Norton 2005 WTF!?!?
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OK,
3 months ago I purchased Norton 2005 (more than likely a WTF in of itself), which of course gives you a 12 month subscription. Earlier tonight I received an error message stating my subscription had expired (Guess the programmers dont know how to count to 12 months) so I click on the "Renew" button. I then get this screen
So I ask this, if my subscription expires in 184 days (according to the screen) why is it telling me my subscription has expired??!!
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OK so now I AM the WTF, this is Norton 2007, NOT 2005
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Yeah, that sounds like Norton to me. "WARNING! DANGER! Evil hackers are trying to take over your computer! We can stop them, but only if you pay us $29.95 per month".
Anything for your credit card number.
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Things like this are why I've stopped putting up with annoying software. If software whines about subscriptions and/or updates, it's off to the recycle bin with it while I search for a better product.
The last straw for me was when Norton Antivirus 2003 started telling me once every 24 hours that my subscription had expired. I had no intention of renewing my subscription on that machine, because I had recently bought a new one and thus this machine became a secondary media PC, but the software has no option, "Stop interrupting everything I'm doing to tell me what you told me yesterday," so I just uninstalled it. Best decision I ever made.
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I am not a Norton Antivirus fan. Whenever I have had it installed before it seems to hog all the memory and processor cycles for long periods of time while it scan slowing my computer to an absolute crawl in the process. I also found that it didn't support my OS when I upgraded to WinXP 64-bit (may have been fixed by now). Needless to say I now use virus software (Avast!) that a) works with my OS, b) doesn't hog all the resources, and c) is free for personal use.
Its always annoying when software vendors state that their software is for Windows XP then fail to mention it won't work on all editions, specifically the 64bit variety. If you are going to claim Windows XP compatibility then it should be for all versions.
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I have a friend who used to work for Symantec. The guys there use Norton 2002 or 2003 (forget which one) because "it's the last one that actually worked".
Me, I got a free copy of Norton Corporate from school. Running for 5 years now, no pop-ups, no annoyances, does everything behind the scenes. I even forget that it's there.
So Norton Corporate and Norton Ghost are probably the only worth while products out of that company. Avoid everything else like the plague.
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@JamesKilton said:
I have a friend who used to work for Symantec. The guys there use Norton 2002 or 2003 (forget which one) because "it's the last one that actually worked".
Yeah, annoyingly enough the core virus-scanning engine is actually one of the better ones (in no small part as a result of some technology they picked up from IBM when they shut down their own antivirus project) - but the application wrapped around it is the most awful money-grabbing monstrosity that you've ever seen. If you have some of the really old versions, their wrapper applications are much better, and you can still update the core and patterns to the current versions.
Still not worth what they charge for it. I wouldn't even consider it unless you can get it for free. Get yourself a good backup solution instead, and screw the whole virus-scanning-on-the-desktop idea; if you get infected, restore from backup, end of story.
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@JamesKilton said:
Avoid everything else like the plague.
Amen to that... I do a lot of email tech support, and this company has cost me so many frustrating support hours I should probably put in an expense claim. I'd refuse to support anyone using it except that (probably because no sane person will buy it off the shelf) they insist on bundling it with every off shelf PC from the usual outlets. Its purpose seems to be to eat up all system resources and block any attempt to send and receive email.
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Hey, I work for Symantec and...... well, I have nothing.
@JamesKilton said:
I have a friend who used to work for Symantec. The guys there use Norton 2002 or 2003 (forget which one) because "it's the last one that actually worked".
Me, I got a free copy of Norton Corporate from school. Running for 5 years now, no pop-ups, no annoyances, does everything behind the scenes. I even forget that it's there.
So Norton Corporate and Norton Ghost are probably the only worth while products out of that company. Avoid everything else like the plague.
In my office (Calgary) we use the latest version. But it's a huge company, so who knows?
Out of curiosity, which branch does your friend work at?
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@versatilia said:
(probably because no sane person will buy it off the shelf)
People will, 'cause it takes up the most shelf space at Best Buy.
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@rbowes said:
Hey, I work for Symantec and...... well, I have nothing.
In my office (Calgary) we use the latest version. But it's a huge company, so who knows?
Out of curiosity, which branch does your friend work at?
He doesn't work there anymore. He was doing more QA work than development. I forget what his exact post was called.
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@JamesKilton said:
@rbowes said:
Hey, I work for Symantec and...... well, I have nothing.
In my office (Calgary) we use the latest version. But it's a huge company, so who knows?
Out of curiosity, which branch does your friend work at?
He doesn't work there anymore. He was doing more QA work than development. I forget what his exact post was called.
Ah, one of those people!
Although I may not use the software, I do enjoy the R&D stuff here. For what that's worth :)
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I once ran an old version of norton's defrag utility on a windows 95 (98?) installation (whichever one first supported the VFAT stuff), and it totally hosed the file system.
Apparently the FILENA~1.TXT mapping to FILENAMEGOESHERE.TXT got bombed during the process.
It was FFR time for that machine...
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@JamesKilton said:
I have a friend who used to work for Symantec. The guys there use Norton 2002 or 2003 (forget which one) because "it's the last one that actually worked".
Me, I got a free copy of Norton Corporate from school. Running for 5 years now, no pop-ups, no annoyances, does everything behind the scenes. I even forget that it's there.
So Norton Corporate and Norton Ghost are probably the only worth while products out of that company. Avoid everything else like the plague.
You must be running V9 or 8. Those worked alright, although 8 couldn't keep up with the new malwares coming out at the time, and 9 needed defaults changed in order to catch in-memory threats. V10 was a POS from day 1, though. Same issues as Norton 2005: even on the fastest computers, the scan would tie up the system for 2-5 minutes at each startup. Also, though this may have been specific to the institution I was working in, the defintions failed to download from the management server more often than not. Since SAV was running in managed mode, there was no manual workaround. The result was that some workstations were simply left unprotected against new threats.
Slime-Antic is not the only one, though. As I was writing this, McAfee poppped up its "A Web Service is ready to install..." dialog. I have firmly committed to never purchasing any McAfee product based on the way this sucker has been spamming me with renewal notices since the day I got my computer. FWIW, when I do install an AV tool, it will probably be Symantec.
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@RaspenJho said:
I once ran an old version of norton's defrag utility on a windows 95 (98?) installation (whichever one first supported the VFAT stuff), and it totally hosed the file system.
Apparently the FILENA~1.TXT mapping to FILENAMEGOESHERE.TXT got bombed during the process.
It was FFR time for that machine...
Heh, I did the exact same thing as well :o.
I had heaps of files with long names, so everything got screwed up (I didn't know what was what). I just ended up formatting and restoring everything from a backup.
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I used to use Norton Net Security Suite, it was one of the worst hogs I've seen. I switched to AVG + Kerio for a while until Kerio started bitching at me and then I switched to AVG + ZoneAlarm which started crashing my system on a pretty regular basis (they continue to be the only crashes I've ever had with this install). In the end I just got fed up and now I just use AVG for antivirus to stop any foolishness on my part and no firewall at all. I have at least three other layers of protection against bad communication attempts so it's an unnecessary drain for my system anyway.
