This blog is primarily concerned with NIS 2007 (and a bit on NIS 08). I have nothing to say about more recent versions.

This blog is more or less dormant (except for occasional comments on related news), and is being left on-line as a historical record and perhaps as a warning to future generations of anti-virus coders.

2007-10-05

Item 8: NIS 07 Firewall - might as well cut the wire...

On my recently-purchased Acer laptop, the Norton Internet Security 2007 firewall works really well. In fact, it is perfect - nothing gets through. Not through the Ethernet wire, nor the WiFi, nor the dial-up modem. Perfectly isolated. If it's 'On', then no Internet. Period. Might as well cut the wire. If I want to access the Internet, then it has to be turned 'Off'.

Yes, I've set it to 'Allow' for every installed program and I've double- and triple-checked every setting listed on every menu. I've also confirmed that the Windows firewall is off to avoid conflicts. I've gone through the support pages and they have no idea.

Note that the laptop came with Norton Internet Security 2007 free trial (trial by fire) pre-installed. All I did was click on the update buttons for Norton and Windows and it went screwy all by itself.

Oh, and another thing. I keep the NIS 07 Firewall switched off. Sometimes it silently switches itself back on after I manually run LiveUpdate. That's right. I turn it off, and it sometimes switches itself back on. Thus the Internet becomes unavailable with no warning or notice.

Worse yet, I often run LiveUpdate last thing before I go to bed (a normal dial-up approach; perhaps you understand, perhaps you don't...). I might not try to access the Internet again that night. It might be a day or two later when I discover the Internet is not available. Sometimes it takes a while before I remember to double-check the Firewall setting.

Are you starting to see why I started the Symantec Sucks blog??

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