Norton - Symantec Antivirus Review - Good or bad?

[laurentio]

A customers was asking me the other day...
"What is the kludgiest, most poorly designed, buggiest, counter-intuitive, prone-to-breakdown, driver-devouring, update-eluding, worst piece of crap app you've ever had the displeasure of using?"

I don't even know where to begin, there are so many problems with Symantec and Norton. They started going downhill in 2001. Their 2003 products were full of bugs. The 2006 versions can't even remove previous versions. They are the biggest resource hogs and bring most computers to a sreeching halt. The corporate versions are just as bad. rtvscan.exe should be classified as a virus. It interferes with core os functions. Try upgrading or uninstalling any of their products. It will fail 80% of the time. Their support site has you following pages and pages of instructions, sending you into the registry and jumping all around Symantec.com just to remove their software. They have had to create all kinds of special utilities and tools for each version of their software just to remove their own software (RNAV, SymNRT and Norton Uninstall Tool come to mind). Have you ever run Live Update for just their AntiVirus product? They have taken a simple antivirus product and broken it into a bunch of confusion: Subscription Services, Subscription Client Update, Symantec Shared Components, Symantec Security Response Submission Software, Symantec Redirector, Symantec Common Driver SymEvent, Symantec Common Client Updates, Live Reg, Live Update, it goes on and on. It's antivirus software, for Pete's sake! It's not rocket science...

[deklevreux]

Its anti virus software when it does finally find something to repair it sends you off to the symantic site to download bits to fix the problem.
And that is despite taking over the network connection at least daily to update the virus definitions?? On top of that it is so resource hungry that it slows everything down with it. I'll never use this crap again.

[blight75]

Has anybody successfully migrated to Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0? I have tried following their instructions posted on the website - doesn't work.

Their code is so convoluted, it is as much monster code as the IRS software.

I just update to Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 or at least tried and now I'm looking into ditching them.

Does it take all of us to actually state this? Don't they kinda get it themselves?

And now, I get the invitation to a webinar on migrating from SSE to SSEP. What the h3ll is SSEP? Don't count on the Symantec website for an answer. They don't even have a topic for their own product!:confused:

Hey Symantec - DUH! Get a clue or go out of business! :mad:

[Michael Tulip]

I agree that Symantec/Norton products are resource hogs.
On my system, I noticed a boot time of 2.5 minutes with symantec installed. I switched to Nod32 Internet Security and it now boots in under 45 seconds!!

[Ditto]

I have to agree on this one. I'm an IT guy and had this dog hose my system every time I attempted to install it. Luckily I took the proper precautions beforehand and was able to recover. Total waste of money!

[Peter_G]

Totally agree!
The HP desktops I buy for my company have this horror software on them, already pre installed. Shipping with Norton - the first thing I do when I install a new machine is take the wretched thing off!!!

[Gibson-tr00]

Same here!
I get HP desktops/laptops for the company I work for too, Norton goes straight in the bin! - it's just such a load of rubbish and it does it's best to avoid being uninstalled, why oh why do they ship with it?!?!

I have had a few users come to me for help with their home systems that Norton has messed up, PC world seems to push Norton on the unknowing public when it's one of the worse ones on the market, mind you PC world is another rant I could go on about.

I would recommend nod antivirus software from www.eset.co.uk, very good and powerful, small definition updates that all happen in the background and it does not effect PC performance.

[Tryten]

Our company has decided to discontinue use of all Symantec products. Not just at the Americas sites but world-wide. The support that is offered is an absolute joke. So now we are scrambling to find a replacement since our Symantec contract ends in 4 months.

[aDMINI]

One shouldn't wish a company ill, but Symantec has done the worst job of programming and customer support that may yet exist.
I suscribed to Norton AV 2007 then got caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare of "it's your ISP's fault..", "it's MS's fault", "it's Dell's fault", all from difficult-to-understand Indian folks trying to help but held back by "school" solutions. Finally, got them to tell me how to rid my system of Norton who would not allow me to change from the old broadband settings we had been using to our newly installed Virgin router. Never will use or encourage anyone toward Norton. No wonder they are loosing all customers now.

[laurentio]

Opinion varies. PC Magazine thinks the latest Norton is something like the greatest thing since sliced bread...or that's the impression I get...

My personal, very personal opinion is to dislike Norton for four reasons.
(1) Their documentation is very difficult to read and non-informative.
(2) Their support is very poor and, if acquired in person, extremely expensive. (3) Their software does a poor job of malware detection and removal and must be supplemented via use of other software agents.
(4) Their software digs itself deeply into a system to the extent it is EXTREMELY difficult to remove, requiring not only uninstall but also use of utilities acquired from Symantec plus utilities acquired via Google search plus substantial effort on the computer owner's part.

Another personal gripe is the manner (actually a very aggressive advertising campaign) in which Norton/Symantec software has "wedded" itself into other products so that trial versions come always pre-installed on, for example:
Windows XP or VISTA Operating Systems on nearly all Desktop-Laptop manufacturers, Adobe Flash Player, Linksys routers,etc, etc, etc...