Knocking Out Norton Promo Pop-ups
First a confession: I wrote a book about viruses, spyware and other software nasties back in 2004. At the time, the aftermarket was the only way to go in getting protection from such stuff. And for a while I bounced around among BitDefender, Avast, Webroot, and others before settling on Norton AntiVirus. Today, it’s called Norton Internet Security (NIS) and it still gets pretty high marks from Virus Bulletin and even at PC Magazine. I know I don’t need it any more, but I still use it on my production PC. Why? Because I’ve got 1,500-2,000 accounts, labels, URLs and passwords stored in their password safe and I’m too darn lazy to migrate to something else. And that’s how I found myself knocking out Norton promo pop-ups this morning. Here’s an example of what shows up on my desktop, from time to time:
I don’t mind as much as some when these appear. But I do mind, very much, when I can’t make them disappear quickly and easily.
Why Bother Knocking Out Norton Promo Pop-ups
In this day and age of Windows 10 notifications, I’ve gotten used to the occasional blivet popping up in the lower right-hand corner of my right-hand display. But lately, the Norton items that have been popping up have wandered closer to the display’s center. They also occasional lose their “close handles” (the little X at the upper right that closes the pop-up window). And sometimes, I can’t make them close at all. Strangely, when this happens, ending the associated process task in Task Manager doesn’t work, either. Sheesh! I HATE when that happens.
Knowing there had to be some way to deal with this I wandered into a months-long stream of calumny and vituperation from unhappy Norton users. Gosh! Seems like nobody likes pop-ups very much, and the ones from Norton attract plenty of scorn and requests for relief from users. But in my case, relief came from further research online. At a site charmingly named It Still Works I found an article “How to Get Rid of Norton AntiVirus Popups.” The secret is in the app’s settings where an item called “Special Offer Notification” is easily turned off.
Since then, I’ve seen no further promotional pop-ups. Let’s hope it stays that way. Now I find myself asking “Am I supposed to be grateful that Symantec provides a way to turn off that noise?” I’m not even sure I want to know the answer. And that’s how things go here in Windows-World . . . today, at least!