Direct From TechProGuild

Symantec has always been the worst offender out there. From their goofy "Protected Recycling Bin" to their security holes to how slow the system gets, Symantec has always been lousy. All of Symantec's good products were actually Norton product (as you alluded to). There was a time, when Peter Norton's picture on the bright yellow box, sleeves rolled up and arms crossed meant, "this software means business!" When Symantec first bought Norton, they had nothing of their own worth using. and now that they've Symantec-i-fied the Norton products, they are not worth using either, except for Ghost. Ghost is the one Symantec product I would still use, and at its current price, it is a complete rip off.

J.Ja

John,  I entirely agree with you !  Your blog about  the
intrusiveness of Symantic Software are parallel to my own experiences..
I retired as a Senior Computer Scientist in 1990.. I founded a Senior
Citizen Computer Club with the objective of teaching Senior Citizens in
my home town how to use their their computers and have fun doing it...
What a success it was!  1400 Seniors signed on in Less than two
years.. And , of course, after the members learned enough to use their
computers for their own use, some droppted out... We have
maintained  at about a 600 member rate in ten years and are still
going strong!

We used Norton AntiVirus in the beginning for protection from Viruses..
But, I agree with you, in frustration, I soon had to resort to some
other AntiVirus SoftWare..Your recommendatio of  AVG worked well
with some of our members... I have recommended AVAST AntVirus, also.,
which I use personally..  BobR, San Angelo, Tx

.

Well, i think i am gonna lok stupid :( but i thought I'd add my coment coz it has actually been the opposite.

I have used Symantec ( former Norton ) internet security 2002 and then 2004 and continue to use it ( call me old fassioned, but i dont seem to want to upgrade to 2005 or 06, i keep on upgrading my lisence for 2004 instead) and our compnay ( ~2500 equipment, in terms of Servers and Pc's ) use Symantec Corporate Edition 10.

i have seen on some occasions that a dead slow pc can be brought back to life by uninstalling the Symantec version and re installing it, but that was only 2 in my career here for 3.5 years. it has worked for me and (thank God) continue to work for me without problems. there's ofcourse differences with this when you compare it to McAfee Security Center, which i run on another pc ( i actually gor a 15 month fre suscription when i bought the PC ) and McAfee seems to be graphically smoother than NIS 2004, but performancewice, its same.

i didnt mean to disagree with the other comments, just thought i'd voice my prsona opinion about this :) 

Completely agree with you, John.  Norton A/V came pre-installed on the laptop I bought last year, and the desktop PC I bought this year.  In both instances the performance and stability of the machines improved substantially once I removed Norton.

Used to be a fan of Symantec's software, I'm old enough to remember with fondness their Visual Cafe which was an early Java IDE.  And the old DOS Norton Utilities was a wonder.  But yes, they've gone steadily downhill and I cannot in good conscience recommend any of their products.

FFG says:
"There is no PC or midrange technology available or upcoming in the near
future that can challenge mainframes at what they do best; process
millions of transactions with subsecond response time and serve
terrabytes of data in milliseconds."

After that first sentence, I lost all interest in the rest of your post for the simple fact that you lost all credibility with such an asinine statement.

Terrabytes of data in milliseconds?  Yeah, may I ask in what universe you live?  Or if you will claim to be from this one, then may I ask in what future decade you reside?  Because it surely isn't in the year 2006 when "terrabytes of data" can be processed in "milliseconds".

When you're ready to join the rest of us back here in the real world, just follow the yellow brick road, and it'll lead you out from the Land of Oz.

I am afraid to say that my experiences with Symantec products has been so bad that I also recomend that home users install AVG and use PC Inspector File Recovery instead of "Norton".

My loss of faith is the result of problems which I first noticed with systemworks 2003 when the antivirus program kept on being eaten alive by viruses etc, although the program apeared at first sight to be ok it was obvious when I took a close look that it had been crippled. My next horror story with this POS was that the utilities were not able to handle large drives and by that I mean >130 GB, NDD destroyed that much data at a single sitting and Symantec not only didn't seem to care but insisted upon treating my complaints and requests for assistance as if I was a spotty teenager.

My experiences on each of their sucessors including the enterprise versions are equaly dire. I am an ex customer who only uses Symantec products when they are the last resort despite the fact that I was formaly a Norton evangelist who started using Norton utilities so far back in the days of dos that NDD was the only way to low level format a hard drive and save the data or for that matter recover the data from a damaged 360K floppy disk.

