Symantec Labels Vicars' Software as Spyware

ukhackster writes "The curse of Norton Antivirus has struck again. This time, Britain's vicars have been hit. Norton mistook a legitimate file for a piece of spyware, and those who followed the instructions found that their sermon-writing application no longer worked. Norton was once an essential application. Is it turning into a joke?"

Comments

well... yes?

[User 956]

Given that they're also reporting that 80% of viruses defeat Norton and the other big AV programs, I'd say yes, it is a joke.

Re:well... yes?

[rizzo420]

norton is a bigger joke than the others though. i do tech support for students for a living (ok, more than just students, but i am more hands on with them). i have found in my experience that norton misses a lot of viruses mcafee picks up and mcafee tends to do the better job of the 2. mcafee also seems a bit lighter on resources and doesn't stick its nose everywhere. i can't tell you how many mucked up network stacks i've seen because of norton's personal firewall program. once it's uninstalled the networking magically works. go figure. even disabling it does nothing.

so yes, norton is a joke and i would not recommend anyone purchase anything from symantec until they get their act together.

that being said, this is simply a mistake. it happens. mcafee had one that detected excel.exe as a virus.

Re:well... yes?

[Aladrin]

That's actually not what the article says. It says that 80% of 'malware' slips by Norton Anti-Virus. That is viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, etc. Last I checked, Norton Anti-Virus didn't check for adware or spyware, just viruses and trojans.

Notice in the article they only talk about anti-spyware in that people should have it and don't. They don't say they tested it.

Norton and McAfee's AV have been jokes for years. But malware isn't why.

Re:well... yes?

[swv3752]

The latest version does have a spyware checker. It is useless, but it is there.

turning into?

[Phil246]

I think you're a bit behind the times mate.
Its been a joke for quite a while now.

Re:sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to

[giorgiofr]

Friars tend to live a secluded life and have close to no relationship with the world out of their monastery. May I ask why you dislike them? Their home-made honey and liquor are usually delicious :)

Re:sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to

[wing03]

Not to mention that a few monestaries produce some amazing beers.

Trust me, I am an IT professional...

[andrewzx1]

What most amateur IT people don't understand is that there is a world of difference between Norton Antivirus, and Symantec Antivirus. As an IT professional who has helped neutralize viruses off of many computers, and who administers a Windows domain (don't hate me), I can say that Symantec Corporate Antivirus works great, is centrally managed, and does what it is supposed to and no more. I've used to for 5 years now and it has successfully prevented numerous virus outbreaks that would have greatly disrupted the Windows workstations I am paid to administer. If this were a Linux/Mac desktop environment, there would be no need to run an antovirus. But there is critical software that is available only for Windows. And this is what I am paid to keep running.

Re:once an essential application?

[Shawn is an Asshole]

The only Norton product I like is Ghost.

Give ntfsclone a try. Here's a good tutorial on using it.

It's easily scriptable, and is great in conjuction with ms-sys. If you spend a few minutes customizing something like RIP you can have the restore completely automated.

As a plus, everything's GPL'd. No licesence fees.

IMHO, Unattended + WPKG is still the best option, though...