Oh Nooooooooo! Norton is about to expire...

I got a fine email from my friends at Symantec last night. It seems the 60 day trial I got on my new computer is about to expire. They're being kind enough to give me a $20 discount. How nice of them.

But what happens if I decide not to pay? Will my machine self-destruct in 60 seconds? Will I all of a sudden be easy pickings for the bad guys?

In the immortal words of Mr. Bill: "Oh Nooooooooooooo!"

To their credit, the message wasn't alarmist. They could have done the typical chicken little marketing approach of telling you the world will end. Of course, it won't.


Now I figure about 50% of the folks out there will just click the link - pay the money and go about their day. Maybe it's 40%, maybe it's 60%. I'm just estimating here. That's why Symantec and McAfee pay so much to the computer makers to pre-load their stuff onto new PC. You call it crapware, but it's really a license to print money.

What about the folks that don't buy it? What happens to them? One group will delete the message and think they are still protected. But they aren't. If the security software isn't updated, then it can't catch the latest attacks. Not too useful. Those folks are blissfully unaware of what is out there.

And the third group, which unfortunately is a small minority, will uninstall Symantec and use some good configuration practices, a layered security defense, and some free utilities to save the $50 and be just as secure. You can be one of that small minority. Security Mike can show you how. Check it out.