Please come back Peter we need you!

Hey reality check;

In reality it's a case of horses for courses, if you design WMD for a sane government or calculate my taxes then I hope and pray that you are using a combination of tried and tested hardware and software irispective of the cost but on the other hand I would like my home computer or laptop to be user friendly and afordable.

Ps please dont try to argue that WMD's are insane, we all know that the only reason that Mutualy Asured Destruction works is because even a totaly insane meglomaniac knows it's mad!

I am actually quite surprised at some of the comments on here to that single sentence, "The eye itself is not anything special."

Think about it for a moment before getting up in arms over it. The human eye in and of itself really is not a superb item. In fact, the entire human body is not very optimum for its usage. I read a fantastic article in Scientific American a few years ago (I beleive in was Sci. Am., at least) showing what the human body would look like if it was actually engineered. We would not look very much like we actually do!

As I said in my previous comment, the eye in and of itself (I cannot stress that enough) is not particularly remarkable. Without an extraordinarily complex set of controls and auxillary systems, it is actually quite poor. We perceive our vision as being fantastic. As I write this post, if I look at one word on the screen, and hold my eyes and head still, I am barely able to make out the fuzzy outlines on lines immediately above or below the one I am looking at. Indeed, for a long word, I am unable to perceive the full word without moving my eyes.

Have you ever wondered why pigeons bob their heads while walking? It is because their brains are not able to automagically move their eyes and adjust to their walking, without bobbing their heads, their entire field of vision bobs instead. This is a matter of the eye being inadequete for the task, and have compensation systems surrounding it.

What is truly amazing is when you compare the number of optic nerves to the number of signals that actually reach the brain. Again, we see the incredibly power control system at play here. It filters down millions upon millions of stray signals from the roads and cones to the relevant "significant bits." Now that is incredible.

In and if itself, the human eye as a sensor is not nearly as interesting or as well designed as the other systems surrounding it. Indeed, if the human eye was really great, we would not have all of those other systems on top of it.

J.Ja

I have to agree with Justin -- I have been working on
computers for over 20 years and one of the first times I saw a system
"die" during an install was due to Symantec. I have had 100s of
people bring their PC to me because it was slow or would freeze (usually on
boot up) and found it to be Symantec. I have spent most of my time as a
"computer geek" telling anyone who asked to avoid Symantec at all
costs.

I used to work for an ISP.  Norton and McAfee were what we called the "evil twins.  We took almost as many calls from those two programs/suites pooching peoples computers than we did regarding virus/spyware issues.  On top of that, everytime Symantec would publish any major updates, we would get inundated with calls, emails, and have to listen to customers whine about how their computers weren't working anymore.  We ofen ended up taking the heat because of customer ignorance, until we explained where the problems truly originated.  The icing on the cake was having to tell the poor souls that they would have to pay Norton/McAfee $30.00 for a tech support call to a live-human being (as opposed to the corpses that worked for my employer).  Yes...I can honestly say I would rather have railroad spikes driven into my forehead rather than install Norton or McAfee on my computer or take responsibility for putting it on someone elses.  Of course all of this is IMHO, and we all know what opinions are likened to...heh.

every once in a while, my email conection will disapear.  to correct this problem i have to close down nortons anti spam program included in there internet security suite of programs.  then i can restart ms outlook express and rec mail again.  then and only then can i turn the anti spam portion back on.  once symantic is on your computer the only way to get rid of it is to reformat your hard drive and pray to the gods of machines, because that may not solve your problems with symantic.

I too have noticed an unhappy trend of increasing incidents with Symantec sw.

I no longer recommend it at all

I would go as far to say that it isn't just Symantec Security products, but also a number of the most well known products.  I have had enough of Panda as well, because I have seen this cause as many problems.

I like AVG, I wasn't that great a fan before last September when I took on a client with the network version of AVG on 50 PC's and it works really well.  For home users though I recommend BullGuard as it comes with some on-line back up space.

This report is exactly what I have found over the last 12 months and now suggesting, my users use Windows Defender and Windows Onecare

Wiht these two in place the system seems to have far better response network and Internet access times

Regards

You're not alone. I always thought Symantec software rocked, but SAV 10 corporate has given us nothing but trouble and continues to do so.

I'm about to dump Systemworks from the last 2 of my machines.  A scan of 150GB disc takes over 4 hours and I lose control.  Even shutting it down is difficult.  System maintenance tasks should be background and have a light footprint - Symantec has lost its charms.

