Networking Software Reviews

A must have!
I love Symantec's Norton Internet Security! I've been using this to protect my computer since 2002, and haven't had any problems. As soon as I installed this 2008 version, Symantec sent me a message letting me know a free upgrade was available to the 2009 version! Plus, I received this item earlier than expected. I couldn't be any happier! Thanks!

One of the Best
I ordered Norton off of Amazon and I got it in like a week or so.I installed it and ever since then I've never had any infections or complications. My computer runs smoothly and almost as fast as when I bought it newly despite all the programs stored on my PC. It's really amazing. There's also a really nifty feature called Live Update. This feature downloads the latest updates like every 2 or 5 hours because new types of viruses are being released faster than you can say "virus" so it updates the capability of Norton to detect them. It's really sweet. It also doesn't leave cluttered trash all over your desktop like some other types. There's just one icon on the desktop which gives you access to all the services it offers and or Vista users, it's on the sidebar too. There's also a small icon on the toolbar that turns red to indicate a problem. Simply click on it and it takes you straight to it, telling you what to do all along. Green means everything is ok. It also scans your computer in the background every week silently to make sure that there are no hidden viruses. Really, there are so many features in this product that I could describe but all I'm gonna say is that this is definitely one of the best. I've not regretted this product one bit and trust me you won't.

Internet Security 2008
Bought this product to replace an earlier ver on three computers. Was new and installed and works as advertised. Have never had any problems with any Symantec item that was not corrected by them. I'm not big on Indian call centers but was helped by Symantec's call center there satisfactorily.

Bang for your buck + Backup.
After setting up the software on each of the PC's in my home-office LAN, I was pleasantly surprised that the firewall ruleset(s) were fairly automatic and the other sections were easily tune-able as well. The really nice feature (for me) was the ability to automate backup to my NAS (LaCie) device. The software allows for a mix of full and incremental backups with a settable number of backup files to keep. So, if you want to do a full every month, and augment with incremental every week with 3 fulls and 10 incrementals - you can do that. (That gives you 3 full restore points with a 10-day incremental "window")

The overhead of the processes spawned by bitdefender is very low - and the systray clutter is minimal - just one icon to launch the software, two clicks to update. GOOD DESIGN!

I use layered defenses and this is one layer - but at the price I paid - and the associated features of this product for my whole family? I am super happy with this product.

Fix-it propperly
Before I started to use Fix-it, for a while I didn't have any protection on my computer or system utilities. Simply because they were doing more mess than average trojan. My boyfriend bought it for his computer, so I said that I will give a try one more time ( I'm optimistic person, anyway I can always uninstall it). Since than, I can't imagine my lap without it. Virus database bigger than most of the anti virus programs, simple use, fast, not slowing down my laptop ( like ex. Norton ), so many useful things on one place, and customer support was very quick and helpful. Just all the best.

It Helps, Easy to Use
I haven't had any problems with it; you can download a free trial version to be on the safe side. Honestly I don't notice any speed improvement, but then again the computer runs smoothly. I have had no viruses, spyware, or anything major. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is twofold. One when it fixes something, it won't tell you what it is. Not a biggie, basically I don't think I could understand the computer gibberish. Second, I brought Wincleaner because it is a much better cleaner than the one in Fix It. Overall, would I buy Fix It again; yes. Yeah you can get lots of freeware programs that are great, and do the same. However, I am old, and not computer savvy. This works for me and is worth the money.

fix-it utilities 8
I have used Fix-it utilities7 before, and I was very satisfied with it. Fix-it Utilities 8 is just a newer update of the old one. I work on the same way, and is good protesting.

Very handy utility
I have a Macbook on which I use a program called VMWare Fusion to run Windows programs like Quicken. The external hard drive that I use to back up my Windows programs did not work for my Mac programs because the Mac did not recognize the NTFS file system on the hard drive. After doing some research, I discovered this product, which enables me to go seamlessly between backing up my Windows and Mac programs on the same hard drive. The program resides in the background, so once you install it, there is nothing further to do.

Although there is a free program called MacFuse that does the same thing as the Paragon product, for my needs it had certain technical quirks, which is why I bought the Paragon product.

I downloaded a trial version of this product from the manufacturer's website to try it out. When I was ready to purchase, I ordered the CD from Amazon because that was cheaper, and without any problem used the information on the CD to register the product without having to reinstall it from the CD.

One tip if you use VMWare Fusion or a similar program: After backing up Mac data on the hard drive, eject it in Finder, and then reconnect it on the Windows desktop, and vice versa. If you forget to do this, you may have to restart the computer to get the hard drive recognized.

