Why you should never buy Symantec / Norton products

[Seymour Bigby-Heinz]

LOL, OMG that is true! I habitually warn people away from Norton
products, nowadays.

Sounds like the typical smear campaign. Which one of the competing
product vendors are you working for?

Sy

 

[Michael Cecil]

Plus, IMHO Norton antivirus has been compromised, it seems. Every
single person I serviced who had Norton antivirus turned out to be
infected with something. Usually several somethings. And most of them
WERE keeping it updated.

Of course, people who were having no problems with NAV wouldn't be coming
to you for servicing.

There are a few Norton products that are usable. Partition Magic, USB
drive edition, takes no installing for instance. Symantec Antivirus works
nicely (especially for multiuser computers where NAV had mucho problems).
But most Symantec stuff is way to invasive and bloaty as you say.

 

[itemyar]

If it's so bad, why is it the choice of most businesses and governments?
Yeah I know, it's a conspiracy, somebody's being paid off to use their
products, right?

 

[Michael Cecil]

If it's so bad, why is it the choice of most businesses and governments?
Yeah I know, it's a conspiracy, somebody's being paid off to use their
products, right?

Who said it was the "choice of most businesses and governments"?

 

[Shawn Hirn]

Built a computer for my nephew a couple years ago. It was so nice at the
time, that it's still a decent gaming machine. He's living with mom's
boyfriend, who was trying to be helpful. So he (mom's boyfriend) upgraded
the system from (sygate personal firewall plus AVG anti-virus) to Norton
Internet Security 2006. My nephew said he was having trouble connecting to
the Internet after that, but I didn't know about Norton. So my nephew came
over to stay with us for a few weeks, and brought the whole computer system
with him. I couldn't get his computer to connect to our network at all.
Plus I found some files in the startup tab that looked suspiciously like
virus activity. But the system was protected by Norton, so it couldn't be
virus activity, could it?

Anyway, from previous experience, I know that Norton anything usually causes
more problems than it attempts to fix. But I didn't want to leave the
system unprotected. So I disconnected the system from the Internet
temporarily. Then I installed an old (but still works great!) version of
sygate personal firewall, plus the latest versions of AVG and Avast!
antivirus software.

So the system is still disconnected from the Internet, and I'm attempting to
uninstall Norton. Norton takes forever to uninstall (several minutes).
DURING THIS TIME, Avast! pops up a warning saying it's found a trojan on the
hard drive. (shit!) Later, Norton is still in the process of uninstalling
and AVG pops up a warning that it found a virus on the hard drive. (double
SHIT!!!)

So I finally got Norton uninstalled, connected the LAN, rebooted, and
confirmed that the system was connecting just fine to the Internet again.
(but now protected by a hardware firewall, a software firewall, and two
antivirus programs). Then I scheduled a virus scan (on boot) with Avast!
On reboot, Avast! ran a complete scan and found MANY DOZENS of trojan and
virus files.

And how much did the helpful "mom's boyfriend" spend on that worthless
Norton software? I don't want to know. -Dave

Beats me. I use a Mac and a hardware firewall. Problem solved. No need
to waste my computer's processing cycles to filter out Windows malware.

 

[H. Seldon]

Shawn Hirn wrote:

Beats me. I use a Mac and a hardware firewall. Problem solved. No need
to waste my computer's processing cycles to filter out Windows malware.

And you're looking for what? A medal? A chest to pin it on? What?

You jackass.

 

[Ed Medlin]

Sounds like the typical smear campaign. Which one of the competing
product vendors are you working for?

Sy

It hasn't exactly been a secret that Norton AV and Systemworks are extremely
bloated and cause a lot of performance problems the past few years. There
used to be a program called Symclean that would remove the majority of
Symantec/Norton AV and Systemworks registry entries (over 100 easy) but I am
not sure if it is still around.

Ed

 

[Howard]

Anecdotal evidence of one bad experience is completely lame. I use a
variety of antivirus packages for maintaining my machines and
Symantec is among the better ones.

Anecdotal evidence of one good experience is completely lame. Symantec's
uselessness is widely known and very well-documented. Anyone using it with
any degree of success is in the minority. Those who know better avoid it
completely, with good reason. But hey, if it's working for you (for now),
good for you. As for me, I make quite a bit of scratch cleaning/repairing
computers, and as long as Symantec is in business, I have no worries about
being able to pay the bills.

 

[Seymour Bigby-Heinz]

It hasn't exactly been a secret that Norton AV and Systemworks are extremely
bloated and cause a lot of performance problems the past few years. There
used to be a program called Symclean that would remove the majority of
Symantec/Norton AV and Systemworks registry entries (over 100 easy) but I am
not sure if it is still around.

Ed

I certainly never denied that Symantec products are bloated. Good
luck finding widely-available software that isn't bloated these days.
Led by Microsoft, it seems that every major software vendor is pumping
their software full of functions that their customers don't want or
need, under the guise of several specious reasons.

What I do find dubious are the claims that Symantec misses so many
viruses that other products catch. I've worked with the products
(Symantec and several others) for well over a decade and have never
seen evidence of that. In fact, I've seen the exact opposite of that.

People get too brainwashed about their technology. Once they get an
idea in their head about something, no amount of reality will change
it. I prefer to let the software's ongoing effectiveness speak for
itself.

Sy

 

[JAD]

Beats me. I use a Mac and a hardware firewall. Problem solved. No need
to waste my computer's processing cycles to filter out Windows malware.

what do you do about mac malware? .