Nor does LiveUpdate work reliably forcing me to download the definitions separately and leaving a neophyte user that I support vulnerable because she cannot use this method.

And I dumped Ghost after it became implicated in a badly failed SP2 update that obliged me to reinstall Windows.

There are good alternatives available so Symantec should look to its laurels before there is a mass revolt.

You?re not the only one.   I make decent money rebuilding systems after Symantec has its way.  I would like to get more of the users before they spend $70+ dollars talking to Rashid at Symantec tech support though.   But, I rebuild it one way or the other most time.  I remember Norton Utilities ver 1, when Peter Norton probably wrote the code himself.  It was beautiful.

You're not alone. One of the first questions I ask when customers have problems is: Do you have Norton Antivirus installed? If yes, I advice them to deinstall it. Most of the times it helps solve the problem.

No you cetainly are not alone, I myself have also taken to using AVG for the home users and sophos for corporate.

I have found time after time that there are more problems caused by Norton Internet security and Antivirus in slowing systems down then ever before.

Interestingly I have just had to delete Symantec antivirus from my PC and then re-install it (it is a corporate PC).  The main error that exhibited was when I right clicked on a file (to check Properties or Send To etc.), before allowing me to perform the action symantec would try and re-install itself.  I eventually went through Control Panel and tried to get it to repair itself - only to receive a 'fatal error' message.  This only left me the option of deleting and re-installing which (30 mins after doing it) appears to have worked.  I can only assume that the software knotted its knickers while doing an upgrade as nothing else had been changed on the system.

I am full agreement with John Sheesley's comments. I have similar
disastrous experiences with Norton Symantec. Additional functionalities
of Norton have the art of turning otherwise fast running PCs into
crawling machines gasping for CPU cycles and Ram. Fellow IT Technicians
I know tend to shy away from it too. Once bitten, forever...

Yet, in fairness there was a time (long long time) when Norton
Anti-virus was a very performing product, doing just what it said on
the tin. I remember those with a certain fondness. I fear though it has
grown too big for its boots. Supreme irony is that although it started
life as an anti-virus it is doing a rather poor job at catching them! I
too recommend AVG 7.0. Much cheaper (free license if you qualify) with
now an antispyware! Still better a Norton you know than having a PC
without an  antivirus programme.

Bruno Lopez
Middlesex University IT Support Helpdesk

Insert comment text here Hello John. I have to totally agree with your observations. I own and run a small computer shop and over the past 18 months there has been an increasing amount of people come in complaining their  computers are running slow. The main culprit is "NORTON". I have installed AVG into computers fully updated with Norton and as soon as the basic version is in, it is finding Trojans, Diallers etc that Norton is not finding. Norton was at one time a must for computers especially the system works, but I have lost total faith in Norton and I now too recommend AVG to my customers and instal it on computers that get reloaded. Why pay for something that doesn't do the job as a freebie, which can be upgraded to the Professional version for similar costs and have support provided too.

Mr Kay Sveistrup

You are not alone...

I am also encountering similar problems with Symantec software.  The problems seem to arise after updating 2005 versions to 2006 but this is not limited to updated versions as I am dealing with Symantec issues on new laptops with 2006 pre-installed!  With a company of this size and formerly good reputation I find it difficult to believe that the product was not thoroughly tested prior to release which leaves me wondering....  Why...?

Regards,

Patrick

I'm Director of Tech Support for a small ISP in the Santa Cruz Mountains next to the Silicon Valley. Ditto on everything you said. Symantec products have been an absolute disaster for the last 2 years or so. I"ve had to reformat hard drives on two of my own computers after "automatic Liveupdates" from Symantec. At least 150 of my clients have reported serious problems with Norton AV, Systemworks, or their security suite, ranging from serious system slowdowns to corrupted and trashed hard drives. Bloatware grabbing excessive system resources. I also had to return their "partition magic" program after it failed to do its job on 6 (!!!) different drives! Seems it doesn't like hidden sectors like the boot sectors found on Dell computers or any of severel USB drives I own. Intolerable for a $70 program.

I too loved Norton Utilities and AV in the past, and used them on hundreds of computers in the past. But now I routinely remove all their products from all my computers (even when they come pre-installed on commercially made computers) and replace them with programs like Avast! AV, Spybot S&D, and Registry Mechanic from PCTools. I also recommend to my 2500 ISP clients that they do the same.

I've had the same Problems !

I used to be a Die-Hard Symantec Fan - Norton Anti-Virus used to be the Best there was ! Always Quick to get a Fix Out when the Virus & Worm makers would do their Dirty Work !

