Question about Win and Norton

Changed title. Also, I wasn't really sure where to put this post, please move it if it fits elsewhere better.

Windows XP home, sp1 udated. Norton 2003 security suite.
Problem, just recently Norton expired again. Excpet this time it looks as if it killed itself. It no longer loads on boot, auto protect is off, and the firewall is all disabled. Except when I try to re enable it, it just goes hourglass on me. No action is taken at all. I am able to run the AV scan.

Also unrelated or not. Example; Bid and won an item on ebay, yet when I try and follow the check out "pay now" IE won't open the page. It follows the referal but gives me the cannot find page. I know first things first stop using IE. Doesn't help, tried a few others w/no luck.

I have the same result when I try to log into my Mastercard, Visa, and online banking accounts. Any idea's? I considered a system restore but it failed. I am going to go run SFC. At this point I am just guessing. I have tried alot of things. All the basic trouble shooting stuff.

Just to ease a few, I am not picking up anything strange from active ports either. Anyhelp is greatly appreciated.

Dopey, now you will have to take what I say with a grain or two of salt, because I am prejudgiced against Nortons.

I would uninstalling Nortons completely....both AV and firewall. Then put anouter AV and firewall in place. (I am using Avast and Kerio presently....both free, and satisfying so far) Then attempt to connect to your bank and use those features on e-bay again.

As I have said I don't like Nortons and have heard of it doing some strange things when it doesn't get its own way, so I would try that first. You can always reinstall Nortons after doing the check, but don't just disable it, because one of the items I heard about was something to do with Nortons interfering when it was disabled but not uninstalled.

If this is something that you will try, please let me know the results as I am interested in the final outcome.

Sounds as if somethign definitely got screwed up with norton.

i love norton and its all I ever use, however there are some viruses out there that will "kill" Norton.

I suggest scanning with house calls AV online and running spybot and ad-aware just in case. then re-install your AV.

Thanks folks. Will keep you both posted with my findings.

For the record moxnix, I have never had any problems with norton. But I will try your idea. The only draw back I see to removing it is as I mentioned my subscription has experied. If I uninstall it completley won't this leave me dead in the water?

Norton found BrutusA2.exe. It is an executable zip file. I am gonna look into that one also. Kind of odd me thinks. Have to talk to the wife again perhaps

BrutusA2.exe is brutus brute force cracker. I think norton is just showing it as a dangerous type of software. Gonna keep searching google though.
Symantec doesn't list it in thier virus encyclopedia:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com...r/vinfodb.html

Nevermind answered my own question.

Here is a little info on Brutus>>>

Brutus

Hey Dopey,

Some time NAV goes belly up, with out any help from virii, certainly follow through with that advice but if it comes back clean.. two options.. Make a Boot BArtPE enviroment boot CD with the latest AV updates, and run that as well.. cool Idea..from another member..

The other is completly uninstall NAV.. you may need to use a tool removal tool from Symantec.. this ensures complet removal (an issue when ppl upgrade to 2004.. some parts of 2003 will cause probs with the install) pm me if you can't find it ..

Cheers

bucket

Thanks for that link. I remember using it against one of my websites sometime ago. Just to see what it was capable of. I no longer use the login option it runs against. So it just remained in a tools dir. Besides Norton called it a Hacktool.


Und3ertak3r

I just made the resuce disks about two weeks ago. Any idea on how I could stuff it onto one cd and use it as a backup for my defenitions? I never upgraded to 2004, I kept 2003 and paid 19.95 for another year of defenitions. I am really starting to wonder if this is all because I haven't renewed it.

Thanks all will keep ya posted.

I have to go with Mox~ on this one, I have found Norton to be a problem in home environments. It seems to be able to get screwed up and to clash with other software.

I have always found it OK in a stable commercial environment, just a problem at home where you are always experimenting.

McAfee and PC-cillin seem to be far more "forgiving" in this respect.

Just my experience
:)

Thanks Nihil

I will take this into account if I decide to purchase another AV off the shelf.

Update, I ran in both normal and safemode; Adware, Spybot, Spyhunter, Hijack this, and Webroots Spy Sweeper. All of these apps found cookies. However Spy Sweeper found reminents of bargin buddy and my search bar. Only registry enteries though. Unrelated I think. Those two items came complimentary of a live weather bug my wifey downloaded. No big deal though. I just neutered the install but apparently missed a few registry keys.

SFC/scannow ran without any findings.

Off to kill Norton. Die Norton Die

MUAHAHAAH

Okay, I have yet to figure this one out. Norton has been very little help over the phone. So I have returned to see if you guys might be able to help.

The original problem still exists. Except, when I tried to remove Norton I had big problems. An AV with qualities of a virus itself. From add/remove I was able to remove liveupdate without any trouble at all. LiveReg won't uninstall with Norton Interent Security still installed. So I tried removing NIS first. After doing so it prompted me to log into norton because it could only be removed by an Admin. So I opened it up and selected my login option only to find that there is no account at all, and I could not create one. I have looked on the net in my free time to no success.

Does anybody by chance know how norton handles it's login password stuff? Perhaps I can just break it.

Also, I called Norton and tried a few things they were able to tell for FREE. The fu$%&ers wanted me to pay $29.95 for tech support. I told them I wasn't going to pay them to remove their software from my computer. They should also be responsible when thier product faults. I also personally logged into the different accounts on this PC and all of the NIS had the same problem. I attached a prntscrn for those interested. Towards the end of the conversation with tech support they started to run out of ideas. I wrote down some of their tactics which I will share after I get this uninstalled.


Be safe and stay free

/edit added upload

Quote:

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Except, when I tried to remove Norton I had big problems. An AV with qualities of a virus itself

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Thats one of the reasons I dislike Nortons. Personally, I have never used it, but I have helped a couple of people remove it.

You have to boot into 'Safe Mode', turn the Nortons off as best you can, then run your removale utilities.

In one case I had to use the uninstall from the program listings and in anouther actually physically delete its program files and then clean up the registry. I hate intrusive programs and Norton is very intrusive.

Hopefully, someone will have an easier solution to your uninstall problem.

Okay I have since removed Norton w/out any help. I was still unable to access any type of https connections. Since I have tried everything I could think of, with some suggestions here, I decided to start from scratch. So I killed it all. Since everything I need is backed up to the T on a removable drive.

My question is this however. https = port 443 correct? http = 80 or depending 8080 correct? If I was able to access anything that wasn't https even after norton was completley removed. What happened? What could I have done instead of a reformat? Which BTW wasn't all bad. Windows needs a reformat everynow and again. It seems to get bloated over time. I just forgot how annoying XP was out of the box. Like messenger service for example.

Thanks to all that helped.