Hi. I have Norton Internet Security 2004 on my Dell laptop. This is the 2nd time I have loaded it on my computer, after the 2 meltdowns I have had, with the 1st where Norton was the culprit. Anyway, I am having yet another problem with it, since last week. It's with Liveupdate. It seems that when I run one, my Parental control list runs but freezes a little way into its process. Which when this happens, I have to manually shut down. I have tried to turn off Parental control, but the list still pops up. Does anybody have any ideas of what I can do?

Just a little backround check for my compter: 2.4 Ghz, 80 GB HD, 384 MB RAM, XP Home, SP 1 & 2, Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop.

But what if I can't get this fixed? Can anybody give me any free firewalls, antivirus, spyware, etc. programs that could do the same if not better than Norton could? And if it's possible, please don't give me names of programs that I have to pay for or are just demos, because I payed a lot of money for NIS, and I don't want to risk me losing money on something that might not work again.

Thanks for your help!

Get rid of Norton, it really is a resource hog.

Get AVG free from http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/1

As for free firewalls either Zonealarm, or Sygate come highly recommended.

You can get these from HERE , and HERE.

Regards Howard

Ok, I uninstalled Norton last night, and installed ZoneAlarm firewall and Avast!Anitivirus. Which is better, AVG or Avast!? Because I was referred to both by a bunch of people. Do I need an Atnispam program for my computer now for my Outlook Express? Because that came in handy when i got spam.

IMHO AVG is the better antivirus programme.

I don`t really know about antispam, as I use Yahoo mail, which has anti spam built in.

Regards Howard

I'm with AVG enough to pay for it, for the extras.

As an alternative to OE have a look at Thunderbird.

I agree with Howard and Duke for AVG , Zonealarm.
Just a note If you did not use the 'Clean Uninstall Utility" from Symantec I recommend doing it, or at least using the Find utility in Regedit to delete all references to Noton(Only if you are comfortable manually changing your Registry)
Do some reading at www.pcworld.com or www.zdnet.com they reveiw tons of free software , you can find free Spam tools there. Remember to read carefully as not all Free software is Free.
I use Qurb (not free) because it does not use huge data base to screen , it simply isolate all email and allows you to choose emails you believe safe.It allows emails from people in your address book through automatically.

There are also entries under Symantec, although these may be connected with other of their products.