Norton Utilities was a Master of Fixing the Woes of Microsoft's messy Code & pathetic Defrag !

Norton Internet Security was as Good as You'd Want for a Software Firewall.

But Last Year - when I tried to Update my subscription to Norton . . . all I had was problems - after Problems !

Then it started to not even acknowledge My License ? I couldn't get LiveUpdate to do it's behind the scene thing ?

Finally - Totally Frustrated w/ Norton's lack of Help to Fix the problem - I completely removed it from My PC & installed AVG complete w/ Firewall ! ! !

Having bought a so called SmartPhone & not wanting to see Norton Muck that Up - I bought a copy of DefenderPro & installed it on my New PC & SmartPhone ! I've been very happy w/ the Interface & the way everything operates ! Lots of good Utilities on DefenderPro - just like Norton Utilities used to have. I still have my copy of AVG handy - if I need it.

Now - I tell people to stear away from Norton - just because of the Problems I've had & know other Friends have experienced Problems, too !

No you're not alone! Like you I've been loyal to Symantec/Norton since the days of Norton Utilities. I have four PCs running at home, each with Norton Internet Security - They're progressively slowing down! I'm going to have to find another solution soon, something that doesn't require me to answer support calls from my wife & kids while I'm at work...

I am in total agreement! I have not recommended Symantec Products for a year. And it is impossible to to get support. I used to look to Symantec for help in discovering and removing a virus infection, but with all the helpful sites out there this is no longer needed. And, the database yeilds poor and incomplete results. It is diffcult for a company to outlive it's own success. Perhaps Symantec has a hard time remembering how is got to be so big in the first place. If I were in charge at Symantec, I would get a panel of people from the "real" world to see how our company is doing for the consumer...the TRUE board of directors.

I've used Symantec software consistently for the past 8 years.  I agree completely.  They have added more and more "helpfull" features over the years untill the whole thing just grinds to a halt. I recommend AVG to anyone who asks.  Its quick simple and has never let me down.  As for System Works I have found it to be completely invaluable - provided you never install it!  Run from the cd it is my standard first step in the de-bug process.  Installed it is a major drain on resources for little extra benefit.  Once again a software vendor needs to learn to do better, not more.

I have used Symantec NortonAntivirus Corporate edition time ago (couple of years), uninstalled it after really bad time and computers slowed down to make an old 386 be overstanding compared to new generation computers. Actually each time I got a new computer with Norton Security installed over it I was getting headache and uninstalled it immediately, replacing it with TM or anything else, asking also my vendors to stop preinstalling it on the computers we are getting at work. I use AVG at home and I am really satisfied with its work. Constant security leaches on NAV suites are not helping as well. I hope the other products Symantec is acquiring (like BackupExec) won't follow the steps NAV did since it was born.

John,

You're not alone in your thingking, I work for a large Multi-National Distributor based in the UK. We sell NAV among others and I share your pain.

I was given a NFR (Not For Resale) copy of NAV2006. A frien said that he did not have an AV solution, so I gave this to him after being convinced by the Symantec PM that this is the bee's knees. After reinstalling XP SP2on my friends laptop, I now reccomend AVG and ZoneALarm. And yes, the last good thing to come from Norton is Norton PCTools. I still have my oringinal disks.

No you are not! I have had Internet Security Suite mess up small networks and internet connections that I care to think about. We recently ran into problems with the new ersion of PCAnywhere that required me to uninstall and downgrade to get a version that would work. I still like the Corp Edition for larger networks but have started using McAfee and AVG for single PC's and small networks. Nortons used to be the standard to benchmark against, now it is becoming the standard for how to ship badly coded and designed software (move over MS).

You are not alone. I've had some of the same issues  as you mentioned especialy with the Norton System Works. Also I was using AVG but now I am testing the Windows Live One Care.

