky clean I realized the Comcast version of their Free Norton was not opening properly nor would it allow me to remove with the add/remove programs. So I try to use the Norton Removal Tool and that fails as well saying Norton360 etc needs to be removed from add/remove programs first.... Great... Never seen this before.... So I disable every Norton service I can find using auto runs and try to remove it again.... No luck internet is still down as if it is trying to connect through a proxy but its not.
I was about 5 minutes from surrending and reformatting the computer but as a last restort I gave RevoUninstaller a shot... sure enough it let me remove enough of Norton to get to the point where the Norton Removal tool would now work so I run it remove it reboot machine all symptoms resolved all browsers now work and all software updates fine... Congratulations Norton you have all the same symptoms of a Nasty virus/rootkit and are harder to remove then most(Not usually but as you can see it happens)
Word of advice for anyone running Norton save yourself some headache and remove it I have seen almost every version of Norton impact a computer negatively much more then it could help them with its horrible detection and removal rates I have seen Norton lock computers down to innoperable and as soon as you remove it computer comes to life as if it was brand new.
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