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Microsoft Anti-Spyware Removes Norton Anti-Virus
An anonymous reader writes "According to a story over at Washingtonpost.com, the latest definitions file for Microsoft's Anti-Spyware beta flags Symantec's Norton Antivirus products as a password-stealing trojan and prompts users to delete portions of the program. Users who follow the instructions hose their installation of Norton, requiring delicate Windows registry edits and a complete removal/reinstall of Norton. Microsoft's support forum is quickly filling up with complaints about this problem, many from businesses that have been pretty hard hit. This should be a cautionary tale about deploying beta products in production environments."
Probably the best thing any user can have happen. The removal or norton anti-virus.
"Go into the hall of mirrors and have a bloody hard look at yourself" - HG Nelson
Norton could be described as spyware. Norton assumes your system is there to do nothing but run Norton.
Wait... Is not spyware? It's definitely malware.
MS Antispyware isn't useless after all!
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Here's a link to the actual discussion. Looks like this has been corrected with the latest definitions.
Hmmm.
They also want a fully supported environment where the corporate hardware and software they use are easy to get, support and continue using.
Does most of the buiness apps in the office today run on Solaris or BSD? ESPECIALLY BSD? Hell no.
Seriously. Considering how good NAV is at sucking up memory and CPU cycles, the only way anyone probably noticed was when their computer suddenly seemed much smoother and more responsive.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Who ever rolled out a beta product in a business environment deserves be publically flogged, shamed, tarred and feathered. And then they should lose their jobs and never be able to do anything more then service a commodore 64.
"Go into the hall of mirrors and have a bloody hard look at yourself" - HG Nelson
First off, good call on "don't use beta in production!" I am sure many of us have had to make the call on using a beta product before. I know I used XP SP2 when it was beta because it had so many things that I needed at the time. However, I paid for it in many ways. I would still make the call again but I at least did it with eyes open.
Second, what kind of moron installs that software, sees it tell you that your Norton software has to go, and then follow through with it when you are in a business environment? I just find that to be amazing.
Third, this strikes at one of the main reasons I have thought Microsoft's move into the anti-malware industry was a bad one. Considering how protective they are of their IP and their EULAs, it suprises the hell out of me they would violate other company's EULAs (adware companies) among other things.
Fourth and finally, there are going to be some lawsuits which really means more money for findlaw.com.
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Shouldn't it be the other way round?
install DOJ's Anti-Trust© to remove the offending product. Of course, it has been a little buggy since the Jan 2001 release.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
I agree. I am a computer services provider for mostly home users and I often find NAV and internet tools to be single greatest contributor to draining system resources. I usually recommend disabling NAV, using safe internet practices, and scanning weekly or if there appears to be a problem.
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what does it do? you mean beside hosing computers?
i work for an isp, and the checklist the tech monkeys use now has "do you have any norton products installed?" at the top of it. it's the single biggest cause of connection and email troubles we get. it randomly blocks outgoing and incoming connection to the email server. also does the same for web, but it's much rarer.
This also brings up some interesting possibilities. Is it possible to craft a virus to deliberately have similar signatures to a commercial product? An anti-virus company that doesn't have quite all commercial applications on hand to test against could be caught by that. Maybe not, but I'm sure someone will try now.
I'm glad I run Linux, and when things like this happen, I wish everyone did.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
and make their anti-spyware utility remove Windows.
perception is reality
I would wager that if you took two identical PC's, installed Norton Internet Security on one, and AVG Free Edition, Sygate Personal Firewall (R.I.P.), and Ad-Aware on the other, you'd find that the latter computer is just as protected and runs substantially faster than the Norton-infected one.
The first step I take when I'm working on somebody's computer is to remove Norton and install these replacements. Most people are shocked that their computer runs as fast as it does, especially considering that many of these people have always had Norton installed because it came with their computer.
Just because these products must use continuous system resources doesn't mean they need all of them. That would kind of defeat the purpose of having a computer.
The tool removes every trace of Norton from your system. It does a better job than the normal uninstaller.
Excuse me? NAV is a steaming heap of complete crap.
AVG does the job better, faster, and with far less resource consumption. Every time I have been called on to disinfect a machine which was running NAV, I recommned the owners switch to AVG. Without exception, they comment on how much more responsive their system is. I have little trouble convincing them to support Grisoft by getting the not-for-free version.
The machine I am on right now is running (probably unnecessarily) a full AVG install. It checks my email, it checks my downloads, it checks all of the crud running on the system, and it does this while burning some fraction of 1% of the CPU and a tiny bit of memory.
If you are currently running NAV, disable it (if you can) and try running AVG for a couple of days. I think you'll notice the difference.
The first problem I see with your experiment is that you're comparing software that offers vastly different capabilities. Some do more than others, for instance. Like I said, some include email scanning, while others don't. Some include firewall capabilities, while others don't.
I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. I meant that running all of those products in memory simultaneously is better for performance than running Norton in memory.
Second, you're trying to give a quantitative value to something that is qualitative. What metric do you use to measure the vulnerability of a particular PC? Sure, you can throw a certain amount of malicious software at it, but that's not a realistic test.
The measure is simple - which computer protected with its respective packages and attached directly to the network will be infected by a worm or hacked by a malicious user first? If you re-read my comment, you'll find that I said that both computers will be "just as protected." If both computers will be equally difficult to penetrate, why waste the extra memory and CPU on Norton?
This was a full product called Giant Anti-spyware that MS acquired.
"Beta" is their term.
75% of my private client calls involve removing malware, and the MS product
is a champ at this task.
MS antispyware gives you a summary screen that breaks down each item it found,
assigns it a perceived threat rating, and gives you the choice to "Remove, Ignore, Quarantine."
So, anyone watching with any degree of care should notice that Norton was one of the choices
and simply select the "ignore" option.
Personally, I haven't seen this happen myself.
I agree with many other posters that Norton isn't that great of a product.
I've noticed their firewall suddenly,without provocation, start blocking
all websites.
I've also noticed their antivirus turn itself off for no reason, never
to be turned on again. Reinstalling is often interesting, since even the
least little trace of the product prevents an install/reinstall, but it
almost never uninstalls cleanly.
Well that's not surprising considering NAV runs at least 14 processes. I think it might be 15 including that glorified advertisement they call Norton Protection Center.
We're still selling it at the shop that I work at. I'm not sure why... We recommend AVG Free for most people, but for business users we sell NAV.
I thougt all Microsofts products was more or less beta.
You're thinking of Google, who release great products but keep them in beta for years.
This is easily confused with Microsoft, who release mediocre products instead of keeping them in beta for years.
Just because these products must use continuous system resources doesn't mean they need all of them. That would kind of defeat the purpose of having a computer.
But the purpose of having a computer is to run anti virus software, spy ware detectors, and firewalls. Between running those tools and updating the system there is not much time or resources for anything else.
We recommend AVG Free for most people, but for business users we sell NAV.
AVG is an excellent product. I have been using it for a couple of weeks now with zero problems, minimal performance/CPU/RAM impact, etc. I am so impressed with it that I am actually going to pay for it, despite the free version working "good enough" for me.
At work, NAV sucks my computer dry. Sure, it works well enough, but the cure is worse than the disease. Too bad my employer is in bed with MS and Norton, no room for AVG...
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