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Irritated by Symantec

Colloden

Graduate Poster
Colloden
Joined
Oct 29, 2001
Messages
1,731
Location
Hiding in your underwear drawer.
<RANT>
I’ve just upgraded AntiVirus from the 2003 version to the new bells-and-whistles 2006 version by software download from the Symantec site. I was offered the option of extending my update downloads for another year for a trifling $20 extra so I accepted.

On reaching the payment page I was presented with two entries, one for Antivirus 2006 (download) the other for Extended download (a service). Having paid I noticed that the cost of the extra years download is included in the price of Antivirus 2006.

Had I paid more attention I’d have also noticed the extended download was ‘only’ $8.99 and not the $20 extended antivirus definition downloads I thought it was.
So what’s the extended download? It’s the privilege of being able to download the program again anytime in the next year, rather than only for the next two months.

Nice of Symantec to add that to my shopping basket for me, just in case I wanted it. Ten months longer to download the program, maybe it’s just in case I have a slow modem?

Thanks Symantec. Thanks so much. :mad:

</RANT>
 
I can't stand Symantec products. They drive me crazy. Impossible to remove, their LiveUpdate is the worst in the world (took 5 reboots for me to update a new install of PC Anywhere -- that's worse than windows itself!)

I can't stand McAfee either. Especially after they accidentally released a virus signature update that wiped out Excel and several other programs as virus infected (when they weren't).

For anti-virus I can't recommend Grisoft's AVG enough. Just awesome. If you're a home user you can get it for free:

http://www.grisoft.com/doc/1
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
 
What Kevin said. AVG is a great freebie. Steve Gibson is your friend. Send him some money if you can afford it.
 
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That extended download thing is not Symantec's, it is Digital River's. The same thing occurs when purchasing Tax software and other things. They default it to turn back on any time you leave the page.
 
Symantec was once mighty, but hath since fallen. All their products are just awful, now! NAV is slower than a snail in molasses, and causes all but the most robust and recent machines to crash for no reason! And, they don't update their virus signatures as often as you'd think would be necessary.

Norton Ghost is even worse. They bought out another drive imaging software product, and ruined it. I know a few folks whose hard drives were destroyed by it, because it sometimes messes with the boot sector, for no reason!
 
El Greco said:
That was when they released the last version of Norton Utilities. For DOS.
Click to expand...
Ah, the Commander. Great, great program.

Oddly, my NAV hasn't given me any troubles at all and I'm on my third year on the same laptop. The only annoying thing is that at renewal time (and oddly enough, this morning for no apparent reason) they ask for some number which is on the box, but of course my software came bundled.
 
Meh. I use Trend Micro stuff. Cheaper, less resource-hoggy. Not the best, but not far off, in my opinion.
 
You can check also Avast! 4.6 Home Edition here. It has a friendly interface and, especially, it's free. I use it from some time now and I'm very content with it.
 
I am still with Symantec mainly by habit. Though-- I really enjoy Windows Doctor... I /used/ to love Norton Disk Doctor, but apparently they have nothing to offer an NTFS file system that's better than chkdsk /f.
 
What's a good substitute for Norton Ghost? I've been using Partition Magic lately for my disk copy needs, but I'd like to actually create a big arse image file. You know, disk.bigarse?

And count me among the AVG fanbase. That thing is great. VERY low footprint, great stability (AVG itself never seems to cause a crash nor has it simply crashed itself, it's very out of the way), and fully customizable as far as what I want running in the background or scheduled events (I've disabled all scheduled events simply because I am aware enough that I do it manually and I'm always looking for ways to streamline performance just a bit more, for what end purpose I'm not sure, but I like my computer to be as lazy as possible until I start playing a game on it).
 
Dark Jaguar said:
And count me among the AVG fanbase. That thing is great. VERY low footprint, great stability (AVG itself never seems to cause a crash nor has it simply crashed itself, it's very out of the way), and fully customizable as far as what I want running in the background or scheduled events (I've disabled all scheduled events simply because I am aware enough that I do it manually and I'm always looking for ways to streamline performance just a bit more, for what end purpose I'm not sure, but I like my computer to be as lazy as possible until I start playing a game on it).
Click to expand...

I've tried a number of anti-virus programs over the years , but here are the reasons I've settled on AVG:

1. It's free. (can't beat that)
2. It updates and scans while I'm sleeping peacefully. (fully automated)
3. It's easy to install, setup, and run (in other words, even novice users can use it)
4. It updates and scans even in my limited account. (both Avast! and AntiVir give me problems with this aspect)
5. It's not a resource hog like Norton and McAfee.

Did I mention it's free? :D :D

RayG
 
I can only add that I always try one of the "less popular" antivirus programs intentionally because those tend not to be the programs a virus is designed to circumvent.
 
I use the free Grisoft AVG myself, but been noticing something - I turn my machine off at night, it updates the next time I turn it on, but for the last month or so always needs to reboot to finish the install. Anyone else noticing this?

Trif
 
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