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Symantec Exec Warns Against Relying On Free Antivirus
thefickler writes "Clearly, the rise of free antivirus is starting to worry Symantec, with one of their top executives warning consumers not to rely on free antivirus software (including Microsoft's Security Essentials). 'If you are only relying on free antivirus to offer you protection in this modern age, you are not getting the protection you need to be able to stay clean and have a reasonable chance of avoiding identity theft,' said David Hall, a Product Manager for Symantec. According to Hall, there is a widening gap between people's understanding of what protection they need and the threats they're actually facing."
If there were any high-quality for-pay alternatives, I'd say he might have a point.
Unfortunately, most antivirus software sucks, with Symantec more or less epitomizing how good ideas on paper can turn into terrible/buggy/bloated security software that actually increases your exposure since it adds another node malicious code can attack. Symantec's argument-from-assertion notwithstanding, there doesn't seem to be any correlation between antivirus software being for-pay and higher quality.
From my experience, there's really bad antivirus software (such as Norton, which I have zero confidence in and would never let touch my machine), and slightly less bad antivirus software. What went wrong? Why does this industry suck so badly? Anyone have any insight?
Of course they say that. They are in the business of scaring people into buying their crap so they think they are safe -- when in actuality their vict^Wcostumers get pwned by exploitable holes in IE anydangway.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Free of free antivirus, paid antivirus and viruses, because I want my computer's CPU to do something useful.
If Symantec's "security" security programs were worth a damn, the "free" products wouldn't stand a chance. So far, that hasn't been the case eh?
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
If there choice were only: install Symantec or get a virus, then that's a really difficult choice. I'd be inclined to risk the virus, since Symantec invades and slows your system in a worse way than many infections.
Fortunately, there are many free anti-virus products that work better than Symantec. It's a no-brainer choice. Free is cheaper and better.
I have no understanding of how Symantec remains in business. There's something deeply wrong with that.
If I grew bananas, I would warn everyone that free bananas could be detrimental to their health. After all, consumers have no idea how hard it is to grow good bananas. Free bananas could leave them lacking in any number of impossible to define vitamins and minerals.
As a software author, I've found that free anti-virus, like Avira and Avast, pretty good, given my understanding of computers, email, spam, and security threats. Symantec are just creating FUD. I used to use Norton Security software, but found that it just slows down a Windows XP machine far too much, guesstimate 15 to 20%. The UI would take ages to load. Symantec might be good for the peons, but for experts the performance hit is too much. Expert users can find better, cheaper, and faster working solutions.
As much as it makes sense from a tinfoil hat perspective, I don't think Norton/Symantec writes any viruses at all.
Why?
Because if they did, you would expect their security software would actually be at least marginally functional.
We all know it's not.....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I know that myth stays in circulation, but trust me: AV companies do not write malware. For two reasons:
First, AV companies do talk a lot. Not only at conferences. There's a well built and solid network of sample exchange between them. Of course, you delay it a few hours or a day before you forward your new samples to the others so you can have a 'first', but a global malware detection array is in nobody's budget possible. So they split the world and detect together. Should it become known that you spew malware yourself, you're OUT. And that means you're dead.
And second, why bother the cost? You get the malware for free anyway. There are people who make it their (illegal, but who cares?) business to write and spread it. Why should I invest money into something I get free of charge?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Symantec has cleaned up their performance and bloat issues in internet security 2009. I have some machines running Norton, some running McAfee, using freeware stuff like Spybot, AVG and NoScript as additional lines of defense. Norton is definitely faster and smaller than McAfee this year and doesn't put perceptible overhead on any of the machines where I have it installed, including the old Athlon single core. McAfee chews up a full core of a CPU for a minute or so when it installs updates and the full scan can take days.
The detection rates for both are still mediocre, but those vary from month to month and vendor to vendor so much that I accept anything in the 95-99% detection range. There are too many new threats to rely on reported detection rates that are more than a couple of months old. The only major vendor that I've completely ruled out for a while is CA, and a few years ago they had the best detection rates in the (pay) industry. Compensate for mediocre detection by multi-layer defenses: NoScript to prevent website attacks, Spybot to provide a cross-check against spyware (especially "commercial" spyware that commercial vendors turn a blind eye to) and so on.
