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The Netscaping of Symantec and McAfee
rs232 writes to mention a C|Net article about the uncertain future of the popular anti-virus software companies. "I mention Netscape because, if you believe Symantec and McAfee, a similar situation is about to unfold within the security industry. Microsoft, again recognizing late that it had failed to seize upon this thing called security, is now about to bundle its own security solutions within Windows Vista and further enforce new security policies that lock out some third-party security solutions altogether. Vendors Symantec and McAfee have looked into the future and realized that people may one day speak of them in the way that we now speak reverently of the early builds of Netscape."
Symantec's and McAffee's respective antivirus products are some of the buggiest software I've ever seen. The latest versions of both are awful memory hogs with questionable reliability and average detection rates. McAffee installs are widely known to 'go bad', resulting in cryptic error messages, failed updates, and vulnerable systems. There are threads upon threads in the Dell forums of users trying to ununstall McAffee off a brand new computer and failing.
As for Symantec, , I had a computer at work with a copy of Symantec Corporate AV 10.1 (the latest version) still installed after we chose to migrate away from it due to ever rising costs and poor support. I tried to uninstall it. The uninstaller crashed. Then, every time I tried to right click, it tried to reinstall itself. Yes, you read that right - Symantec's antivirus installs a handler that traps every right click within Explorer that runs a check to see if files are missing. After two hours on the phone with a Symantec rep who didn't know what they were talking about, I finally had it cleaned off the system.
What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that the original Netscape, while not perfect software, had the right vision behind it. Symantec and McAffee don't. Both companies have gone downhill, and I'm absolutely sure it's for reasons completely unrelated to Vista's new kernel.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
there are many paid engineers working for mozilla foundation, and before that, AOL kept a bunch of people on the payroll working on mozilla/netscape.
what changed was not the salary status of the developers, but the managment style guiding the devolopment.
What ? Me, worry ?
...symantec in particular brings a system to its knees. Realtime scanning is a great idea IF it doesn't render your computer unusable. For obvious reasons you are forced to used the latest version, which just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I've started dumping Symantec in favor of a daily clamwin scan. Not as good...but at least the computer is usable.
By early, I'm assuming they meant before 4.x, where Netscape started sucking horribly.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
IF you can get realtime scanning that doesn't slow you down. Try out AVG sometime. When I first got it, there was so little impact I was sure it wasn't doing anything. So I went and grabbed a virus to test it. Immediately, AVG threw up a red flag.
The threat to Symantec isn't MS making Windows unvirusable, that's not possible (barring trusted computing), the threat is that there are new AV companies that make good, fast, cheap products that beat the crap out of symantec's offerings. AVG and Kaspersky are two excellent choices. Also I hear lots of good things about Bitdefender though it leads to bluescreens on my (and other's) system.
I think the fact the parent hasn't been marked troll or flamabait, when similar coments about M$ even usually would, says a great deal about these two products (I know each has more than one product... ). They are awful. They alter the way your browser interacts with the web in ways that DO NOT improve security but DO hinder your browseing, AND WITHOUT ASKING YOU!!! Sorry for the caps, but really, they're bad. Yet they make so much cash.
We're supposed to feel sorry for them? Urm... no. They will not be missed. And whats their argument? They can't hack Vista, like they used to hack XP? In which case there's nothing for them to do - right?
Because you can - or because you should?
Virii, worms, and malware all exist because MS makes famously insecure products. Symantec and McAfee exist because virii, worms, and malware exist.
Symantec and McAfee need to at least acknowledge that their business models are based on design flaws, poor implemetation, and bad coding practices within MS. They should thank Bill and crew for the ability to complain when a fraction of these inadequacies are fixed after many years.
I'm not defending MS and their monopolistic procatices, but this isn't simply another Netscape crushing. Netscape was a user space product. This is about fundamental flaws at the core of the Windows OS: about as faw away from user space as you can get. That these flaws permeate into the userspace is beside the fact.