Symantec are frustrating on numerous levels, one of the most annoying
being the hypocrasy with which they supply a registry cleaner in
Systemworks which claims to fix registry errors left by other
organisations broken uninstalls, but are completely incapable of
providing a decent uninstaller for their own application.
Another is the fact that their "One button checkup" regularly throws up
errors that when you look them up on the web, actually turn out to be
false postives.
The final straw for me was when I found a laptop that had a memory leak
when updating its parental control feature of Internet Security. The
Live Update application was taking 2GB of memory on a 512MB machine. We
resolved it by disabling the parental control feature since it wasn't
being used and the update proceeded normally. Nevertheless, was
demonstrably shoddy coding and enough to guarantee that I will never
recommend Symantec to anyone, ever...
Incidentally, it seems to be one of the most detested applications in
TechRepublic's discussion of "Worst Software I ever used" (unsurprisingly really;)

John,

You are far from alone. I started noticing this trend a few years ago as Symantec started integrating more and more features into their anti-virus. My first problem was with the integrated Office Add-in that would scan a Word or Excel document when you opened it. I was probably fixing this at least once a week. About a year and a half ago, I gave up completely on Symantec. I now use Trend almost exclusively for my clients. It loads without requiring a reboot and is much more easily centrally managed, again not requiring a reboot on the server to install. If you have ever tried Norton corporate edition, you know what I mean.

I think this is a systemic problem at Symantec and gives me great pause now that they have purchased Veritas. I recommend Veritas Backup Exec to all of my clients if they are using it for local backups. By keeping a common platform, it makes my life much easier. But now, I may have to investigate new software that won't slow the server down to a crawl or just break for no given reason.

Ted

I agree we have had all kinds of problems with the Quick Scans even though they were not supposed to run we had to make registry setting changes to ensure they did not run. I too am an avid Symantec fan but am now starting to look at other solutions for the business.

No, this bloatware has caused alot of trouble for me as well.   I work on servers for Point of Sale systems.  Well not really servers but that is what they function as.   Symantec Bloatware Antivirus takes a system that is running reasonable well and makes it a dog in need of a memory upgrade.   The change in speed on these systems are marked and drastic in many cases.   I understand they are trying to cover alot of territory with their software to try and protect systems.   Can't we make this stuff run in a smaller footprint?

Rob

Insert comment text here

I can't speak on any experiences with the Norton Anti Virus, we have have been using Syamantec Corporate Edition for years, and have been quite pleased with it. Live Updates run well (and often), and are pushed out with no problems. Systems do bog down a little when the updates are being applied, but only for a minute or two.

I work in a large university and we also have a lot of problems with Symantec software. It seems that they have gotten away from their core competency. They acquried a lot of other companies over the last few years and then throw everything together and hope that it works. (Full disclosure here: Symantec did LAY OFF my sister in law about 5 yrs ago! when she worked for them)

I have the same feelings. Many database apps have a problem with the password manager. 2 that we use here in my office allow you to log in but behind the scenes block adding someething to the DB of cause apps not to be put to the screen with tout an SQL error.  

 I have suspected Norton to be the cause of many issues on my computer.  Beside running slower than it used to, there is spyware and a virus that Norton has not detected and has run amuck on my computer.  This is not the first time a virus has damaged my computer with Noron installed on it either.  Having to buy other software seems to be the only recourse, making the Norton software a BIG waste of money and time.

I agree, I've seen more and more problems with Symantec. Like you, I do consulting as a way to keep my finger on the pulse of business. I am likewise advising my clients to steer clear of Symantec products. This is becomming troublesome as Symantec seems to be gobbling up other utility software like Partition Magic, which was the jewel of partition utilities.

Karl Schwarzenegger

Dept. Chair, Computer Technologies Dept.

SUNY Cobleskill 

Symantec 10, oops 10.01, oops, 10.02, oops 10.1.

We had a recurring problem with Symantec 10 that would cause another users home folder to be accessible by another user if the user only logged out.  It was a known issue with the new 'quick scan' feature.  They told us we would have to update to 10.0.1 service release to fix the problem.  We followed their advice because we have several 'general location PC's' where multiple people logged in.  We started to notice over time that we had to reenter several registry fixes on a per user basis in order for it to work for all of the users.  We were then told that if we upgraded to 10.0.2 we could change the 'quick scan' settings from the console.  We then upgraded to 10.0.2 for this feature and still continued to have some problems with it.  Finally they released 10.1 and it appears to be stable for now, but it is still a very serious resource hog for low-end PC's. Did I mention that one of our client sites that did the 10.0, 10.0.1, 10.0.2, 10.1 upgrade path had approximately 70 PC's?  We have another client that has PC's that only need Telnet access for their Line of business application.  We keep Anti-virus on it for network or Internet borne virus. Take a windows 2000 PC with their LOB app that runs fine on 128 MB RAM and Symantec 8.6 and upgrade the Symantec 10.1 and you start needing more RAM and more than likely a computer upgrade because of the cost/availability of EDO/PC133 RAM.  Thanks Symantec.......................  Don't even get me started on what they have managed to do to a great product like Backup Exec since acquiring Veritas in the amount of time it takes to release only 1 version.  We are also serious considering changing our recommendation for A/V software.  McAfee with their 'pay for access to our pathetic knowledge base' isn't a good idea either.  One thing about Symante A/V is usually when you encounter a problem with their software, at least it's a known issue with a fix already identified, or in the works. 

