The Symantec/Norton Thread.

Totally agree.. Nothing but another bloat feature, glad it's not in it. Besides, remember when AV's didn't scan email, and life was merry? Scan the attachments/files, scan the URL pushes in the emails - fine - but scan the actual traversal of the traffic by an AV? Silly, and potentially useless.

 

Oh look, a random idiot reviewed it, without actually having much technical knowledge to be a technical reviewer. Not sure why I am responding, as this review is pure idiot.

Interesting.. He had a 'bad feeling' before even testing it? Then he says the fact you need to register is 'ridiculous'? A lot of security products require you to register, what's the big deal?

As opposed to what? Using some neural net implant, to determine malware BEFORE it arrives? This isn't a UTM, it's an ENDPOINT product. Maybe someone should point out to this guy the difference between a UTM/NGFW, URL Scanner, and Anti-Malware product? The fact is, Norton 'sandboxes' the download, then runs a serious of diagnostics, it's not actually 'downloaded' in the real sense that you can run it and infect yourself, it's still isolated, and being evaluted. Notice he doesn't even say if it STOPPED the malware after it downloaded it, and ran the 'varied' methodologies on it.. Because we know it did... Notice he actually IS NOT able to infect a Norton protected machine.

Aren't things SUPPOSED to be scanned as they are accessed? Does everyone really want incessant 'Do you want to scan this USB?' or long scans everytime a drive is placed in? I sure don't, and I am sure most people would rather not endure that annoyance. So let's scan when it's accessed. So it detected 15 out of 26 samples on the drive. Do you run any of the undetected ones? No - you didn't.. I challenge you to run each and every one of them, one at a time, and let us know how it went. We know how it will go - Norton will implement 'additional' technologies (Insight, Sonar, Reputation), and stop every one of them. Since they aren't 'running' they aren't really a threat - but Norton decided to take care of more than half anyway - be thankful.

So you essentially ran a test that nobody in their right mind would consider a valid test.. Taking a clean machine, horrendously infecting it, then taking a PROTECTION suite, and expecting it to install, and clean the machine? Let's not even mention the fact that you loaded it up with trojans that likely WILL prevent 'known' products like Norton (and every other one) from being installed. That's why MBAM has Chameleon developed - specially for this. It's at this point I want to call you a moron, but I will refrain. The most telling thing is - the ONLY WAY he could test this product was to pre-infect a machine. He left out the fact that he was actually unable to infect Norton with his downloads, and USB sticks loaded with malware... Yup.. Let's leave that out!

Let's stick to Rubenking, shall we? Excuse me while I go out and buy another license for Norton just to make myself feel better after reading this guys trash.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2469519,00.asp

 

Certainly not Rubenking's reviews...

 

+ 1

 

One thing I really can't understand with Rubenking's Norton reviews (not only the recent one but the ones before as well), supposedly Norton being his champion (he claims having it installed himself):
"I attacked my test system using about 30 exploits generated by the CORE Impact penetration tool. Norton detected and blocked every single exploit, identifying a quarter of them by the precise CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) number of the attack. No other firewall I've tested comes close." How could he not see that the IDS part of the suite, not the firewall is blocking the exploits, the Norton AV having IDS as well also blocks them (and there's no firewall included in the AV). The IDS also updates through signatures.

 

Agreed. Norton IDS is very strong.. Not sure how Rubenking is mis-classifying this.

 

One word - CryptoGuard!

 

So you would recommend HMPA with Norton 2015 then Krusty?

 

Absolutely!

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/the-symantec-norton-thread.372604/page-13#post-2479466

I can't see any problem with running NS + HMP.A and with @erikloman 's help I know they are compatible.

I also use MBAM Premium thrown in for good measure.

 

LOL, this is pure gold. If you're so keen on sticking to Rubenking you should know that is exactly how he used to run all his tests like, say, Norton 2014 or this AVG IS 2014 review before his ISP complained about him distributing malware so he stopped the practice and switched almost exclusively to only aggregating labs results with very light hands-on testing.

Rubenking used to pre-infect the system, try to install a security suite and then contact support if it didn't install. After a few days (!) of wrestling with support if they couldn't remotely install it on his malware infested machine he'd subtract points from the overall review.

For example, from the AVG review:
"Getting AVG installed on my twelve malware-infested test systems was quite a chore. All but two ran into some degree of difficulty, and a few needed days of back-and-forth with tech support before I managed to install the product and run a full scan."
And in summary under CONS:
"Tough time installing on malware-infested test systems."

It's a perfectly valid test and nothing extravagant as it is easy to imagine a real-life scenario where a Joe Average notices his PC acting slow or funny and attempts to install some security software on it (other than Windows Defender).
Perhaps take your own advice that you're so fond of dishing out aggressively to others and lay off the kool-aid a bit.