On the other hand, the Symantec exec IS spreading FUD saying that the free stuff can't do the job. I just ignore that kind of crap, it's endemic to the industry. The main reason I pay for commercial products is convenience (all other things being equal on the quality front). The free stuff is either nagware that wants you to upgrade to a pay version or it isn't an integrated suite, so I have to monitor separate installations for Antivirus, Anti-spyware, Intrusion Detection, Firewall and so on.
We are the 198 proof..
And *that* is a crap statistic; it does nothing to describe the severities of the vulnerabilities, the vendor response, or the amount of time each was left unpatched. Who cares if FF had 184 vulnerabilities and IE 1, if the FF ones were hard to exploit and patched within a few days and the IE one was left open all year and readily attackable by script kiddies?
No, Symantec provides a removal tool so that they can make it such a pain in the ass for any home or small business user trying to uninstall it that they just stick with the Symantec product, but that the people who are *really sure about being sure about being sure they wanna uninstall Symantec* can go find the "easily listed" removal tool on the website - because they have to provide at least that to get through the legal loopholes about the customer being the one to choose if they drop the product and go somewhere else...
Symantec provided a removal tool because their idiot programmers couldn't be assed to write a proper uninstaller for their shite product.
So basically what you're saying is that the idiot programmers used their ass to write a shoddy piece of code that you need a third party uninstaller to remove?
Yeah that sounds about right actually. And I'm finding the whole of the article, including Hall's bullshit spew to be absolutely hysterical, given that their product runs like a 5,000 pound pig in a 300 pound pig pen. Perhaps if they weren't so bloody quick to obsolete their products on a year to year basis, and trying to push out a new version every year that has even more bloat in it than the last year -- perhaps people wouldn't be so quick to rely on "free" anti-virus solutions as an alternative
"The truth points to itself." - Kosh, Babylon5
Antivirus software would be required on WHATEVER was the popular platform, because not being able to run code makes a computer worthless and sheeple can easily be tricked into running bad code.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It's been getting harder and harder for me to distinguish Symantec and McAfee software from malware.
Rather than advocating a specific anti-virus product, I feel that the question is how do you know you need anti-virus. I would recommend choosing two anti-virus product and keep them up to date for the shortest subscription period allowed. During this time, work as usual, and take note of any virus alert you get, and how that happens. Get rid of one of the anti-virus that doesn't appear to be as effective (and recommend the remaining one to other people). Also adjust your computer using habit until you get no virus alerts. Then make sure you keep your habit within the confines of rules you find working well for you, so you don't get virus alert. Then get rid of the anti-virus software altogether.
I regard anti-virus software as some sort of potty training. You only need it until you find out what behavior will get you into trouble.
I once had a signature.
"Symantec provided a removal tool because their idiot programmers couldn't be assed to write a proper uninstaller for their shite product."
Symantec products used to be good in the DOS early windows 95 days, now they are just garbage and add no real value, I could never defrag my hard drive in XP using later versions of norton defrag, etc, because of hard disk locking issues because the way their clueless programmers could not figure out NTFS.
I also hate what they did to partition magic when they bought out powerquest. It seems to me anything that gets aquired by symantec turns to shit.
They used to be a good company, now one only uses their products "at arms length" I hate installing their anti virus software and usually only run it from CD/DVD.
They had a few good programs: Their old dos norton utilities and the DOS versions of Ghost - quick, clean simple utilities, what I wouldn't give for someone to make good utilities again.
Symantec is taking a page right out of the republican/democrat "anti (not for profit) universal health care" hand book. Instead of having universal single payer health care that would cover us all, for the good of man kind... the special interest groups are spreading FUD because they would lose profit and power.
Same thing with Symantec. They would have you believe that Free AV would destroy humanity itself and leave you unprotected. Symantec would have you believe that only they can protect you properly.
The reality is free AV will help prevent the spread of virii thanks to more people having anti virus software.
Apparently Symantec doesnt really care about protecting users... they just want a profit.
Right. because there is no way malware could click 'yes'. Hate to break it to you, but there is all kinds of software out there to do this.
And malware can't just include the Norton Removal Tool and run that? If it works for Norton's tool (the captcha) then it would work just as well being part of the install.
Besides, both McAfee and AVG (and even Norton!) include uninstallers in their installs. The only difference is that Norton's uninstaller is the only one that is significantly prone to failure.