I absolutely agree.  I have been having the same types of problems for some time now.  I'm glad to see someone else acknowledgeing the problem in such a respected forum.

Can anyone tell me examples of products that *improved* after being purchased by Symantec?

Mike Honeycutt

Insert comment text here

Nope, you are not alone.

While, I expect with the number of different software packages and different configuration all installed differently and configured different, any software package could have problems especailly protection software. 

However I see more problems with symatec than most, mcafee is not much better.  When I get that wierd, unexplainable problem and norton is installed, I will isable it or down right uninstall it.  It is amazing how many time this will fix the problems and how much faster the machines run.  To top it off Nortons Firewall is a horible interface for the end-user who wants file and print sharing but to be protected. 

Like you my recommendation is AVG, TrendMicro's PC-Cillin or CA's eTrust.   

I have recent experinces also. Clients whose email or Internet Explorer stop working - uninstall Norton and they start working. AVG is good.

I have been seeing the same thing, I thought that it was just the web download version but the retail cd was the same.

You're not alone.  I have Norton Internet Security.  Over the past several weeks it has had trouble updating itself.  It keeps saying I'm in need of performing an update but when I click to update, it just sits there.  I have no trouble getting to the internet and my Windows updates work just fine.  Other times it will begin the update process but it then seems to "hang".  It takes over the system at that point, not letting me abandon the task, reboot or shutdown until it has completed its task.  In one instance I let it keep my machine at bay for an entire day, it never completed.

I agree with you 100%.  A few years ago (more than few actually), Symantec Norton AV saved the day at my site.   We were using McAfee and it "allowed" us to infect our clients with our contract deliverable documents.  The switch to Symantec solved the issues and it became the standard for the entire corporation.  Because of the issues you mention, and the rising costs, the corporation switched to Trend Micro.  We are very satisfied with that change.

I completely agree. The problem is that even the others create probems from time to time. Unfortunatly, the one that seems to work best is the one that home and small business users can't afford - Symantec Corporate Anti-virus. Using your own update server make the process much smoother. I get angrier and angrier with needing to use security software at all.

I agree 100%.

Another issue with the software is the bloat, huge install files with equally large footprints.

I also install AVG for the home user on a budget, and Nod32 for Small Business and the home user who's willing to pay a little money for a good product.

I think these companies are spending their R&D dollars on lawyers to sue Microsoft instead of focusing on making a good product.

You are not alone. As a fulll time On site Technician I see this all the time. I recommend AVG as well as Avast for home and Business users. I have had little problems with these programs and find them in cases better then mcafee and Nortons. I think this is another case of a company getting so large they have lost focus and think that people will buy their product no matter what. Nortons 2006 is even worse then Nortons 2005 and so it goes...

Sadly I feel the same way as you do John. I have "pleasant" memories of how wonderful Norton Utilities was and over the years I have recommended Symantec products extensively. I can't, unfortunately, say that anymore. If I see Symantec on a computer I know that it is a very likely culprit in any problem. Symantec needs to either start over, or close up shop.

Yes John....yes as far as I am concerned you are alone and while I agree with a lot of what you have said (like AVG for home users) I seriously doubt your unsubstantiated complaint about SystemWorks. Starting around 2004 security vendors have been adding features (ostensibly to attract users) and end up overloading system resources but that is not just Symantec! OneCare is not the answer (unless users want less autonomy) and I would not call any Symantec product  "shoddy". Users need to learn how not to try to stuff 125lbs of malware protection into a lightweight computer (and no...I am in no way affiliated with Symantec...I just disagree!)

I think you are right.  I've been using Norton Antivirus for years, regularly updating to the latest version.  I bought the three user Antivirus 2006 software and on one of the machines (the newest XP machine) it runs antivirus but constantly fails to install some of the software updates, fortunately the antivirus files update without incident.  The error is LU1812.  Re-installation (three times) hasn't fixed it and Symantec tech support is stumped.  This wouldn't have happend a couple years ago. 