If you work with both a PC and a Mac, or in my case have Windows installed on your Mac, this is a great way to use one hard drive for all of your needs.

Good Product but limited
This software allows you to access an NTFS formatted hard drive with an Apple Mac.
The access is limited however. It is not possible to play large video files from the NTFS hard drive. By large I mean anything over 2-3 GB. I find this to be an annoying problem. The work around is to copy the file you want to play from the NTFS external hard drive onto the computer. This is the only problem I have noticed so far. I give the product 6 out of 10.

Paragon's NTFSforMacOS
I bought Paragon's NTFS for Mac OS X because I had just purchased a Seagate 750GB Hard Drive to transport files from PC to Mac and vice versa. Low and Behold, the beloved Mac OS 10.3.5 (Leopard) read, but did not write the NTFS file format. I installed the download version from Paragon's web site (Search it on Apple Store for Link), and it installed smoothly on my MacBook and ran successfully by replacing the standard driver. No other effects, ill or otherwise have been seen to date. I successfully copied about 80GB of music files, 20GB of .pdf books, backed up all my other drives and jump-drives and still have 600GB left. When the trial period expired (It isn't really Shareware as Apple states), I purchased the CD from Amazon.com cheaper than a download license at Paragon (free shipping over .), and the license numbers unlocked the trial version without a glitch. And I have the CD for backup.

Good product, good installation, good price and service from Amazon.

Allowed full access to NTFS disk drives from my Mac
This product does what it says. I installed it, and could begin working with NTFS disk drives. Since I had a number of Windows drives around, this let me access them from my Macintosh without any changing of the format. I continue to need to share drives between Macs and Windows computers, and FAT32 won't allow the large file sizes that I sometimes encounter. NTFS for Mac has solved my problem.

Great Software
I'm transitioning from PC to Mac. I have a Western Digital My Book external harddrive that is also connected to my PC via USB (the Mac Pro is connected via firewire). I wanted to keep the drive connected and used by both systems and this software/driver made it possible. This capability should have been built in to the Mac OS! But since it's not, I'm glad to pay for this affordable software.

SQL Server 2008 rocks!
This is great SQL at a great price.

If you are a student at a college or similar school that qualifies for DreamSpark, you might be able to get it free through your school - point your search engine to "Welcome to Microsoft DreamSpark".

In any case it's a great price, and you can use it with the free Express 2008 versions of VB and C# - point your search engine to "C# Express 2008".

LINQ-to-SQL in the 2008 version is so cool. LINQ makes querying a first-class language feature in VB and C#, and LINQ-to-SQL takes it to the big-boy SQL database levels.

Great protection, easy to load and use
I initially found out about this via a review from the Consumer Reports magazine. That helped me make my decision, and I am glad I did give it another chance, because I had tried it a few years before, and was not impressed, so had moved on to another protection program. This is my 2nd year with it since my return. They really have improved a lot from my initial use years ago. I found it both easy to load and use, and excellent protection for my 3 family computers.

good product
Good product at a good price. Only problem I had was working with Microsoft Vista. Had to download a patch but was easy enough. Good technical support as well.

Top of the line
Being a tech who works security I deal with a lot of products. There are a small number of products which are worth buying, but this is one of them. Installation is simple, if you follow the CLEAR instructions. I believe the people who had problems installing the product probably have trouble with everything and nothing can be done about user problems.

The product is not as intrusive as some of the other well known brands that hose up your computer. I run this product on many computers and my higher end gaming computer runs it great with games that have high graphic demands. It also does well on the lower end machines I have.

This is not the only good product out there, but it is hard to beat.

This is the one to get !
User of this program since they came on the market.... many years ago and NEVER had a single virus!

Tried others, but this is the one works!

Surprised by other comments
I've been using Trend Micro on personal hardware since 2005. I have been using the 2008 version since 8/2007. The 2008 version is much faster than the 2007 version. Compared with some other well known brands, I have difficulty understanding why so many have said it's slow. I have 2 fairly high-end PC's (new in 2007) and an excellent T-61 Lenovo laptop. I run some heavy duty software, and change software far more frequently than the average user. Let's address some of the complaints:

1) Is it hard to install? I had an early version of Internet Security and installed it over the 2007 version on the pre SP1 Vista OS (one PC uses the 64-bit version). I am NOT a fan of Vista. It is horrible, and it causes problems with lots of software. But my experience was nothing like what other have described. The one problem I did have was that I needed to get new product keys for each PC I was upgrading. (I kept getting a message I had exceeded to number of licenses I had purchased.) FY: make sure you turn off Vista's protection before you install TM Internet Security - especially the Windows firewall. And keep them off.

