new flaw in symantec products

I have norton antivirus 2004 for xp. Today 2/9/05 I have read on www.zdnet.com of a critical security flaw in norton products including norton antivirus 2004 for xp which can allow a virus to run. The flaw is in the dec2exe file or the antivirus scanning engine. When I read the symantec website it said thwere was a patch issued., but I got no patch through live update nor can I find the file to download. I emailed norton but the response said that I will hear a answer in 4-5 days.

Does anybody have any information on this. Again read the article as it effects a lot of symantec products.

 

Here's a tip.

Don't use Symantec products, they are bloated buggy bits of software.

Especially the Home versions, if you have a Corporate ones, I think they perform a little better, but I would still avoid them.

The ONLY good program that came out of Symantec is Ghost IMHO.

 

Symantec Corporate Antivirus is meant to be the best Anti-Virus software out there. My dad runs it on his laptop. He brought it home one day hooked it up to my computer and straight away my AVG-7 detected a virus on C:\.

 

Norton Disk Doctor was really cool back in the DOS 5.0/6.22 Windows 3.1 days.....but after Win95, Symantec went right out the window...(pun intended).

 

Those are my thoughts on the subject as well.

Why would anyone spend $70-$100 for a weak AV app that you have to ACTIVATE (which includes an obligatory drive search, free of charge) and that guarantees you'll soon find yourself being forced to pay $40 per call to speak to a 'tech' when it quits working?!?

My guess is that no one that has had to remove this POS from a PC will ever install it again, for any reason.

EVERY free AV app I have tried has been better than NAV, and every free firewall has been better than NIS.

Ironic.

But it sure is a good money-maker for me! 10% to 30% of my monthly revenue is from fixing NAV-caused issues by removal and replacement with a better freeware application.

BTW, Finch, the Corporate Version IS a lot better--it has Free Tech Support included in the price, you see. Different support number and everything!

Has anyone ever seen a more egregious correlation between customer abuse, outright fraud and higher profits from any corporation? EVER?!? *quits before rant makes head hurt again*

 

Yea, I've heard it's much better, I just haven't bought it, or work hasn't bought it.

I think it's garbage they offer that different of a product for different users, if they made a more cut down version of the corporate one, without the whole Network server support etc.

And sold it to normal customers and it actually ran decently, then it would be ok.

The problem with it, that it's Ok to start with, but makes your machine slow down to a crawl, but when it's stuffed, it's STUFFED, you can essentially stick your head between your legs, and kiss your A$$ goodbye, and format.

So hard to get rid of, so hard to reinstall, absolutely pathetic.

 

Which free AV and FW would you recommend and can anyone direct me on how to completely unistall system works and nav 05. It is really slowing my system down and I'm sick of it.

Thanks

 

Just AVG and SoftPerfect Firewall.

www.grisoft.com for AVG

And

http://www.softperfect.com/products/firewall/ for the Firewall.

 

Thanks for the response, will try them.

 

I agree 100% - Ive seen so many PC's that have had software and performance problems, including BlueScreenOfDeath's and shutdown problems... after removing Norton, the PC became so much more reliable and faster that it wasnt funny!


Talking from experience, McAfee Antivirus is easily one of the best ones to use. AVG and InnoculateIT are also good


Norton Ghost is great, but thats only because Norton bought Ghost from another company.

 

I personally don't like McAfee either.

I bought one of the products a few years ago, well, quite a few years ago, there Security suite.

Installed it, never EVER worked, was onto Tech Support for god knows how long, telling me to update all these things, thought it was pathetic that it didn't at least work out of the box.

Anyway, after all that the Tech Support said no idea and left. Was very rude.

So yeah, never gone back, try to stick to Kaspersky if you are going to BUY a Virus scanner, otherwise get AVG, Antivir, Avast Home or something.

 

norton suks..... way overated....

 

There seems to be a few who obviously don't like Norton Antivirus, but the comment I mostly just see is "it sucks" or "it's a POS".
How about elaborating a little and explaining why?

As I've had Norton for around 3 years now and never had any problems with it, system has never been infected while Norton is running, and every review I've read has nothing but praise for it.
(unlike AVG....)

 

But how do you know your system has never been infected?

 

Well.

It's overly priced, have to pay yearly subscriptions.

You install it, and makes your machine slow down way to much than it actually should.

It doesn't pick up some virus's, whereas free virus scanners pick them up.

The new flaw into it hasn't helped.

When something go's wrong with Norton, it REALLY go's wrong on 90% of the machines I've had to deal with it on, I've need to format or spend at least 2hrs minimum trying to remove it.

You can't un-install it properly, gives errors, and the performance even after it's removed can still effect the machine.

How's that?

 

yeah what he said....lol

 

There are some valid points , however they would apply to every other anti virus product.

- Some are cheaper and others are more expensive, and most retail anti virus products have a yearly subscription if you want to keep virus definitions up to date.

- Every anti virus product will use system resources, and I dare say that the more effective ones will use more resources.

- No program exists that will detect every virus 100%. Some may pick up what Norton misses, but then others may miss what Norton is able to detect.

- If something is seriously wrong and a virus can't be removed, chances are you'll have to re-format, no matter which anti virus program you're using.

- I, and others I know have un-installed Norton numerous times without any issues or adverse effects.

I'm not saying that Norton is the best or only anti virus program to use, but it certainly isn't the demon that some people claim it to be.
But it does the job well and better than many others, if it didn't it wouldn't be the worlds most popular anti virus program in use today.

 

Norton AV will work well on some PC's, but I for one can say that it causes many problems for some PC's, especially on notebooks.

I have worked on hundreds of notebooks with Norton installed, and around 40% of them had all kinds of problems and Uninstalling it fixed it.

By the way, I must say that the latest version of Norton seems to work ok so far...

 

Do you work for Symantec or something?

Yes some have yearly subscriptions, but when there are a few free ones that pick them up better, then why not use those??

Sure they all use Resources, but not ONE other Antivirus uses up as much as Nortons does, except maybe Panda

Congratulations you've managed to uninstall Norton, there's lots of people who can't and have huge problems, when you uninstall it when it's working, then it's fine, go try and uninstall one when it's not working and Nortons is stuffed.


I don't care what Virus scanner you use, talking to anyone, unless you practice safe security, then you'll get them regardless to what software you use.

I just find it funny that so many people have Nortons and have problems with it all over these forums.....for years and years, and your probably one of the few people I've seen defending it and it works for, if that's the case, great, keep up the good work, but anyone else reading, it's a stupid program that hogs far more resources than any other Antivirus out there.

 

No I don't work for Symantec, I'm just giving my opinion as are you.
Do you work for their opposition?

Not according to any review I've read.

The more features and the higher the level of protection, the more resources a program will use.

I've never run into that problem, but then again, Norton has never "stuffed" up on me.

Couldn't agree with you more.