Why you should never buy Symantec / Norton products

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave
  • Start date Start date
The said:
Except for f-prot. I guess it doesn't count because you run it in a DOS
window on demand and kills only after infestation. Big deal. People
who worry about catching viruses whenever they're on line probably don't
practice safe sex either.
Click to expand...

You probably mean f-prot, for DOS. There is a Windows version, you know
(and Linux, and BSD, and Solaris).

I guess it slips under the radar since the sites are usually rating
'Windows' AV Software.
 
David said:
Which one would you like to claim is perfect?


Someone put too much Habanero in your coffee, or something?
Click to expand...

I note JAD gives no proof-of-belief in his response.
Why must people continually argue in the face of references, such as you
have given on this subject? I really don't understand why they think
that if they shout louder and belittle others more fervently, it will
somehow make their perspectives on subjects the correct ones.
Just one of the problems associated with conversations that lack eye
contact I suppose.
 
H. Seldon said:
I note JAD gives no proof-of-belief in his response.
Why must people continually argue in the face of references, such as you
have given on this subject? I really don't understand why they think
that if they shout louder and belittle others more fervently, it will
somehow make their perspectives on subjects the correct ones.
Just one of the problems associated with conversations that lack eye
contact I suppose.
Click to expand...

I don't know why people think that works, unless it's an attempt to just
shout someone down.

I didn't notice the "by who" comment because I was taken aback by the
'hysterics' line. That and JAD's reader wraps differently than mine so the
quoted message gets a bit jumbled. I, of course, don't "rate" software nor
did I even make a recommendation. I was referring to some common sources,
like PC World, PC Mag (appologies if those aren't who someone thinks are
'the best') and the testing organizations they use like av-test.org and
av-comparatives.org (appologies if those aren't who someone thinks are 'the
best'). The latter two being where I started and they had links to articles
using their data.

Heck, on some of my machines I even *use* a 'free' one, Avast 4.7.
 
its like this: SHELDON \\\\


when I consider a product I read reviews..10 - 20 reviews and I'm good. I'm
not going to try and talk to everybody that uses a product, as it would be
futile. I have cleaned this garbage from my own system years ago, have
cleaned NON functioning norton from 100's maybe even thousands of machines
since 199-. Sometimes its the user sure, but software should be 'usable' by
the user with a little consideration to the naive. Thousands of 0 byte INF
files deleted back in the day. That STILL happens on occasion. When PAYING
for something, I expect it to do what it advertises with the proper input of
the user.



I'm not going into EVERY experience I have had with Bloaten system
worse.....even the damn firewall goes belly up and blocks all internet
traffic in some circumstances.


This thread has well established a trend in norton that has continued since
its intro. That would be enough for me if I were considering it.


That's all,,,, Its my experience / opinion and that's the end, coming in
after 2 weeks just to keep the thread going by taking the opposite side
isn't going to impress me or turn me otherwise. Typical tactic and I am not
going there.


Later
 
David Maynard pravi:
Depends on how ones 'measures' it and what capabilities are activated
and being used. Just as a 'for example', a scanner checking more file
extension types, and deep into compressed files, on both reads and
writes is going to take up more time and resources than one checking
fewer types on only writes. Which, btw, happens to be what I set them to
on slower machines for just that reason, and the theory that it's less
likely to be there to 'read' if it doesn't first get written.
Click to expand...

There are many different ways to read and write to the harddrive. If
your anti-virus does not catch every variety of a write, the viruses
might get installed trough your protection and never again detected
because you don't have read-scanning enabled. Whatever Norton's guard
seems to be doing, it doesn't detect very many viruses on the fly (yes,
I've tested it). Hence the requirement to have it's bulky scanner do
full system scans.

My anti-virus package scans on many sorts of reads and writes and it
does not slow down the system, nor does it miss viruses or let any
program load into memory before scanning it. It's all about programming
design and Norton has a shitty one. And they don't give a f**k about it.
However, back to the original 'issue', none of them were rated "trash at
its best" or "don't work," not even Norton. In fact, they said "At their
default configurations and with up-to-date virus definitions in place,
all of the products that AV-Test evaluated were 100 percent successful
at detecting WildList viruses in real time and on demand."
Click to expand...

Many of those benchmarks were SPONSORED by Symantec. Just give a general
user experience, do you seriously believe the majority of computer
experts would be complaining about Norton if it were in fact working
perfectly?

Take AntiVir... it's got a messaging board which is not moderated by the
developers of the anti-virus package. The people complaining about it
there are a small minority. And I guess it is similar for most good
anti-virus protections.

How do you explain that?

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David Maynard pravi:
That's nice. However, my point still stands as I doubt there are many
virus gurus out there specifically targeting it like they do Norton.
Click to expand...

