Norton Antivirus / Internet Security
April 2, 2005

You NEED to know this!

We used to sell Norton Antivirus all the time until around the beginning of 2004 we started noticing that some customers were infected with viruses even after running a norton scan. Running Norton manually did not help - scanning the entire drives of various customers did nothing except return a 0 viruses found message. All the updates were in, all the definitions were in, installed off an original store bought copy, etc... At first I thought it was just a co-incidence. Hey, sometimes stuff gets by the antivirus software but after 5 customers then 6, then... I knew then that I had to find another Antivirus for my customers as this product was showing no signs of working on any computers coming in. Customers who had purchased laptops, pc's from various stores, etc were also getting infected right through Norton.

I searched the web and found positive reviews for this free AVG antivirus so I ran it on my machines and found it to work quite well. With V7 it autoupdated which was a nice feature. (v6 only auto updated if you bought it).

Since last year until now March 31, 2005 - (over 1 year) the number of customers NOT infected with Norton Antivirus is 2.03%. This means that Norton FAILED last year for 97.97% of the people. So, I did some research to see how many people were experiencing problems with Norton Antivirus. Didn't take long to find thousands of reviews of Norton products (Antivirus, Internet Security) with ratings as bad as a 91% thumbsdown rating. And on other review sites a 1.5 out of 10 rating.

I have seen with my own eyes and read about thousands of people having the same problems. I also expect the number of failures to be higher because most people did not know their Norton was compromised.

As if all these problems weren't bad enough - the Norton software is SLOW (poorly designed), bloated (sloppy programmers), and it barely works anymore. The people who did NOT get infected through Norton apparently didn't have much (if any) spyware on their machines.

I have also seen McAffee, Bell Canada Freedom/Premium, Guardian, etc Anti-viruses get compromised. While I'm on the subject of poorly designed software... people - PLEASE do not install those disks that Sympatico, Rogers gives you. The software sucks. Bell Canadas Freedom package with MSN Premium sucks. Buggy, bloated software that messes up a lot of machines. These companies have a good idea bundling packages together for security etc - but whoever wrote this software needs to learn how to program.

Now, AVG... while not 100% impressed with the software I do find that it doesn't get compromised. If you have viruses - it will say so. Ok, some die hard Norton fan will say - my norton works fine. Hey, I'm happy for you! You've added to the 2.03% of people who are lucky!

Norton Internet Security is a flakey product. Remove it. If you must have a firewall try Zone Alarm. Windows XP firewall isn't that bad. It does what it should. Blocks all non-solicited incoming internet packets. A test on 'SHIELDS UP' (www.grc.com) will show the Windows XP firewall doing what it is supposed to do. Who cares about blocking outbound traffic for the average person anyways. Do you know that CCAPP (a software component of Norton) needs to access the internet? Or the 100+ other undescriptive files needing access to the internet - do you know which ones need to be allowed access to the internet and which ones to block? Doubtful. So before everyone complains to me about the XP firewall remember that most people will mess up the professional firewalls because someone will say 'NO' to the wrong file that needs to access the computer and poof - their software won`t access the internet anymore. The XP firewall is more than good enough for most people. Besides - once a bad program (trojan, virus, etc) gets into a system it can take down programs like Zone Alarm, WIndows XP Firewall, and heck - any bad program seems to take Norton down these days.

We have removed Norton off of hundreds of computers this year due to the fact that it does not work well anymore. Initially it works, but somewhere it stops working - we are still trying to figure out why it stops detecting viruses even if you manually scan for them (I assume spyware criples their software). Remove Norton - stop wasting your money on this faulty product. If someone is selling you Norton AV - they are probably looking for repeat business knowing you'll get infected... More proof? Go to the reviews and you'll see a small sampling of others who have been ripped off by Nortons faulty product.

NO company that repairs computers for the last 14 months can honestly say Norton works anymore. Don't be ripped off. Stores make money from the sale of Norton and the constant repeat business when you get infected.

Buyer beware.

I'd rather lose money than sell you a product that doesn't work. I threw out 10 copies of Norton that I purchased to sell to customers as soon as I saw this pattern of non functional software appearing. I find it funny that so many stores are still selling Norton... Interesting...

Proof Norton Sucks?
Check out these links (pictures are below)

Pictures of Norton failing...

This was taken of a known infected machine. I blacked out the customers full name to hide their identity. After doing a full scan it appears there are no viruses. Interesting considering I can SEE viruses in the list on the right sitting there in memory. The virus definitions were only a couple of days old and in the picture Norton was updating them.

Whats a tech to do?

Installing AVG and running a scan... what do we find? Hmmm... You can see it's the same machine - same files in the task manager.

Ok, we finished our scan. Also remember - I didn't even bother to update the AVG - who knows how many more viruses were on the computer. I just took these pictures to show that Norton does not work (it said there was no viruses on the machine). This is 1 (ONE) computer out of HUNDREDS not working! After taking these pictures - I backed up the data, wiped the computer, reinstalled the OS, then reintegrated the original data back into windows. I could have documented more machines but due to my schedule I barely had time to document this case let alone do this entire webpage with all this info but I couldn't stand not telling people about this. Lets just say - it's now normal for me to immediately suspect Norton was compromised when working on machines. I experience surprise (and happiness) when I find a machine is NOT compromised. I have seen Norton 2003, 2004, 2005 compromised along with retail versions, professional versions, and even corporate versions. I will not waste my money on products that are obviously faulty out of the box. Someone should be held liable for this. I wonder how difficult it would be to get a refund from Norton... oh yes I remember - their support sucks (from the reviews). Doubtful they would offer refunds. I wonder how Peter Norton is feeling now - his products used to be cutting edge, well designed, and well programmed. I wonder who is running Symantec (Norton) now (if Peter Norton then he has lost his touch). It`s a shame big companies pump out such garbage and expect their NAME (BRAND) to carry them through. Why did you buy Norton? Because you HEARD from someone how amazing it is. Well - that is quickly changing. Save yourself some frustration and money and stay away from the products mentioned in here until they decide to learn how to program and to stop ripping people off. Did I mention they make a lot of money from tech support calls.

Everything always seems to come down to money. What a shame.

Thank you for your time.

David Perry.