Symantec/Norton not very popular here? Why?

Nevis, I think your points are all on the money. I used Norton 2012 as my AV for the past year and I felt it did a very good job, but my opinion is the 2013 iteration was a bit buggy. I also felt that my boot times and system resources in general were starting to climb a bit with 2013. I could continue running the 2012 engine but I wanted to try something new so I bought a WSA one year license. I'm loving it so far but I think some of the independent testing does not do this product the justice it deserves. Norton is very good but you cannot get the same protection from it, using the default settings, as you will if you change some settings. Kill the "Smart Definitions" and tweak a couple of other settings and it does a very good job.

chimpsgotagun, I'm just curious about a couple of issues you brought up. I have a test machine at home and right now I'm using Comodo 6.0 as my firewall with AVG 2013 Free as the AV with absolutely zero issues. In fact on that same machine I ran Comodo FW 5.3 and AVG 2012 Free before what I have now. I have never heard or read before that there are any built in issues running this firewall and AV combo. Where did you hear that? You also suggest that there are many issues with running separate FW & AV components and finding a compatible combination.

I do not agree with you that this is an issue so prevalent that it requires much testing to find a simpatico coupling. If that were the case then we would all be running suites for fear of compatibility issues with separate components. I'm not saying it doesn't happen because it does, but it's certainly not difficult to find a compatible FW-AV pairing. In fact I much prefer layering my own security with a separate AV, FW, Anti-keylogger, etc. Yes, if you are buying various security products just to test compatibility, then you could foolishly be wasting your money, but certainly you can do a bit of research beforehand and avoid many of those issues. Whether it is using trial products, or free versions, or asking questions here, there are ways to sort things out before spending all your hard earned money. Finally, Norton's AV component is stronger that Avast's? Based on what exactly? I have used both before and I don't think that is an accurate statement. Did you mean five years ago? Please forgive me if I sound like I'm trying to give you a hard time but I just wanted to find out where you came up with some of these assertions?

 

A few months ago I read forums about possible combinations of a few firewalls and a few AV products, and remember some posts about problems with that particular combo. Can't remember where to find them anymore, and they might have been Finnish forums. Quick googling with Finnish language gave me one posting where a user had problem with above mentined combo, but it was from 2008.

So it seems I have too quickly assumed that is a problematic combo. I now have to assume it really isn't, at least necessarily, unless there will be replys to conform it.

It's a bit behind in this one:
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-7/novdec-2012/
allthough in the latest Windows 8 test they were in par.

I only now saw the MRG flash test results (32-bit, though?), where Avast was better than Symantec (assuming it means Norton IS). I now think that for my particular needs, that is using poker clients at 64-bit Win8 and Win7, Avast with some good FW is prolly a better choice than Norton IS/360.

Edit: Found more, the PC Mag has independent lab test chart table, where are results of several labs, where Norton had better results than Avast. PC Mag gave Norton Combined Rating 'Excellent' from those results, and 'Good' to Avast (also 'Good' to AVG and Avira). Can't give straight link to the chart, but it can be found from this page:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372364,00.asp
Click 'Antivirus lab tests chart'
(Some interesting results there, like only 20% to Emisoft from Virus Bulletin)

Btw, I said in the opening post, that Norton has a better FW than Comodo or ZA. I take it back. I have no idea.

But like I wrote in another thread, I'm open to recommendations - more details here:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2220158&postcount=62

 

Fair enough. Thanks for clearing up those questions I had

 

Well said.

That pretty much sums up their blatant behavior.

 

I don't know about the rest but I have at least 1 reason why Symantec is not "in my book" so to say.

I still remember the 'free AV not good enough' argument they made. While I agree that some of the points may have been sound and true in certain ways, unfortunately they took it to the extreme. They made judgments on the quality of "free" as a whole and in their aim to sell the idea of their products being superior, they made conclusions in a manner which played upon perceived fear.

I'm usually forgiving and accepting of companies marketing tactics because I once took the subject and have high regards for the concept and need for it. Many would probably disagree with me but marketing is a noble art. There's this mistaken idea that marketing is about lying to your consumers. Nothing is further from the truth. You can push boundaries but there have to be limits. There are many ways to portray yourself in a favorable light in the eyes of the target customer while still maintaining integrity and professionalism.

I'm not debating the merits/validity of their argument. It was the outright abuse of user perception that irked me and made me lose respect for them as a company.