These issues aren't totally new with Symantec Software.  We have seen multiple problems with legacy apps when Symantec products are installed  and, most recently, we discovered that PcAnywhere does not, and apparently will not ever, support modems over a USB connection.  This includes modems with a usb interface and those accessed via usb to serial adapter. 

Let me add that the Trend Micro PCCillin product has caused it's share of difficulties as well.  Most recently I found it was bringing a local system to a halt after the user made a connection to a remote Citrix host over TCP/IP.  On another occassion, I found that Trend was keeping a desktop Win XP system from booting at all.  The desktop would blue screen when the system was booting.  In each case,  a Trend Micro PcCillin "auto-update" apparently caused the problem.

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I have seen Symantec running with QuickBooks installed bring the system to a crawl.  Uninstall Symantec and all is well.

I used to think that Norton was the best, but over the last few years I have had all of the problems you discussed plus some. New versions of Norton AV, or Symantec IS use outrogous amounts of system resources, and very rarely protect the computer from the threats that they are suppose to protect from. When Norton gets "broken" if you could just uninstall it that would be fine, but NO. It hardly ever uninstalles properly. So that means either redooing Windows, which just the mention of freeks most people out because of the task of reinstalling all of there programs and getting everything back the way they had it,or manualy uninstalling it, which is neither easy or quick. I have taken to recomending AVG Anti Virus to home users. People who are a little more computer savy and want something more robust, I recomend Panda Platinum Internet Security. It protects a system from all types of internet threats, and does a very good job. The only problem that I have had with it involved the fire wall, but I have never used a firewall that I haven't had quirky problems with occasionally.

Trend is not the answer, we went there when symantec released the 9.0 version of their corp antivirus product and have come crawling back.  The consumer versions of Symantec products, especially systemworks, are really bad.  However, Symantec Corp 10.1 is a good release.  They got rid of the licensing lockdown introduced in 9, so it works a lot more like 8.0 (which was a very good release) and the antispyware component works reasonably well.  You need to spend time making sure you really know how to deploy the product.  We just had one engineer spend three days doing nothing else but developing a S.O.P. for deployment and he found some things which 10 of us, with 90+ yrs combined exp., did not know - you really really want to be sure you know how exclusions are set, what exclusions are required, what causes settings to propogate and what does not.  However, having done that we are now managing 2000 desktops across 40 clients and just do not have virus or spyware problems to speak of.  We only use the basic antithreat (virus / spyware) engine, we don't use the firewall or anything else.

Tom Snyder, COO, Xantrion Inc.

Why are so many people misusing the word 'anymore'. 'Anymore' is intended to be used as part of an expression of negation. "We don't sell bananas anymore." Also, if you look in most dictionaries, 'anymore' is not listed. If it is listed, it is usually refered to as slang for 'any more'. If you intend a positive use, then use 'nowadays'.

I'm an IT Pro by day and spend a lot of time nights and week-ends helping friends, relatives, and neighbors with PC problems.  From my experience, the last good Symantec product was NAV 2003, anything newer than that is guaranteed to cause problems.  I too have switched to AVG.

I have been experiencing the same problems for about a year now. Several of my customers have complained to Symantec (when they could find a phone number that would connect them to a real human being!). They have had their money returned with no questions asked. It seems they know they have a problem, but I've seen no solutions. I, too, have been referring my home users and small business customers to AVG. I always used to recommend the Norton products, but not any more.

Like you, I was a Nortonn's user since the late 80s.  Last November, I switch to Mcafee because my system was slow.  A couple of weeks ago, however Macaffee downloaded an update and my computer may have the same problem.

We got rid of Symantec years ago.  After running into a licensing renewal issue not to mention numerous viruses getting through we just had enough!  Since then, we have been with Trend Micro and have had no issues.  Symantec always seemed more like a "residential" grade software similar to AOL.  It never works the way it is supposed to, updates either take way to long or don't happen at all, and most of all - the software is "consistently inconsistent" - one day it is working, the next day you need to uninstall to reinstall...  I honestly don't think symantec cares.  We complained to them for years.  The tech support was a joke then and from what I've heard still is today.  All the people I know that run Norton software all have speed issues with their PC's not to mention pop problems and other "bizarre" behavior due to worms and trojans that go undetected.

Insert comment text here I do not know if you have tried the new GHOST v10 (previously Driveimage by Powerquest) the have screwd it up so badly that it take at least twenty minutes(20) or longer to load the recovery disk. Also  bought their internet security it slowed the system to almost a door stop. I had to remove it. It seem that they also have another backup and restore program that is excatly like GHOST. It seems to do the same things. I must agree with you I now use Trend Pc-cillin and AVG.