Symantec and McAfee (and many others) have spent the past decade or more cleaning up after MS in terms of security. Now they want to bitch when their lazy benefactor decides to take some responsibility? But, the issue isn't the mere taking of the responsibility, it's more about the monopolizing of that responsibility. No one has any reason to believe that MS' anti-crapware will be more effective than any third party solution. MS allowed security to become a third party market, now they want to be that market.
MS is wrong for closing out vendors from providing a complete third party security solution. However, MS is more wrong for not writing secure products in the first place, and certainly for not understanding what comprises an operating system.
Windows security vendors only have something to worry about if MS actually produces a secure operating system. I don't believe they think this is possible, which is why they haven't broadened their product lines. Until hell freezes over, Symantec and McAfee should all but shut up and enjoy what MS has given them.
Many companies don't seem to be bitching. Sophos announced they'll have a Vista compatible version out a couple weeks before Vista (their current version even works with realtime scanning, it just can't update or interact with the desktop). AVG has apparently been working with Vista since Beta 2 (I haven't tried it) and the 7.5 version is listed as Vista ready. Kaspersky Labs says "From what we have seen of Vista, we cannot tell that Microsoft is blocking access to the core."
So it seems that whatever the problem that Symantec and Mcafee are having, it's not universal to virus scanners. Seems more like they are lazy and don't want to do any rewriting whereas their competitors are on the stick.
Do they? I thought they just bought out Atguard and bloated it all to hell and back like they did with Norton Utilities.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
Mcafee and Symantec do more than just try to compensate for holes in the Windows OS. People seem to forget that not all virii and malware is technically based.
There is a whole class of malware that is purely spread by people passing around code that they themselves execute. If your grandma gets a virus attachment that says "I love you, Grandma", she's probably going to open it, even if she's running 100% perfect Vista, or Mcafee or Symantec. Sure, it might get caught by whatever her anti-virus protection is, but that's if her signatures are up to date. Will Microsoft have the time and resources to keep all signatures up to date? With their cash, perhaps, but then we've all seen their patch release schedule. In any case, the holes in the windows OS at that point are moot. Grandma herself is the security risk.
Additionally, these companies are not stuck on the desktops of your enduser consumers. There are all kinds of backend network and instrusion detection systems they sell. Even before it gets to Grandma's computer, they have scanning products for routers, anti-hacking intrusion protection software and all kinds of other security software programs.
Enduser consumer products only make up a smaller percentage of the current security market, there are all kinds of corporate and backend reasons for having security software. Instead of having a worm running rampant, trying and failing to access 10,000 desktops in your internal company network, it's easier to stop it once at the gateway, before it even gets in, which has nothing to do with desktop OS's. It's the same reason companies like Cisco are coming at it from the other direction.
Microsoft getting into the security game hurts them, I'm sure, but don't make the mistake that it's the end of the road. It just kind of bugs me when I read comments about the over-simplification of the security market.
An example of the "unspeakable things" is outbound email scanning, where they add a proxy layer on smtp transactions. Only one big problem: this breaks authenticated SMTP. The only fix is to disable it. Inbound scanning is even more pathetic, only supporting VERY few email clients, such as Outhouse and Outhouse Express due to the implementation.
But *nix IS more popular - just not in the home.
If a botnet creator could break in to Linux servers he most certainly would.
Millions of high powered servers with big fat net connections. The net would tremble in fear.
Instead they are forced to infect crappy home computers.
I've had co-workers bring me their computers, along with a new hard drive claiming that it "crashed" and thought they needed a new hard drive. The problem turns out to be a severe spyware/virus infestation causing it to not even boot, but the hard drive itself was fine (no bad blocks).
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista support what you talk about. In Server 2003 I believe it has to be turned on, in Vista it's on by default. It saves previous versions of everything, up to the limit of free drive space (as space is needed oldest copies are overwritten).
Apparently it started working during Beta 2 and AVG 7.0. AVG 7.5 is explicitly Vista compatible with RC2.