Why is Symantec (Norton) hated so much?

[Danstek]

Am I not understanding something or what? Norton products get so much hate yet I don't understand why that is. Personally I've been using Norton Internet Security since 2009 and it's never given me any problems, never got a virus or annoying pop ups at all. Its always been good about resolving issues on its own instead of asking me dumb things like whether or not i want to block or allow a legitimate program to run. Every review I've read says Norton has an excellent detection and removal rate yet people always talk bad about it. I'll admit that pre 2006, Norton was a resource hog but the more current versions hardly takes up any resources at all. I've tried Avg and MSE and those give me more headaches yet everyone keeps recommending those. Avg slows down my PC like no other and constantly throws pop ups when I try to do anything and MSE isn't very effective in threat removal. I have to wonder if people are hating just to hate because its a popular product. I'm not saying Norton is the best or better than others, I'm honestly just curious why there's this massive hatred towards Symantec. Was there something that happened that made people upset or what?

 

[MrChad]

Symantec's consumer line has improved dramatically since 2009. Prior to that their software was bloated, slow and painful to uninstall and remove.

 

[PricklyPete]

I used to hate Norton products, but since maybe 2008 (can't remember exactly when), I've been using Norton Antivirus on my work MBP and my wife's MBP and never had any problems with it.

 

[Charlie98]

I tried out Norton on my new build, I though it did pretty good. I never installed a permanent version, preferring to use MSE/Spybot/SAS.

Now McAfee..? I got some hate for them!

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Not a huge fan, but I hear the newer versions are better. I wonder how much disk space the latest antivirus takes?
I've noticed that symantec AV uses a ton after a while!

 

[Jeffman]

It's because most people that hate it are stuck in the past and refuse to give anything another try. Norton is amazing now, but in the 2005ish days, it sucked. People just developed a hate for it then and will not admit that things can change.

 

[Lemon law]

I think MrChad is right here. Until Windows XP came out, the overall Norton internet security package was inexpensive and functional. And as a result Norton dominated the market. But when Windows XP came out, for some reason or other, all of the other reasons
other than the AV itself, were retained in the new Norton Versions for XP, but had zero functionality. As all those other housekeeping functions that worked well, on Window 3.1, Windows 95 and even Windows 98, were worse than useless on XP. At the same quality freeware AV's like Avast and were starting to become available, at the same time the threat spectrum expanded to include new threats just an AV can't handle. As new security programs became necessary to handle a new spectrum of threats.

And at the exact same time a wiser company than Norton should have been improving its technical support and its overall product. As Norton instead became totally arrogant and deaf to the bitching of consumers, as it rested on its prior laurels. And Norton also paid no mind to the rising power of the PC internet press and the rise of computer security forums. Norton may have been able to blunt all critics of its products on various PC magazine with the power of its advertising dollars, but those ad bucks had zero effect on computer forums. I may have been a wee mite slow to catch up, but once I chucked Norton and went to a layered Security program, my computer suddenly booted up way way faster. Like in 4 minutes faster because at the time, I was running XP home on only 256 MB of memory. But it was the story of really Norton during most of the early new century. As consumers voted with their feet, first in a trickle and then a flood. Once they ditched Norton, they never looked back. As most those consumers voting with their feet, including me, were left with a resentment against Norton that can be boiled down to never again.

But Norton aka Symantec was really slow and dumb to catch on, but they did around 2008. As they finally started improving their products and reducing their bloat. But as for me, I am very happy with the computer security system I now have, and hell has not frozen over yet to convince me to ever return to Symantec.

 

[IGemini]

Seeing the features of the 2012 NIS, I'll admit they've come a long way from pre-2005. The site and file blocking is quite functional. That being said, it's only a slightly more elaborate sandboxing process. That's something offered even on the free firewall options today.

I'm just gonna address the elephant in the room and say Norton isn't worth the $50/year premium, especially if you have more than a modicum of knowledge about network security. If you don't renew their plan or software yearly, you lose the ability to update Norton, which can compromise the effectiveness of the program.