Randolph

John, I have to reluctantly agree. Being an old school tech, I was
firmly in the Peter Norton is god camp. However, Symantec has slowly
but surely turned all of the great Norton utils into bloatware.
Although I have remained a strong proponent of Internet Security, it is
becoming impossible to ignore all of the problems I have encountered in
the last couple of years. Presently, I have a network that has been
broken by the upgrade installation of System Works 2006 over NIS 2005.
Now the peers cannot see that computer until a computer search from the
upgraded computer has located the peers. It seems that the firewall,
that no longer exists, is still blocking peer access. It's getting real
hard to justify remaining Symantec loyal. I installed the latest
version of AVG Free yesterday, by client request, and I was pleasantly
surprised how complete and well designed it was. Thanks for at least
trying to send $ymantec a wakeup call.

No, your not alone. I am not disillusioned with it, but I have had my share of problems with it running on Exchange server. On more than one occasion I have an exchange server stop working, and the culprit has been Symantec. An update didn't process or something, who knows. It couln't access the update server, didnt process a signature file or update or whatever. What a pain.

Wow, I could have written this! It used to be spyware that would cause my clients' computers to slow down or not even function, but lately it's been Symantec's SystemWorks.

You didn't even mention how the Symantec Firewall will often block basic usage of the Internet no matter what the settings are.

I'm now recommending ESET NOD32 as it has a small footprinte, updates daily, and is less expensive.

If you're assuming that the service you're getting from Symantec is just as good as every other vendor, please revisit that assumption. You can get better antivirus protection and more system stability at a lower cost from almost any other vendor.

My sentiments exactly! You could have written the post for me. I agree with you 100%, in fact just yesterday I had an issue where a simple upgrade to a management server turned out to be 2 reboots and an upgrade (again Symantec) later the system was back online. And that was on a lab interface server! Symantec has caused me grief on more occasions that I care to remember. I have been recommending AVG for over a year now and it has never let me down. When people come to me and say they have popups and slowdown issues, I first tell them to go to Trendmicro's online scanner and then either purchase the full version, or go to download AVG for free. Most take the free AVG option, but they are getting a great product too! As far as System Works I have never been able to fully recommend the product, it slows down the machines and only causes headaches. I think the only thing that Symantec had in that package was the Undelete that was worth installing. Other than that it was garbage. I certainly don't recommend Symantec after the whole Sony rootkit debacle. From what I researched on the web Sony and Symantec actually consulted on it. This may be just conspiracy theory, but it sure it believable. In a day when there are so many worms/viruses already we don?t need to have big business contributing to the problems. In short, I definitely do not recommend Symantec for AV software (or any software for that matter), which is a shame because they used to be the ones to count on for AV.   

I have the same isues with Norton, and I switched My customers and myself over to Trend Micro years ago.

I also feel Norton's is bloated junk, that eats up to many system resources.

  I recently had client, who after storm lost his internet connectivity.  The ISP verifyed that the there equipment was good and his wireless router seemed ok though a phone check.  In the end it was Norton Internet Security, that was causing the problem.  Parts of it had to be disabled for him to establish a Internet connection.

Another client is still Norton's Corporate edition.  After a report of a slow PC.  I fired up Process Explorer and discovered over 7 processes running related to Norton.  For some reason 1 process wanted to hog the CPU.

I lost faith in Norton years ago.

My Two cents worth

John

Nashville, TN

Not at all. I, too, have had consistent problems with Symantec products on my own computer and on those of my customers. From my prospective, ever since Symantec bought out Peter Norton the quality of the programs has been on a steady decline. I have a file over two inches thick of information from their knowledge base on correcting various problems and with each new version this increases. In addition, Symantec tries to "own" your computer and is a real resource hog. Once you get Symantec on your system, it is almost impossible to completely remove it without a lot of registry editing. I currently refuse to install any Symantec product on my personal computer systems. For the last couple of years I have been moving my clients, friends, and family to either AVG or Panda Platinum Internet depending on their internet connection type and surfing habits.

I have been anoyed with Norton/Symantec for a long time -since the 286 days when they told me that it was too bad that norton utility would not run on a Dell 210 system. They started to make the utility so that it would not run off of floppies, Utilities need to be able to be small and pin point. Now it just trashes the system and it is almost imposable to remove from your system with out major surgry to the registry.

Uninstalls should remove ALL traces of a program not just what they want to remove.