How to Turn Off Norton Antivirus

Norton is an antivirus program designed to protect your computer from viruses and other malware. Norton can cause problems when you try to install other programs, and sometimes it can slow down your computer. In such cases, turning off Norton is effective. If Norton is causing system problems then uninstalling Norton may be the best solution.

Table of Contents

Turn off Norton Antivirus (Windows)

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Find the Norton icon in the system tray. It is located in the bottom right corner of the Windows desktop, next to the clock, containing icons of running programs. If you don’t see the Norton icon, click the “▴” button to show all hidden icons.

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Right click on the icon. It will open a small menu containing options. Select “Disable Antivirus Auto-Protect”. This is the working part of Norton Antivirus. Turning it off will turn off the active virus protection mode.

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Choose time. You can choose to turn off antivirus protection for a specific amount of time, until your computer restarts, or shut down permanently. However, you should not browse the web without active protection enabled.

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Turn protected mode back on. If you’ve done the job and need to turn off antivirus protection, you can right-click the Norton icon again and select “Enable Antivirus Auto-Protect”.

Uninstall Norton Antivirus (Windows)

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Open the Windows program manager. You can access it from the Contrp Panel in the Start menu. Select “Programs and Features” or “Add or Remove Programs”.

Windows 8 users can press the ⊞ Win + X key and select “Programs and Features”.

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Look for the “Norton Antivirus” entry. There may be several entries under the Norton name, but focus on Antivirus first. Select it then click the Uninstall or Change/Remove button.

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Choose whether to keep preferences (optional). You will be asked if you want to keep your preferences (in case you want to reinstall) or delete all data. If you want to remove Norton, choose to delete all settings, preferences, and files.

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Choose whether to keep Norton Identity Safe or not. This is the password manager Norton recommends you keep using. If you don’t want to keep it, click “No, thanks”.

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Wait for the uninstallation to complete. Uninstalling may take a few minutes.

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Restart the computer. You will need to reset your computer for the removal to take effect. After restarting the computer, Windows will notify you that the antivirus program is no longer available.

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Download Norton Removal Top (Norton Removal Tool). This is a program released by Symantec (Norton’s developer) that will remove all Norton software from your system. It is especially useful if Norton is being improperly removed.

Download Norton Removal Top by searching for the term “Norton Removal Top” in the search engine. It will be the first result.
Run the removal tool. You will have to accept the license agreement and enter the Captcha code to prove you are not a robot.
Restart the computer after the removal tool completes.

Uninstall Norton Internet Security (OS X)

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Open Norton Internet Security. You can find it in the Applications folder.

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Start the uninstaller. Click Norton Internet Security → Uninstall Norton Internet Security . Click the Uninstall button to confirm.

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Enter your admin information. You will have to provide this information to remove the program.

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Restart the computer. You’ll need to restart your Mac for the uninstallation to complete.

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Download the RemoveSymantecMacFiles utility. This is a program provided by Symantec (Norton’s developer) that removes all Norton software from Mac. This add-on is important because Norton tends to leave a lot behind after being removed.

Download the RemoveSymantecMacFiles utility by searching for the term “RemoveSymantecMacFiles” in the search engine. It will be the first result.
Extract the ZIP file you just downloaded.
Run the file RemoveSymantecMacFiles.command . Click the Open button to confirm.
Enter the admin password. You must have an administrative password; An empty admin password is not accepted and is not a good way to protect the computer.
Press the 1 key and then the ⏎ Return key to delete all Symantec files. Press 2 to exit.
Restart the computer by pressing the Y key followed by the Return . key

Steps

Turn off Norton Antivirus (Windows)

Uninstall Norton Antivirus (Windows)

Uninstall Norton Internet Security (OS X)

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