What does this mean?

[Suff]

Hi Frank, John,

I can't see any way that Norton would be blocking your printer. To me this is a total misnomer. Although, I do use Norton with the Silent Mode (default on), switched off. In silent mode Norton will stop stuff working without giving you any notification at all. If you change nothing else in Norton config, this is the one to change.

If you think about it, Norton would be likely to block a network printer, so if you were connected wirelessly, then I could see the firewall blocking the traffic. But you are connected USB. That would mean the HP programs would have to be recognised as malware by Norton and as all HP programs I have seen are digitally signed, I can't see that.

The only thing I can think of is that your HP software was compromised when you had a problem and that led to it not working. But in that circumstance the re-install of the printer driver would fix it.

Honestly I think the fix was to remove everything which was not needed, clean install the HP drivers and that Norton was not involved. Although it may have made it more difficult to resolve in the first place because it would be trying to "fix" stuff as you were "fixing" it yourself. But Norton is not the only AV suite that does that and certainly not the worst.

The AV requirements I have are not actually due to my work. Work uses the Microsoft offering coupled to extremely aggressive firewall rules (half the private email sites are blocked) and locked down workstations. My AV requirements come from the malware I often download from the internet masquerading as valid software. Needless to say it's something I have not paid for but then I often want a utility of which 90% of the programs out there lie about their true capabilities. I'm not going to pay for software which does not do the job. Hence downloading untrusted software.

When it comes to AV, it comes down to personal requirements. My father used to listen to my brother who has 12 years more than me in IT. He used to run AVG free and a Zone Alarm free. After his nth (3rd, 4th I can't recall), infection, I suggested he use Norton 360. He's never been infected since.

My father runs.

1 Desktop, 2 Laptops, 1 netbook, two kindles, one Nexus7 and two Android phones all off his home network for him and my mum. He has a HP MFC printer which is network connected and that just works from all the machines which he wants to print from.

5 of his devices run Norton.

Since he first set it up, I don't think that I've had to help him with anything on Norton. We switched off Silent Mode and that was it.

Norton gets a bad name with professionals because of the issues with getting it out of the system again when it had failed circa 2003-2005. Since 2007 it's been pretty stable. Also it had performance issues. But the performance gap for Vista and Windows7 was so high that when it was bridged, the extra requirements of Norton was negligible.

However, in the long run, if it works for you then it works. Plus you have someone who recommends it and therefore should support it. Which is much more important than my experience with Norton.

[Aggers]

Thank you Frank and Suff.

I have now re=installed Norton Security and every thing seems to be still working OK.

I'm hoping this is the end of what has been, for me, a somewhat stressful experience.

[Workingman]

Just seen this, John, sorry to hear about all the stress. Fingers crossed that it all goes well from now on.