I switched a user from his free Norton Internet Security to Avast Premier because Norton wasn’t removing PUPs/PUMs/Etc.
Not he gets reports from Avast to remove his Norton Safe Search add-on from Chome?
Is Norton Safe Search truly harmful to his computer?
Edit:
Also, after purchasing the best Avast software (Premier) after scanning it reports that it finds that the system is unoptimized and when you click to clean it up it says he has to buy something else? Why isn’t it included? Why is it searching for these things if not included in the package?
Apparently it’s not a seperate program as it runs with his paid for premier version. It’s acting like spamadware. and the user doesn’t like the practice of paying for something then not get everything and spammed to buy more. He’s already replaced with another product solely on this alone, and I don’t blame him. I know I’d throw a fit and demand a refund and move on.
Unfortunately I suggested it to him as this site has such great malware support in the forums. and now it makes me look bad, which doesn’t make me happy.
Is Norton Safe Search truly dangerous? The answer is likely no, but it might invade your privacy, and provide worse search results in return.
Norton Safe Search should easily be removed, though, so no worries.
The user likes it as it marks sites as good or bad/unknown. Since privacy is non-existent anymore, he’s not really too worried. He figures it’s no worse than MS or Google that’s already on his systems.
Should be possible to remove it by clicking the three stripes in the top right corner -> More tools -> Extensions. Find Norton Safe Search and remove it. To make sure it leaved no traces behind, click the same button in the top right coner -> Settings -> Search and revert the search engine to your preferred choice, presumably Google.
Let us know how it works out, and if you encounter any problems!
//Jonas
And yes, Norton Safe Search is easy to remove, even Avast makes it simple for you with a simple one-click. but he wants to keep it. It makes him feel a little safer from getting malware by clicking links and another call for me to fix his machine from infection. It’s not like bing, google, etc. offer this feature. Not even avast has this useful feature. I think there are a few, but none are perfect of course, but better than nothing at all.
In fact, he feels this removal is more of a ploy to remove Norton from his system so he doesn’t think of returning. Out of site, out of mind. I kind of agree with him in most cases.
Lol, I already found it today while helping him with his wireless printer and other issues he was having. I went looking through his extensions and seen that Avast toolbar and disabled Norton’s toolbar and enabled Avast’s toolbar instead. He was very happy with the google search engine over the ask.com search engine Norton was using. he admitted to having to bypass Norton tool bar and search straight from google.com occasionally.
Maybe Avast should stop treating the Norton toolbar as malware, and offer to switch toolbars by showing what features they have. Myself, I was more turned off by them treating Norton as malware to try to gain more subscriptions.
Now if Avast would include the optimization tool with the premier package, or removing the optimization tool as a stand alone product. It’s annoying to be treated. People have too many options to have to put up with this kind of nonsense. I’ve had a lot of users switch from Norton from lack of pup scanning, and now they’ve added it in, but it’s too late. A lot of people have left and won’t even give it a second chance for years to come.
Since Norton Safe search uses the ASK toolbar, I’d also consider it Malware.
The ASK Toolbar in many circles is frowned upon and treated as Malware and should therefore be removed.
The Avast Cleanup module can be removed through Programs and Features, selecting Avast and then Selecting Change.
Simply uncheck Cleanup and allow it to be removed.
A better method is to choose a custom install when you first install avast and simply uncheck the modules you don’t want.
By always using the custom method whenever you install any program, you can avoid many of the unwanted items that sometimes
accompany the program you’re installing.
Adding Unchecky to your arsenal will also go a long way toward preventing unwanted items
getting onto your system.