 

Well said.
I normally stay away from such companies, especially when they started to treat their customers as idiots. What I mean is, yes, customers might not have all the background knowledge, but they do have logic and common sense, which should absolutely be respected.
One example is here:
https://community.norton.com/t5/Nor...orton/Trojan-Vundo-false-reaction/td-p/110500
Note here:"Next things looks rather weird, NAV states a reboot is required - because there was 147 affected registry entries with Trojan.Vundo as well.

That doesn't look logical, how this never touched file could distribute itself?"

I had a similar accident just as this one, when norton claimed it identified a virus and deleted it along with some other files during manual scanning. I was very surprised because that exe was never executed at all. So I did an experiment in a virutal pc to see what symantec did. Result is similar to the post above, Norton just threw out some pure bs saying that it deleted some files while those files were not there in the first place. I searched google and found some ppl have the similar questions. I remember someone at norton forum said that's the "standard response" of norton to that specific virus, whether false positive or not. To me it's just bs. If it did not delete a file, or a registry entry, why the heck did norton claimed it did? Only explanation is to scare you and give you some false impression that norton is working and effective. This behavior make me mad because Norton in insulting my intelligence.
Unfortunately I don't remember the message or the name of the virus, otherwise I might be able to find that thread in norton community forum.

 

I agree that Symantec's corporate consumer policies as they relate to the retail side of the business are deporable.

That said, I have tried most of the free AVs and I have been infected. The latest incidents occured when I was using Comodo as my firewall and Avast free as my AV. I have NIS installed on muliple PCs and none have ever infected. However all PCs with NIS 2012 and 2013 are configured with highest protection level settings. I learned that one the hard way from my SEP usage days.

As long as I can purchase NAV/NIS for the dirt cheap prices I have for the last 3 years, I will continue to use the product.

 

In the two tests the zeroaccess rootkit TOTALLY DISABLED all protection by NIS and thereby allowed in 100s oF instances of malware HOW CAN AN AV PROTECT A USERS MACHINE AND DATA WHEN IT IS TOTALLY SHUTDOWN BY A ROOTKIT?? From yesterdays NIS Forum: http://community.norton.com/t5/Nort...on/Trojan-Zeroaccess-inf4-removal/td-p/946911

From last years NIS 2012 forum; 200 users experienced the problem: http://community.norton.com/t5/foru...ocation=forum-board:nis_feedback&q=zeroaccess

BTW: No Norton product including its seperate malware removal tool could get rid of the zeoaccess

 

How do you define fail? If a piece one or two of malware slips through??

In the 2 Norton tests Norton either was disabled or removed and 100s of instances of other different malware were downloaded into the systems. There is failure and total failure. Total failure to me is when a rootkit can uninstall your AV/Firewall product which happened in one test and where all protection from malware is totally disabled in the other

Everyone is of course entitled to express their opinon and for me two separate independent tests where Norton TOTALLY failed is enough to make me switch.

And yes. If a saw a test where Kaspersky was uninstalled without warning by malware and the toolbar icon was still visible,as was the case with Norton, I would switch again.

If your car's engine, transmission, brake and cooling and electrical systems, lighting and ac/heating system,and radio all unexpectedly broke down would you replace it if you could afford to do so?

Enuf said. The simple fact is that I was shocked by the videos, lost my confidence in NIS 2012, and Best Buy was having a 50% off sale on KIS 2012. I had used Kaspersky for a decade and switched to the new Norton after reading about its lightness and new systems and after determining that the old Kasperky,either stand alone or as part of Zone Alarm. was significantly extending my boot time. And I am not of the view that KIS is the best product out there but hey! If I have to worry about Eugene Kaspersky's product whats the point of anything?

 

This is turning into a flame war, sort of.

 

Regarding Norton's alerts mechanism, I do have to say I sort of agree - I can't help but get a wee bit annoyed when I plug in my USB modem and connect to get this alert from Norton that it has detected a metered/slow connection and hence will restrict it's bandwidth usage, or when I leave my PC alone for a while and Norton's background scan runs with small message alert that says Norton is scanning in the background.

It's very nice the product does these things; but I feel Norton is constantly trying to poke me and tell me that "hey, I'm doing my job, see?". These things are fine; but they should be done with minimum user interaction or effort - the user shouldn't need to know what the Antivirus is doing as long as the status is fine. If it detects some malware, THEN give me a popup. Background scan alerts? No thank you please, just do it....no need to tell me