Flaw found in Symantec antivirus software

A lot of people use nortons antivirus, this is just a heads up.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2157047/flaw-found-symantec-anti-virus

I use AVG-free, and i think it is exellent, click on the link to download.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

regards.

IMHO there are so many better alternatives to Symantec / Norton antivirus. Over the last few versions, it has turned into "bloatware" and just steps on performance.

My favorite paid antivirus is NOD32. For a retail of $39.95 it even runs on 2003 servers. Small footprint and fast.

...just my .02 cents

cd-card-biz said:

IMHO there are so many better alternatives to Symantec / Norton antivirus. Over the last few versions, it has turned into "bloatware" and just steps on performance.

My favorite paid antivirus is NOD32. For a retail of $39.95 it even runs on 2003 servers. Small footprint and fast.

...just my .02 cents

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I'm not sure if thats totally accurate. I'm running NAV on my system and also suspected what you have said. But after researching I found that Norton Antivirus consistantly ranks in the top 2 or 3 and it also Number 1 for the amount of different types of virus's it can "catch". I think this may be more of a case of the best out of nessesity having to be a bit system resource intensive. Norton's other products are a different story and may very well apply to what you said.

I know a lot of it is personal preference, and what you're comfortable with.

I have long ago taken all Symantec security products off of all my home PC's. I try to get my clients to switch, but the "Norton" name is like IBM used to be to computers.

BTW there are some interesting antivirus products soon to be released for small home networks. If interested, Google on "D-Link SecureSpot". Looks to be pretty slick!

Finally, a quick search revealed this CNet review of NAV 2006. Guess 5.5 out of 10 ain't bad....

CNet review of Norton AV 2006:
http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Norton_AntiVirus_2006/4505-3667_16-31473733.html

BTW, the article I read said it was only the NAV distributed through corporate licenses. The retail box versions don't have the flaw.

Norton AV has had serious flaws for years! LOL!!!

For those who think Norton (more correctly Symantec, not much "Norton" left in norton anymore) is at or near the best AV, you are seriously mistaken. Despite what some magazine or website may rate NAV, it is near the bottom in the real world. I am an IT professional and I run into issues with norton all the time. Very frequently I see seriously infected PC's with up to date Norton sitting fat, dumb and happy (with no indication of the infection except for the extreme slowness of the pc). The retail version is MUCH worse than the corporate version, but neither are top notch. The biggest problem with the Norton suite is its bloated complexity. It is so easily corrupted by malware or even just on its own. And once it is corrupted, it is useless and can be a pain to uninstall/reinstall. It also causes a huge performance hit and uses a lot more resources compared to other good antivirus programs. I strongly urge you to avoid Norton AV and especially avoid the full suite.

see my sig link for more info and alternate suggestions...

My real world experience doesn't bear out what your saying. I have used NAV for years. My system runs blazing fast (several people are amazed when they use it) and it is by no means a high end system. I have high speed cable and am not shy about where I go on the net. Many nasty virus's and what not have tryed to penetrate my system and NAV detected every one and removed them flawlessly. The user interface is also simple to use.

My comments are only directed towards Nortan Anti Virus. The Symantic suites are way to bloated. and NAV itself does use a lot of system resources. If I'm seriously mistaken then so be it. As I'm typing this my system is running flawlessly so what more can i say?

The D-Link SecureSpot looks interesting, but the $79.99 annual renewal fee is almost equal to the cost of the device itself! Agh.

HighLight said:

My real world experience doesn't bear out what your saying. I have used NAV for years. My system runs blazing fast (several people are amazed when they use it) and it is by no means a high end system. I have high speed cable and am not shy about where I go on the net. Many nasty virus's and what not have tryed to penetrate my system and NAV detected every one and removed them flawlessly. The user interface is also simple to use.

My comments are only directed towards Nortan Anti Virus. The Symantic suites are way to bloated. and NAV itself does use a lot of system resources. If I'm seriously mistaken then so be it. As I'm typing this my system is running flawlessly so what more can i say?

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Norton and Symantec are one and the same. Symantec aquired Norton way back in 1990. I was a huge Norton fan back before Symantec started making it bloatware. That is why I said "there isn't much norton left in norton anymore".

I have run into literally hundreds of infected PC's running symantec/norton AV! I also run into more problems with norton getting corrupted or not uninstalling itself properly than any other software I use. It has been so common that I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone.
I have tested most of the more popular AV software and have seen first hand the resource hit norton causes compared to other software. Some AV doesn't rate much better (McAfee for example) but for most of them it is a noticeable difference. At work when I need to transfer large GB+ files, turning off SAV cuts the transfer time in half! I am not trying to sell something, just letting you know my professional real world experience (and the experiences of my IT associates).