2) Performance: I have yet to find a security program (or a combination of programs) that does not slow down performance. It is the nature of the beast. Does 2008 slow down your machine more than other similar packages? Some yes and some no. The perfect security software doesn't exist. Some are faster, but they may not be as comprehensive. I have a difficult time believing a Symantec or McAfee user would find Trend Micro slow. Unless you turn off a lot of the features in those products, they can be much slower. At lot depends on the specific task being performed. IMHO, email is not significantly affected. Web browsing can be depending on your degree of risk tolerance. Set at higher levels of security, the affect can be noticeable, but TM is extremely effective is identifying dangerous sites, BEFORE you actually load the pages. If you have ever had a seriously infected PC, that protection is worth a lot.

Updates and comprehensive scans are slow. No disagreement.

3) Some complain TM is intrusive. That means it is doing it's job. I am very paranoid about software that makes changes to the registry or other settings I made to Windows. TM has saved me more than once - even from some commercial software. Be very worried if your security software doesn't warn you about changes should you add software on a regular basis or if you do a lot of browsing.

4) At least one person indicated PC to PC communication is slow. There are a lot of advanced settings available with TM. Some have a direct impact on communications between PC's on a LAN behind a firewall. (Yes, I use multiple firewall solutions simultaneously: at the host level, the LAN level and the PC level. I have a gigabit LAN with 3 PC's, 2 Mac's, a server, a NAS unit, and dedicated equipment for data backups. If communication is slow, there is a setting that needs to be changed.

If your not communicating PC to PC over a LAN, you can set TM to recognize specific PC's to minimize any latency. If speed and security are really important, your LAN (or PC to PC connection) should be hardwired. With a wireless solution, you will never achieve the speed of CAT 5e or CAT 6 cable connections. In fact, I seriously doubt one can achieve the advertised speed of wireless.

5) Trend Micro tech support is not great. The sad news is that is true of many hardware and software vendors. In general, tech support throughout the industry has been deteriorating for years. Front line techs rarely have a clue; they have scripts. I am not defending TM. I am taking a shot at the vast majority of vendors.

6) Believe it or not, I am not a techie or geek. I'm forced to deal with technology as part of part of my professional life. One learns things through osmosis and making lots of mistakes. After reading many of the comments, in my very humble opinion I am guessing there may be some user influence behind the problems discussed.

Last comment. The PC publications we find on the magazine racks have a habit of overrating products. That creates false expectations. When products fail to meet expectations, people can be very disappointed. I wonder if the advertising in those magazines has any effect on how editors rate products?

One of the better security suites
I've used Trend Micro for 3 years and found it to be a decent anti-malware product. It's easy to use and has had good ratings from consumer organizations. TM provides free chat and phone support, which is unusual. However, in my experience none of these products, including Trend Micro, are perfect. You need to supplement them with products like NoScript and SiteAdvisor. You also get conflicts with other software. One thing I didn't like about TM 2008 is that it before installation it made me uninstall auxiliary protection products like SpywareBlaster and AVG Antispyware--but I was able to reinstall some of them later.

Less hassle than Norton!
I've used both Norton Anti-Virus and MacAfee, and have come back to this anti-viral program twice now. Norton has way too many problems and still lets viruses and spyware in. I buy my computers from an independent wholesaler who puts them together to your specifications, and they see all kinds of problems with the former two. They recommended PC Cillin and I've stayed with it since.

Great protection, easy to load and use
I initially found out about this via a review from the Consumer Reports magazine. That helped me make my decision, and I am glad I did give it another chance, because I had tried it a few years before, and was not impressed, so had moved on to another protection program. This is my 2nd year with it since my return. They really have improved a lot from my initial use years ago. I found it both easy to load and use, and excellent protection for my 3 family computers.

good product
Good product at a good price. Only problem I had was working with Microsoft Vista. Had to download a patch but was easy enough. Good technical support as well.

Top of the line
Being a tech who works security I deal with a lot of products. There are a small number of products which are worth buying, but this is one of them. Installation is simple, if you follow the CLEAR instructions. I believe the people who had problems installing the product probably have trouble with everything and nothing can be done about user problems.

The product is not as intrusive as some of the other well known brands that hose up your computer. I run this product on many computers and my higher end gaming computer runs it great with games that have high graphic demands. It also does well on the lower end machines I have.

This is not the only good product out there, but it is hard to beat.