 

I couldn't agree more...

 

Good to know thanks man!

Now if anyone knows of any discounts on HMP.A that would be sweet!

 

Don't have NS2015 but in 2014 there're some settings about timing. They are "Automatic Resume Delay From Sleep Or Hibernation", "Automatic Tasks Delay", "Idle Time Out". I set each to 1 min, 1 min, 5 min to keep always up-to-date signature. But I admit this doesn't make much sense as Norton use cloud reputation and if internet is unavailable anyway sig can't be updated.

Also in firewall's trust control, I choose "restricted" as I don't need LAN sharing or so. Norton hides all ports only when you choose it. Again, it's not much important when you're behaind NAT and SPI firewall, and ofc if behind more robust NGFW or UTM.

But I also change firewall rules. I added DNS rules on Traffic Rule and put them on top of rules so that only specified DNS traffic can be allowed. It's shame Norton don't have DNS rule by defualt. Another pity is Norton don't allow you to change some rules. I added some more rules but don't list them here. I think many common home user can live w/out much trouble even if they uncheck all of the Uncommon Protocols, but I so far just disalbed all IPv6 stuff (tho I disabled IPv6 system wide) and IGMP. Also in program rules, you'll find they are assigned either Automatic or Allowed. Automatic means Norton is monitoring its traffic and if suspicious it will be shutted out. But Allowed simply means allowed, tho it can only be assigned to trusted programs, I don't like it. As soon as I find Allowed (note: it dynamically changes, a program might assinged Automatic initially, but if its reputation grown, it may change to Allowed), I change it and make custom rules. But in Automatic Program Control mode, you can't get popup so I periodically check logs. Paranoid ppl or classical FW/HIPS enthusiast may disable automatic control and enable Advanced Events Monitoring.

 

Rubenking knows NAV also share IPS, carefully see his past NAV reviews. But honestly, he sometimes show his lack of understanding about products he test. I found them in e.g. Immunet and past EAM reviews.

 

I can also testify I didn't find any problem with this combo with MBAM.
But I disabled Cryptgurad. As I have redundant backups, it's useless for me. I don't fear ransomeware at all.

 

Rubenking also said that there were no changes under the hood for Trend Micro 2015

 

@Mayhanda Both Canada and Rush aside... how 'bout that 2112 advisement as well...

 

I'm still running Norton Security on one of my PCs. It's behaving nicely and is causing absolutely no problems. I have one laptop where Norton coughs up a hairball during installation no matter what I tried (Win 7 64-bit, i5, nothing special). If I recall correctly, the error message was pretty innocuous, something like "cannot complete installation". In the end I just decided it wasn't important enough to worry about and I re-installed Webroot on it. I've left Webroot on my other two machines, as well. I'll likely stick with Norton on my one desktop until the end of the subscription, at least. I'd just hate to resubscribe for another year if there is one machine that, for whatever reasons, just doesn't like it.

 

Probably system file errors, windows installer errors, or some OS flaw on the other one. I'd be more interested in finding out the flaw than anything.. SFC /scannow, chkdsk /f, tweaking.com's tool, etc.. I am usually extremely concerned when I get installation errors on a machine, as it seems to almost always end up being a corrupted OS.

 

If I start to see any other problems, I'll check into it further. I've had no other installation problems, or problems with any applications running or system malfunctions. It's running as smooth and fast as it can for what it is. I've only seen anything wrong when I tried to install Norton. I've been keeping an eye on it, though, but so far I've seen nothing to be alarmed about overall.

 

Thanks Krusty CryptoGuard really looks very interesting. I just noticed it this morning. I suffer a severe case of "Crypto-Whatever" Paranoia. I believe "Crypto-Whatever" to be one of the most insidious malware ever.

NS+MBAM Premium+HMPA - looks pretty solid and happy to hear they work well together

 

it is certiany nice to see wilders actualy not bashing norton after all these years, been a norton tester since the mid 90's
and for years all it got was bashed here. oh sorry but i guess i am guilty of being a mc cafee basher all these years too he he

 

you cannot bash a product when it beats most of the current available solutions in both protection and performance

 

I used it in the '90s and felt it was a good product. It was about 2002-2008 that were the problem years. At least for me.

 

Interesting. I managed to get Norton installed on my recalcitrant laptop. I didn't do much of anything impressive. I just cleaned the registry, ran ccleaner, then defragged the hard drive (3% fragmentation) for giggles. Although I half-expected it to cough up another hairball causing me to look further, Norton Security afterwards installed like it belonged there. So I'm totally Nortoned up now, save for one laptop which is out in the wild with a family member with Webroot on it, which is right fine by me. Nothing wrong with Webroot.