 

[JAD]

We use a variety because no single AV product catches everything.
Symantec is among the few that detects the most problems accurately.

Sy

horse pucky.... I guess if I paid money for an incompetent product I would
try and defend it too

 

[Howard]

what do you do about mac malware? .

Like most Mac drones, deny it exists I imagine.

 

[Seymour Bigby-Heinz]

horse pucky.... I guess if I paid money for an incompetent product I would
try and defend it too

That's a very good indicator of your IQ. Personally, if I thought it
was an 'incompetent product', I'd say so.

Sy

 

[Tom]

Been using computers for 20+ years. The only time I ever lost data
was when I ran Norton's defrag and it trashed the entire file
structure. Booted up to garbage onscreen.


--

You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you,
if you could know how seldom they do.

....Olin Miller

 

[itemyar]

Well, I retired from the Federal government about 3 years ago and they use
it! I was in Telecommunications and most of the companies that I dealt with
used it. Like it or not, it's still the most widely used program!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[JAD]

That's a very good indicator of your IQ. Personally, if I thought it
was an 'incompetent product', I'd say so.

Sy

no you wouldn't....you would be admitting to ' paying ' for a product that
is huge on resources and is shoddy at detecting viruses(unless you count
'crashing the system' to prevent virus propagation a 'feature' ). Also
supporting its usage in your business environment, yikes, Not many would do
that.

 

[Bob M]

ToolPackinMama wrote:

You ain't never lie. I would never recommend Norton products - not only
because they are unnecessarily bloated, top-heavy, annoying, and
complex, - not only because they dig their damn tentacles in so deep in
so many directions that it is impossible to neatly uninstall - not only
because it is over-hyped and over-priced - mainly because it causes
visible, palpable system slowdown.

Plus, IMHO Norton antivirus has been compromised, it seems. Every
single person I serviced who had Norton antivirus turned out to be
infected with something. Usually several somethings. And most of them
WERE keeping it updated.

You are so right. I have worked on many systems that were screwed up
because of Norton. Once I have removed Norton most system problems were
solved. The rest were viruses that got onto systems when Norton was
supposed to be protecting it. I also tell everyone to avoid Norton.

Bob

 

[JAD]

Well, I retired from the Federal government about 3 years ago and they use
it! I was in

Are you trying to give it credence or prove idiots use it?







Telecommunications and most of the companies that I dealt with

used it. Like it or not, it's still the most widely used program!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

 

[Bob M]

If it's so bad, why is it the choice of most businesses and governments?
Yeah I know, it's a conspiracy, somebody's being paid off to use their
products, right?

Maybe this is the reason so many business and gov't computers have
been hacked into recently. They have Norton on them.

Bob

 

[Brian K]

Built a computer for my nephew a couple years ago. It was so nice at the
time, that it's still a decent gaming machine. He's living with mom's
boyfriend, who was trying to be helpful. So he (mom's boyfriend) upgraded
the system from (sygate personal firewall plus AVG anti-virus) to Norton
Internet Security 2006. My nephew said he was having trouble connecting to
the Internet after that, but I didn't know about Norton. So my nephew came
over to stay with us for a few weeks, and brought the whole computer system
with him. I couldn't get his computer to connect to our network at all.
Plus I found some files in the startup tab that looked suspiciously like
virus activity. But the system was protected by Norton, so it couldn't be
virus activity, could it?

Anyway, from previous experience, I know that Norton anything usually causes
more problems than it attempts to fix. But I didn't want to leave the
system unprotected. So I disconnected the system from the Internet
temporarily. Then I installed an old (but still works great!) version of
sygate personal firewall, plus the latest versions of AVG and Avast!
antivirus software.

So the system is still disconnected from the Internet, and I'm attempting to
uninstall Norton. Norton takes forever to uninstall (several minutes).
DURING THIS TIME, Avast! pops up a warning saying it's found a trojan on the
hard drive. (shit!) Later, Norton is still in the process of uninstalling
and AVG pops up a warning that it found a virus on the hard drive. (double
SHIT!!!)

So I finally got Norton uninstalled, connected the LAN, rebooted, and
confirmed that the system was connecting just fine to the Internet again.
(but now protected by a hardware firewall, a software firewall, and two
antivirus programs). Then I scheduled a virus scan (on boot) with Avast!
On reboot, Avast! ran a complete scan and found MANY DOZENS of trojan and
virus files.

And how much did the helpful "mom's boyfriend" spend on that worthless
Norton software? I don't want to know. -Dave

I use Symantec products currently. I have also used Norton Utilities
and Anti-virus versions for a number of years. The internet security
product is not one that I have experience. But any anti-virus, Trojan,
adware package is only as good as its user. If you don't schedule
complete scans with updated definition files, stuff is going to get in.
If you swap home burned CDs or floppy disks that is a vector that even
the best sentry program won't catch, especially if you override warnings
and install that game anyway 'cause it rocks.

As a firewall, I use Zone Alarm. It works in conjunction with my
anti-virus software, plus I can fine tune it. Of course even with Zone
Alarm it's possible to screw the pooch, if you don't read the
documentation or don't know what you are doing.

I've never lost data to a Speed Disk (defrag) incident. (I was running
Speed Disk and there was a power failure.) I've never had difficulty
uninstalling a Symantec product, and pre-XP I often installed to
non-default folders.

What it all boils down to is often it's PBKC (Problem Between Keyboard
and Chair). ;-)

--
________
To email me, Edit "blog" from my email address.
Brian M. Kochera
"Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951