"Norton Be Gone!"

Lately, for the past month or so, I've been having trouble accessing select secure websites. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why. Was it some Windows update I had downloaded that was now resetting something on my computer without my knowing? Was my PC infected with something?

Nope. It turns out the problem was Norton, my anti-virus software of choice. Apparently, one of the security updates I had downloaded -- about a month ago -- had caused Norton to decide that it was smarter than I was. Along with resetting various programs to better suit it's needs, it had also decided I didn't need to access my bank account online, sign into a variety of secure sites, or even make use Yahoo IM, my instant messenger of choice.

For the last month, this issue bugged me to no end. I visited message boards to see what other people facing the same problem had done (no help there), asked around (no useful suggestions), called a few technical help-lines ("sorry, we can't help you"), even dug deep into my own computer system to try and locate the problem on my own... still no resolution. Then, finally, while talking to my Dad, he presented the best suggestion. He'd faced a similar problem a while back, and one of his experiments was to uninstall Norton. Lo and behold, that fixed it.

So, I finally decided to try his suggestion. And guess what? My dad was right.
Norton was the problem.

So, for those of you who've had the same problem, or the many of you I came across in those message boards, here's a helpful suggestion. Try uninstalling Norton -- if you have it -- that might just solve your issue. Afterall, there's nothing worse than a computer program with an ego that thinks it knows you better than you do.

Good luck with the issue, and if you do resolve it this way... welcome to the world of less frustration!

Your happily blogging friend,
-Jon
posted by Jon at 5:52 PM  I   I  0 comments