This blog is pretty much dormant because I have (several months ago) removed all Symantec products from: 1) my old XP desktop, 2) from my Vista laptop, and 3) from my newer Vista desktop. Therefore I have nothing more to observe and report about Symantec products.
I have installed the free version of AVG on all three PCs and it is very much trouble-free and efficient. All three PCs are percolating along nicely. My frustration level is dramatically reduced.
I cannot comment on NIS 2009 because I've never seen it. I have seen some reports that it is better than the previous editions (well, duh, it couldn't possibly be worse!). But I'm not going to try it, not even if it were provided for free (why waste my time?).
If NIS 2009 (or later) comes as a free trial with your PC, then you might as well give it a fair shot. But if you start seeing the same old errors, don't be scared to try a freeware AV solution (such as AVG or others).
Good luck everyone.
6 comments:
As a long time NAV Corporate Edition and Veritas Backup Exec user, I can confirm first-hand that Symantec sucks.
I recently installed Symantec Endpoint Protection on the 50 systems I manage. Since then, I've had issues with both LiveUpdate and the SEP management software slowing our server down to a crawl. I had to uninstall LiveUpdate, so now I have to update the server manually, and now the management process is sucking up all my CPU time. Argh!
Caution: Rant ahead.
Symantec is aware of the issue and has no solution except "restart the services". Great. That sounds much easier than them fixing the code. I guess I'll just sit here 24/7 and wait for their crappy software to malfunction so I can restart it. Oh wait: restarting the service doesn't do the trick--I have to reboot the whole server. That's cool; our management LOVES downtime!
We had issues with Backup Exec 11d as well—BE was a great product before the Borg took it over--one of the key features (self-service file restores for end users) in BE11d didn't work right and Symantec told me that they were aware of it and didn't intend to fix it; they said just wait for the next version and upgrade. Terrific answer, you goons! I’ll tell my boss that he’ll just have to wait till the next version to get his ROI.
I'm tired of these guys making me look like an a-hole. This is the last Symantec product that I will ever put in my, or anyone else's, environment.
I wish these Borg !@#$-suckers would stop buying and ruining every software they see.
End-rant.
I would recommend giving NIS 2009 a shot. It is better than the previous products and is faster with download/install time. It also takes less space and memory than free-ware and Norton's competitors.
I respectfully disagree.
When a company has 'been naughty' (if you disagree, then read the entire blog bottom to top), it is perfectly appropriate to boycott their products for a period of time (years, not months).
As I mentioned before, I wouldn't take their products even if they were free. And I'm certainly not giving them any of my money any time soon.
We're still in the punishment zone.
1: "It is better than the previous products..."
It could hardly be worse, now could it? Have they ever issued an explicit apology for their horrible products? The free upgrade from NIS 07 to NIS 08 almost amounts to an admission, but they still arrived with their hand out for more money right after.
2: "...and is faster with download/install time."
So they've replaced the world's worst update algorithm only after I mocked them publicly?
Yeah, and this is where they sternly maintain that they were already planning product improvements even before this blog ended up at the very top of Google.
Coincidence? I doubt it.
3: "It also takes less space and memory than free-ware and Norton's competitors."
Yeah, perhaps so. But AVG is showing 53 MB memory usage right now, so who cares? It's not that big a deal on modern PCs with 2GB or more.
Also, AVG free-ware is not only FREE (as in zero cost), it also appears to be almost completely trouble-free. After dealing with stupid Symantec, having the free AVG installed has been a breath of fresh air.
The PCs have all been completely trouble free ever since I uninstalled all the Symantec rubbish.
Again - Coincidence? I don't think so.
I guess if NIS09 is centrally managed and they offer it to me for free, I'll take it. Otherwise I might just make all my client PC's unmanaged clients and get rid of Endpoint Protection Manager, since that's the piece I'm having trouble with.
I guess if NIS09 is centrally managed and they offer it to me for free, I'll take it. Otherwise I might just make all my client PC's unmanaged clients and get rid of Endpoint Protection Manager, since that's the piece I'm having trouble with.
This isn't new. Norton's antivirus and security software has SUCKED for years. I've given Nortons a go on about a dozen PCs over as many years. On every single one I had the same problems you describe here: stupidly long updates with lots of large files, slow scanning performance, frequent interruptions of regular computer usage, buggy unpredictable behaviour, and most of all a huge performance hit. Every time I've gotten sick of the stupid thing well before the trial period and uninstalled it, and all of a sudden the computer is FAST! Uninstalling Nortons is like getting a computer upgrade!
So in response to a comment made sometime earlier on this blog, no Symantec is not in decline, not when it comes to quality of their software - it's business as usual.
Having said that, I'm slightly surprised to hear their corporate solutions are bad though. I was always given the impression they are successful because of their corporate solutions, and their tie-ins with OEMs putting trial versions of their rubbish software on just about every new computer you can buy.
I wouldn't for a moment trust that NIS is anything but a minor improvement.
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