Norton - buy from US, not UK - A Consuming Experience

A Consuming Experience

Blogging, internet, software, mobile, telecomms, gadgets, technology, media and digital rights from the perspective of a consumer / user, including reviews, rants and random thoughts. Aimed at intelligent non-geeks, who are all too often unnecessarily disenfranchised by excessive use of tech jargon, this blog aims to be informative and practical without being patronising. With guides, tutorials, tips - and the occasional ever so slightly naughty observation.

Norton - buy from US, not UK

Sunday, February 06, 2005

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If you're in the UK, it's cheaper to download Norton software from the US site where you:

already have a Norton product (e.g. anti-virus)
have broadband, and
don't mind having an electronic rather than printed manual, and printing it out yourself as and when needed.

I have various Norton products and just decided to upgrade to Partition Magic 8.0 and Ghost 9.0. I used the US site in the end - and you can buy any Norton software cheaper if you have ANY Norton product already, you're not confined to a newer version of the same product.

From the Symantec US site's upgrade center (or this link), including paying for the ability to download Ghost again within a year if all went haywire, it cost me US dollars 102 for the download (though admittedly it took a couple of hours on my 512k ADSL connection). That's about 54 pounds sterling at current rates.

The Symantec UK site's "upgrade" section would have charged me about 67 pounds sterling for the same downloads.

Big difference, and confirming it's the same ol' rip-off Britain again.

Obviously it's essential to check the total prices and currency exchange rates to see if it'll be worth it for particular software, but in my case it certainly was.