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Symantec Labels Vicars' Software as Spyware

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the should-fight-back-with-the-vicars'-machine-gun dept.

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?"

5 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. well... yes? by User+956 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:well... yes? by rizzo420 · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      please me, have no regrets.
  2. turning into? by Phil246 · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  3. Re:sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to by wing03 · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  4. Re:once an essential application? by Shawn+is+an+Asshole · · Score: 4, Informative

    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...

    --
    "It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks