Avast Installation Question With Nortons On System

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I have heard a lot of good things about Avast. I am currently using Nortons NIS. I have some issues with Symantec and would like to try Avast. I have some questions about installing Avast without uninstalling NIS.

I am a bit uncomfortable about unistalling NIS before I download Avast. I am assuming I can download as “Save” and not run the installation until after I disable or uninstall Nortons.

Do I have to uninstall Nortons completely or can I just disable it? Or will Nortons turn itself back on after each restart?

Thanks.

Rick

2

The short answer is you shouldn’t install avast whilst you have another resident AV installed and I would say this goes even more so for Norton as it gets it hooks into everything and there is a high risk of conflict.

Well I would never recommend uninstalling a current AV before downloading and saving the other AV installation file and go off-line.

Disabling isn’t enough, remember those hooks I mentioned, they are low level drivers and even when disabled they are active and it is these which could cause the conflict.

I would also suggest a visit to this page before doing anything to be fore armed, fore warned, etc.

After uninstalling NIS using add remove programs - A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs:
Removing your Norton program using SymNRT

Or ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/Norton_Removal_Tool.exe

3

Thanks for the information. I have the Norton removal tool bookmarked and have my product keys recorded. So do I unistall first using the windows unistall first then do the NRT or will the NRT do it all? One question is I have GoBack installed. I think it came on the Norton Systems work package but I had to select to install it. I wonder if uninstalling the NIS will also uninstall GoBack which I like?

Thanks again,

Rick

4

Yes, you should keep to the ‘conventional’ order of things first use the windows add remove programs, the uninstall tool is a belt and braces approach as there are a multitude of posts in the forums where remnants are left after a conventional add remove uninstall.

I can’t say for certain, I have never used Norton or consequently the uninstall tool, but I believe it is selective as opposed to everything.

If completely removing NIS you will have to consider a firewall as avast doesn’t include a firewall.

5

Use Control Panel Add/Remove first (for the antivirus part).

You can keep NIS and GoBack. They’re avast compatible.