If your happy with it, thats fine. But why (over)pay for bloated software (that has known track record for easily corrupting and/or getting infected)? When there are much better alternatives, some even free (AVG and Avast for example).

Donovan said:

But why (over)pay for bloated software (that has known track record for easily corrupting and/or getting infected)?

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I haven't found the problems with corrupting or getting infected. Like HighLight mine has worked fine for years and by waiting for the new box versions to go on sale in the Summer I don't overpay either, unless you think anything more than free is overpaying.

Is it possible that the corrupted or infected computers weren't installed correctly to begin with or were not kept up to date?

drizzle said:

I haven't found the problems with corrupting or getting infected. Like HighLight mine has worked fine for years and by waiting for the new box versions to go on sale in the Summer I don't overpay either, unless you think anything more than free is overpaying.

Is it possible that the corrupted or infected computers weren't installed correctly to begin with or were not kept up to date?

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Most of them? No, but certainly some of them...

If you do a little web searching on support forums you will see how common this is. Of course the internet security suite is much worse than just stand alone NAV...

If it works good for you then stick with it. I do this for a living and I am just sharing my experiences (along with every single one of my tech associates) with it. I just don't wish folks to still be purchasing "norton" (especially the full internet security suite) thinking that it is the best thing out there. Sure the Norton name stood for great products years ago! But like a lot of products they are living on past greatness (dell is a great example of this). Just don't have blind loyalty to a product name.

Next time your up for renewal, try out one of the alternatives, you may be surprised. Also try fully uninstalling norton and see how much of itself is still left behind! (symantec itself actually makes special removal tools because this is such an issue)

First... Thank you for the notification!

I've never had trouble with Norton's plain-Jane Anti-virus software acting up or installing wrong, and it's interesting to read that some above have found it ineffective. I have certainly found that it and the rest of the Symantec mess only uninstalls right if you dig it out using SymNRT and the other tools.

Now, back to the off-topic ... For personal users I've been moving my personal users over to Microslop's Live OneCare. It's a no-brainer for diminishing my tech support costs to them... Give in to the hegemony! (partial joke) But it does what these personal users need. No locked-out Internet access due to messed duplicate firewalls or whatever, and no "my machine seems slow" calls for a very long time. And what the heck the "back up darnit" comes from MS rather than me now, so maybe it'll have more effect.

Which reminds me, I should back up this laptop. Oooops!

I replaced a totally hosed WinTel's NAV/PersonalFirewall/InternetSecurity mess last week with OneCare after spending hours digging out the Personal Firewall, partially uninstalled Internet Security 2002 (for which the user had no Security Admin access any longer) etc. Now the machine's running like a top, and I hope it stays that way.

Nobody mentiined McAfee. Is it good?

AngelEyes said:

Nobody mentiined McAfee. Is it good?

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see my sig link...

Even though I got Nav installed and have no problems I wouldn't install it on someone elses computer. When I reformated my friends computer and reinstalled his OS ( the only way to fix the mess he had it in!) I installed AVG for him. I liked the way it installed on his fairly modest system and I may go with it if I ever stop getting the free Nortan renewals.. :naughty:

I used to be big on McAfee until it started turning into bloatware also, especially their !$*& alogsrv module. I finally kicked it outta here and I'm running the full Zonealarm suite now with no problems.

AngelEyes said:

Nobody mentiined McAfee. Is it good?

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As awful as Norton A/V and Security Suite is, McAfee is even worse.

I provide support for multi-function copiers in the corporate environment. McAfee's firewall will stop all scanning functions with the brand copiers I service and when I create an exception for the scanning in the firewall, once it updates itself again I get another angry call from the customer about not being able to scan. My solution is to disable the McAfee firewall and enable Windows firewall, with a proper exception for scanning.

Norton Security Suite is a big pain to work with. It will even stop printing to a network connected printer for mysterious reasons.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as problems I've delt with these products. You may be saying to yourself that these are good things, they are stopping all unknown network access. It is only good if it doesn't cost $100 for a support tech to come to your location and procede to disable the security to the point that you can actually get your work done (ie: scan those important documents that need to be attached to your proposal waiting to be emailed, or be able to print at all).

Buying AVG Network Edition for the PC network where I work was one of the best decisions I made there. Updates are a breeze compared to the individually controlled Norton A/V that was being used previously. It also is a lot less expensive with multi-workstation licenses that only need to be renewed every 2 years. It regularly catches stuff also. I check the generated reports frequently.

I have no problems with Windows XP firewall. It stops outside communication effectively and is easy to create an exception for programs that really needs to communicate outside of the firewall. ZoneAlarm is also very well behaved based on experience installing scanning on customer's PC's.