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.

2008-02-19

Phishing Protection and the 'Fix Now' nag

Okay - look. I don't need Phishing Protection. Simply not required. And I don't like the extra delay that it imposes when surfing. And I'm sure if I want anyone to have a complete list of every URL we ever visit. For these reasons, I'm not the slightest bit interested in enabling Phishing protection. It's all useless with no benefit.

I've not found any setting to get Norton Internet Security 07 to shut-up the stupid 'FIX NOW' and red '!' nag about how my Phishing Protection should be enabled. All that their steadfast but stupid approach accomplishes is to make their task bar icon less than useful. It is now dedicated to being permanently red '!' and I have to try to ignore it. This means that if there actually was serious security breach, I wouldn't know.

It is as if they have a Vice President of Product Development (or similar powerful position) that is a complete moron. There are so many consistent bad decisions on display that it can only be evidence of a moron in charge - a single point of failure.

FIX NOW!!! Argh...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had the same problem with the annoying red exclamation mark but it was because I chose to be notified when Windows Update has updates instead of automatically downloading them; evidently Symantec thinks that's a security faux pas. And I run as non-admin in Windows XP so each time I log in and out the message pops up that I have a security problem. And whomever designed NIS for a non-admin Windows user should get canned - most settings I cannot even view (though I can edit the Windows registry). It's not a problem now as I got rid of it last week and now run a free AVG / ZoneAlarm / Spybot / AdAware stack.

And it gets better: Symantec has already moved most of its support to India and pretty much destroyed it. 6 months ago at Symantec HQ I interviewed for a job in Beijing to train their product developers on secure development practices, and the manager told me I was too experienced, they didn't have the budget to hire me, and they were looking for somebody more junior! Brace yourself, Symantec users!!!

Anonymous said...

I've turned off the three optional warnings listed under 'Options', including the one about automatic Windows updates. But there is no similar option to shut down Phishing protection status warnings.