They are targeting Norton because for Norton, they don't even have to
sweat a drop to make it tick. If Norton wouldn't keep it's settings
openly in the registry and text files and if it didn't include more
features usable to viruses than there are those usable to the user and
if the communication between Norton products wasn't such that any
program can insert itself freely into it at any point, the problem would
not be so commonly exploited.

Not only that Norton has so many such obvious flaws, but also they don't
do a d**n thing to fix it. All the other anti-virus packages take good
care to make sure they cannot be easily cracked: They use real protected
configuration (and not just a password protected GUI like Norton), they
use different standards for interprocess communication, they make the
programs more independent to prevent a virus crashing them, they preform
self-scanning and self-disinfecting at load, etc, etc, etc.

The protection of an anti-virus program itself from the viruses is an
integral part of the anti-virus package. The point that an anti-virus
package can get cracked on the runtime is no excuse for it failing to
protect the system in such an event. Unless of course you are a company
such as Microsoft (Genuine Windows validation fails on legal, but
"root-kit"ed Windows) or Symantec, where the company is conveniently no
longer responsible for the software package, once it is altered.

In short: No excuse for Norton.

--
Primary function: Coprocessor
Secondary function: Cluster commander

http://www.thought-beacon.net

Pay once per lifetime webhosting:
http://farcomm-it.com/?ref=jsah

We are the paragon of humanity. You may worship us. From afar.

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Jure said:
David Maynard pravi:



There are many different ways to read and write to the harddrive.
Click to expand...

Got a list?
If
your anti-virus does not catch every variety of a write, the viruses
might get installed trough your protection and never again detected
because you don't have read-scanning enabled. Whatever Norton's guard
seems to be doing, it doesn't detect very many viruses on the fly (yes,
I've tested it).
Click to expand...

Fascinating. What was the methodology of the test and with which virus set?
And what other packages did you run the same test on?
Hence the requirement to have it's bulky scanner do
full system scans.
Click to expand...

It's optional.
My anti-virus package scans on many sorts of reads and writes
Click to expand...

Which sorts? And since you didn't mention "all," which ones does it not scan?
and it
does not slow down the system, nor does it miss viruses or let any
program load into memory before scanning it. It's all about programming
design and Norton has a shitty one. And they don't give a f**k about it.
Click to expand...

What they do, or do not, 'give a... about' must be 'insider' information.

Many of those benchmarks were SPONSORED by Symantec.
Click to expand...

I'll be glad to hear any evidence you have to back up the implied charge
that their tests are rigged.
Just give a general
user experience, do you seriously believe the majority of computer
experts would be complaining about Norton if it were in fact working
perfectly?
Click to expand...

I've never heard a claim of 'perfectly' with regard to any of them but I'd
love to see your poll data. That majority would be how many out of how many
total computer experts in the world?
Take AntiVir... it's got a messaging board which is not moderated by the
developers of the anti-virus package.
Click to expand...

Then why does each section have a moderators list off to the right with
names in it? Like Andreas Pohl, Matthias Beck for the "General questions
about the product" section.
The people complaining about it
there are a small minority. And I guess it is similar for most good
anti-virus protections.

How do you explain that?
Click to expand...

Explain what?
 
I recently serviced a home user who couldn't figure out why she was
being nagged to update, when she had already purchased a Norton upgrade
license online. I explained that she had never actually downloaded and
applied the software upgrade. So I did it for her.

After the update was applied, the machine refused to behave normally
after the required reboot. In fact, it had become a basketcase. It
suddenly was impossible to access the internet via her formally
trouble-free cable connection. Norton antivirus was broken, disabled,
and - even after the net connection was reestablished - refused to
update itself.

It became necessary to uninstall Norton completely, to restore usability
to her personal computer. Of course, it's impossible to neatly remove
Norton completely. It left sloppy little fragments of itself all over
the place.

Thankfully, it is possible to remove it enough to replace it with
another antivirus program.... which is what I believe everybody should do.
 
ToolPackinMama said:
I recently serviced a home user who couldn't figure out why she was
being nagged to update, when she had already purchased a Norton upgrade
license online. I explained that she had never actually downloaded and
applied the software upgrade. So I did it for her.

After the update was applied, the machine refused to behave normally
after the required reboot. In fact, it had become a basketcase. It
suddenly was impossible to access the internet via her formally
trouble-free cable connection. Norton antivirus was broken, disabled,
and - even after the net connection was reestablished - refused to
update itself.

It became necessary to uninstall Norton completely, to restore usability
to her personal computer. Of course, it's impossible to neatly remove
Norton completely. It left sloppy little fragments of itself all over
the place.

Thankfully, it is possible to remove it enough to replace it with
another antivirus program.... which is what I believe everybody should do.
Click to expand...

I'll keep that in mind in case I run across a broken one.
 
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