Security Suites - Banking Details

[Lindley]

Hi,

Been using Norton IS suite for a couple of years , buying a licence locally a lot cheaper than direct.
In the past renewing the licence was simple, but seems though we buy locally, Norton now insist you give your banking details before allowing the registation through.
This has been confirmed by  UK  magazine ComputerActive in response to other readers similar questions for help.

Not going to bother renewing with Norton this time but can also buy locally at a good price *  the similar suites for Bitdefender or Kaspersky, but wondered if anyone uses them and has found they are also using this kind of trick to get your banking details   ?  and obviously auto renewal next year at full price !

*  https://store.computeractive.co.uk/?act=search&cat=5

[Wuerstchenhund]

Been using Norton IS suite for a couple of years , buying a licence locally a lot cheaper than direct.
In the past renewing the licence was simple, but seems though we buy locally, Norton now insist you give your banking details before allowing the registation through.
This has been confirmed by  UK  magazine ComputerActive in response to other readers similar questions for help.

Not going to bother renewing with Norton this time but can also buy locally at a good price *  the similar suites for Bitdefender or Kaspersky, but wondered if anyone uses them and has found they are also using this kind of trick to get your banking details   ?  and obviously auto renewal next year at full price !

There are other vendors of similar snake oil suites, but the real question is why one would pay money for software which, across all vendors, has a very long track record in missing most malware attacks while at the same time actually increasing the vulnerability of your own system (providing more attack surface, aside from occasionally self-sabotaging the PC it runs on by mis-identifying some critical OS files as malware)? Or in some cases even selling their customers' web browsing data (like Avast did)?

All these "security suites" are scams, it's as simple as that. You'd get roughly the same "protection" by spraying Holy Water on your PC.

If you run Windows 8.1 or 10 then there is no need to pay for antivirus software as the Defender software which comes with Windows already performs as good or often better than the majority of paid-for antivirus software. As long as you keep your system and software up to date, use a good ad blocker (not just because ads are annoying but because ad networks are one of the major, if not the major attack vector for malware) and use a bit of common sense (i.e. not clicking on that link in the email which notified you of a big win in a lottery you never took part in) then you're as safe as reasonably possible for an individual.