Lessons hard learned

[Sherwin Dubren]

Several years ago, when I first started using anti-virus programs, I
felt
that more programs running gave me better protection. I soon learned
that
very often, these anti-virus programs from different companies actually
could interfere with each other. I settled on one company, Symantec
which
although quirky, seems to give me good protection.

I responded to a free offer from Comcast to install the McAfee Firewall
program. Shortly after installing it, I found that the Auto-Protect
feature of Norton would not be started automatically on boot up. It
could not be set at boot up, but could be turned off and on after the
machine
was up and running. I tried all the fixes from Symantec, but it now
seems
that the problem was trying to bring up the firewall at the same time
the
auto-protect was activating. When I disabled the firewall software, the
auto-protect started to come up properly at boot up. If this is really
the problem, it further reinforces my notion that you can't mix
anti-virus
software from different companies. Anyone have a more definitive
explanation as to what's going on? Maybe I have to go out and buy the
Symantec Firewall Software to make everything work?

Sherwin Dubren

 

[Jason]

Several years ago, when I first started using anti-virus programs, I
felt
that more programs running gave me better protection. I soon learned
that
very often, these anti-virus programs from different companies actually
could interfere with each other. I settled on one company, Symantec
which
although quirky, seems to give me good protection.

I responded to a free offer from Comcast to install the McAfee Firewall
program. Shortly after installing it, I found that the Auto-Protect
feature of Norton would not be started automatically on boot up. It
could not be set at boot up, but could be turned off and on after the
machine
was up and running. I tried all the fixes from Symantec, but it now
seems
that the problem was trying to bring up the firewall at the same time
the
auto-protect was activating. When I disabled the firewall software, the
auto-protect started to come up properly at boot up. If this is really
the problem, it further reinforces my notion that you can't mix
anti-virus
software from different companies. Anyone have a more definitive
explanation as to what's going on? Maybe I have to go out and buy the
Symantec Firewall Software to make everything work?

Sherwin Dubren

It's quite common for anti-virus software to completely fail to work
together, and sometimes other software. It's often caused because said
pieces of software intercept "system calls" such as file open, this can then
result in circulatory activation as each product intercepts the other's
resource requests.