Like LL, I'm happy with my security setup. I have virtually the same level of security as NIS while not feeling like my money has been extorted.

 

[cdr]

My not very tech savvy brother had a trojan pop up on his laptop last week, while running an up-to-date Symantec from his university. After dealing with the (fortunately pretty simple) trojan I uninstalled Symantec and installed Antivir. Antivir found another dozen trojans on the harddrive that Symantec never found, two of which were actively running. That's all the evidence I need about the quality of Symantec.

 

[0___________0]

I think Symantec just tries to rely on signature protection way too much. Default firewall settings will only block known malicious programs. Any other random program you download off the internet that gets passed signature based detection can make a connection. Accessing program's memory, making suspicious registry changes, it usually won't alert you to any of that. Symantec takes the approach that you don't know what you're doing, therefore it doesn't want to give you any pop-ups about potentially malicious activity, you might accidentally block something.

Signature protection is only good up to a point. But you can't protect against new, rare, or advanced threats effectively with it. That is why you need something that allows the user to make intelligent, advised decisions about programs. Norton is like the AV for old folks who don't anything about computers. Not going to cut it for the rest of us.

 

[Lemon law]

My not very tech savvy brother had a trojan pop up on his laptop last week, while running an up-to-date Symantec from his university. After dealing with the (fortunately pretty simple) trojan I uninstalled Symantec and installed Antivir. Antivir found another dozen trojans on the harddrive that Symantec never found, two of which were actively running. That's all the evidence I need about the quality of Symantec.

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To cdr and also O------------O, its not always as simple as it seems, especially as you look into AV testing and rating web sites. And their testing methodologies.

1. Given the facts that new and old viruses, trojans, and worms now number in the millions, with 20 or so new ones coming on line every day, there is no one single AV that gets them all. So person A may use one active AV and person B may use another, and the net result may be that person A's AV catches 99.99% of the threats and misses the other .01%. While person B's AV catches the same 99.99% of the treats and misses the same .01%. But if we look at persons A and B, at the .01% that gets through, the main difference between A or B may be person A's misses will be different that person B's. And since we are restricted to using only one active AV at a time, one way to hedge your bet may be to go on line, and do a free passive tests using another brand of AV.

2. Signature based tests tend to be more reliable, but are worthless for so called zero day new threats. And heuristic tests tend to better at catching zero day threats, but they come with a huge danger. Because they can decide some part of your OS or other programs you need look like a virus, and they may delete a part of your OS or another program needed for it to work. And then you end up with a borked computer. The so called false positive. And often there you need a process control program that warns you some new program is trying to install or uninstall something in the registry. As a process control program then then gives you the option to say yes or no at human speeds rather than almost instant computer speeds. And then often you need to some research to see if its a threat or a dangerous false positive.

 

[MrColin]

A few months ago I saw over someone's shoulder as they got owned by malware with symantec running, just browsing the net in IE. The consumer software's they sell are designed and coded with too much marketing built in. I hate Intuit for that same reason. I bought your stinking software already, leave me alone and don't start scaring me just because the license is about to expire.

If I was shopping for AV now, I don't think I could make an unbiased decision even in the face of credible claims in favor of a symantec product. In the past, some detection rate metric in an oft cited article lead me to ESET nod32. I'm giving MSE another go now.

 

[Venom20]

It's because most people that hate it are stuck in the past and refuse to give anything another try. Norton is amazing now, but in the 2005ish days, it sucked. People just developed a hate for it then and will not admit that things can change.

While I agree that they developed their bad reputation in the past, it's slightly more than that now. They may have improved their functionality and form, but the fact of the matter is that it costs money.

With so many free options available, why would you pay money for something that can do the same job as effectually (perhaps even better) than a paid product.

 

[IGemini]

I really like how Comodo's CEO Melih Abdulhayoğlu puts it:

...for [security] to benefit everyone, it must be delivered as a right to everyone; not as a luxury or a privilege dependent on a person’s ability to pay!

http://www.melih.com/2008/08/07/comodomelih-manifesto-why-i-am-doing-what-i-am-doing/

Norton is the antithesis of that argument.