Another "Bash" on Symantec

[R. McCarty]

After finally deciding to pull the plug on all Symantec products,
I've got another story to tell. Over the holidays, I removed all
the Symantec products from my relatives PCs I maintain for them.
Every single one mentioned how much faster the PC ran. Not
empirical data, but telling none the less.

Recently, another relative upgraded his Nis-2003 to 2005 without
consulting me. Immediately, the machine performance dropped
very dramatically. We determined that the Symantec Common
Client service was now consuming 43 Megabytes of memory.
After numerous Remote Assistance sessions between my home office
and his house we got it fixed.

Today, my son is getting ready to leave for college. I installed a
new 120 Gig drive for his personal data and music collection. While
on the PC, I got an O.K. from him to remove Symantec software.

After installing eTrust, the scan started. Almost immediately it
starting reporting virus infections. His machine was doing a weekly
full scan and I had him do a Panda Scan once a month to double
check. So much for the world's "Best Selling" Anti-Virus software.

For anyone who doubts that Symantec Security software is:
(1.) Ineffective
(2.) Bloated (High system requirements)
(3.) Overpriced
(4.) Non-existent Technical Support (With paying up $)
I now have a whole room full of relatives who can backup those
descriptions.

To anyone on this newsgroup whom I ever recommended any
Symantec product - I sincerely apologize.

 

[Guest]

For the last year I have had a variety of problems with my new Windows XP
computer that I have not been able to solve until I removed Norton System
Works. The enlightening event started when I tried to upgrade to NSW 2005
after my subscription ran out... the following 3 days of hair-pulling
frustration ended with me extracting every bit of NSW out of my system. ALL
of the Windows XP problems disappaered, and the replacement AV program -
BitDefender - found 17 viruses that NSW never found.

The best soulution to any NSW problems is to remove it!

 

[Shawn Modersohn]

After finally deciding to pull the plug on all Symantec products,
I've got another story to tell. Over the holidays, I removed all
the Symantec products from my relatives PCs I maintain for them.
Every single one mentioned how much faster the PC ran. Not
empirical data, but telling none the less.

Recently, another relative upgraded his Nis-2003 to 2005 without
consulting me. Immediately, the machine performance dropped
very dramatically. We determined that the Symantec Common
Client service was now consuming 43 Megabytes of memory.
After numerous Remote Assistance sessions between my home office
and his house we got it fixed.

Today, my son is getting ready to leave for college. I installed a
new 120 Gig drive for his personal data and music collection. While
on the PC, I got an O.K. from him to remove Symantec software.

After installing eTrust, the scan started. Almost immediately it
starting reporting virus infections. His machine was doing a weekly
full scan and I had him do a Panda Scan once a month to double
check. So much for the world's "Best Selling" Anti-Virus software.

For anyone who doubts that Symantec Security software is:
(1.) Ineffective
(2.) Bloated (High system requirements)
(3.) Overpriced
(4.) Non-existent Technical Support (With paying up $)
I now have a whole room full of relatives who can backup those
descriptions.

To anyone on this newsgroup whom I ever recommended any
Symantec product - I sincerely apologize.

I once had a customer call and report that her all time favorite game
free-cell was not working. I verified that indeed it would hang mid-game.
I ran through the standard trouble shooting list getting to the what have
you recently installed bit. She thought about it for a minute and recalled
her husband mentioning a Norton Internet Security download. As god is my
witness, I uninstalled Norton Internet Security and free-cell ran good as
new. I can't imagine the connection and of course correlation does not
prove causation, but still, 2+2 = 4.

 

[Leythos]

For anyone who doubts that Symantec Security software is:
(1.) Ineffective
(2.) Bloated (High system requirements)
(3.) Overpriced
(4.) Non-existent Technical Support (With paying up $)
I now have a whole room full of relatives who can backup those
descriptions.

To anyone on this newsgroup whom I ever recommended any
Symantec product - I sincerely apologize.

I happen to use and install and love Symantec Corporate Edition
products, but I can't understand why any knowledgeable person would
install a suite like NIS without checking out reports about it.

I would never install NIS and would also remove it from every computer I
could find, being permitted. I would run NAV 2005 or Corporate Edition 9
on any computer.

Like your experience, I've installed enough NAV 2004 and 2005 and Corp
Edition to know what it does, how it works, and that I have not found
anything better. I've taken known infected machines, run all the normal
AV scanners on them in safe mode, then come back and installed NAV +
Updates (from CD) and found more. I have never had a PC with NAV/CE
compromised and we check on a regular basis against AVG and others on
select machines.

I do, completely, agree that NIS is a lousy product and full of bloat.

 

[Plato]

of the Windows XP problems disappaered, and the replacement AV program -
BitDefender - found 17 viruses that NSW never found.

That's not necessarily a symantec problem as many viruses can
immediately disable many popular anti-virus program running 24/7. After
that, you get more viruses. This can, and does happen with many popular
anti-virus programs.

Folks often think of anti-virus programs as some sort of super safety
net. It's not so.
The key to NOT getting viruses is easy:

1. Dont download them.
2. Dont install them.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

I install NSW 2005 without Go Back & without NAV.
I use AVG 7 and ZA 5.5

NAV is not worth the trouble to me anymore. I shudder to think about NIS. It
really is time to move away from Symantec products. Their help articles and tech
support are next to useless compared to a year or two ago. Then the LIVE UPDATES
crash your machine for months at a time (since 12 months ago). There is nowhere
to complain to for free anymore and expect to receive an answer that doesn't
include the words "uninstall & reinstall all Norton products". Wasn't Roxio like
that too?