Norton AntiVirus 2005 Gripes

Norton Anti-Virus is the leading anti-virus program

Do you have gripes about Norton AntiVirus? If so, leave a comment. See also Symantec gripes

In an article about anti-virus software Bob Rankin said: "I dumped Norton's resource-hogging anti-virus a while back and am VERY happy that I did." January 8, 2006

Symantec AntiVirus Worm Hole Puts Millions at Risk eWeek May 25, 2006

Norton update kicks AOL users offline CNET News.com March 16, 2006An incorrect update to Symantec's Norton security software on Wednesday blocked Internet access for some America Online users.

Cannot connect to AOL after running LiveUpdate on March 15, 2006. From Symantec.

January 8, 2006. In his review of Google Pack, Paul Thurrott said the following about the included "special edition" of NAV 2005:

"I can't stand Norton Antivirus. The full retail version of this product is bloated and slow, and it adversely affects the
performance of every PC on which its installed".

January 6, 2006. Activating Norton Again and Again and Again by Ed Foster in The Gripelog. Symantec enjoys making its Norton AntiVirus customer go through product activation so much, it makes some of them do it all the time.

Norton Gets a Bit Less Secure by Sarah Lacy in Business Week magazine. December 1, 2005. Quoting: "Hackers, bored with attacking Microsoft, are going after Symantec, whose Norton products are the first line of defense on 50 million PCs worldwide ... hackers are bypassing or disabling Symantec software in their efforts to access personal information or spread viruses and worms." Printer Friendly version

Live Update Troubles November 3, 2005 in the Langa List by Fred Langa. A reader writes about problems with Live Update and Worm Protection. Fred too had problems with Live Update. Quoting: "It won't let you get the latest file ahead of your scheduled time, even if you trigger it manually: LiveUpdate will report "no new update" even if there is one available on the manual download portions of the Symantec site. I didn't like that at all: I wanted, the latest updates as soon as they're available." After manually installing new virus definitions for a while, Fred walked away from Norton AntiVirus and now uses Eset's NOD32.

September 2005. Consumer Reports rated Norton Anti-Virus below Trend Micro's PC-cillin and below the Kaspersky product.

April 8, 2005 Norton's Knockout Punch By Ed Foster in The Gripe Log. Problems with Activation and more.

March 30, 2005. Symantec Acknowledges Two Holes in Antivirus Products by IDG News Service. Flaws could be used by hackers to crash PCs running the software. Bugs in NAV 2005 and NAV 2004. From Symantec: Denial of Service in Symantec Norton AntiVirus AutoProtect. March 28, 2005.

February 22, 2005. The security software industry wants you to be afraid by Ed Bott in his blog. An article about a false alarm from the firewall in NAV 2005.

January 28, 2005. Does this product include a firewall? It's not clear. Reading about the worm blocking feature in the NAV 2005 manual makes it appear there is a firewall, but the word firewall is never used. You should not run two firewall programs under Windows. A good firewall, such as ZoneAlarm, will detect the Windows firewall if it is running and disable it. The NAV 2005 manual says nothing about co-existence with other Windows-based software firewalls.

Followup: The Rebate Debate January 18, 2005. From the WinXPnews newsletter by Sunbelt Software. An excellent article recounting rebate experiences, both good and bad from readers of the newsletter. There was little consensus regarding which stores or manufacturers come through with their rebates and which ones don't. But, the most complaints were about Symantec's rebates.

December 21, 2004. Are Security Vendors Tricking XP SP2? PC World. Windows Security Center may not know when your antivirus definitions are out of date. Quoting: "...when we installed Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2005 ... on a system running SP2 ... [it] caused the Windows Security Center to erroneously report that the products were up-to-date ... During installation, Symantec's Norton suite deliberately disables the Windows Security Center feature that alerts users to missing or incomplete protection, says Kraig Lane, product manager for Norton Internet Security. Norton keeps the feature disabled until it has completed its initial update, and then it turns it on, he says.

September 15, 2004 Norton AntiVirus 2005 reviewed by PC Magazine. This includes reader comments, some of them disparaging.

Windows Installer

February 18, 2005. I can not confirm this, but someone emailed me to say that NAV 2005 (installed as part of Symantec System Works Premium) with all recent updates, causes the Windows Installer for NAV 2005 to be started whenever one of the Microsoft Office 2003 programs is run. The only fix they found was to remove NAV.

March 6, 2005. Another reader (thanks Chris) wrote me with more information and a solution to this problem. Again, I have not confirmed this myself.

In his case the Windows installer was being activated every time the computer starts up. After investigating he found that NAV 2005 has some form of automatic verification of it's install after reboot. He was failing this verification because he modified the Start -> All Programs menu structure and moved the entry for Norton anti-virus. The warning this created was:

Event Type: Warning Event Source: MsiInstaller Event ID: 1004
Description: Detection of product 'edited', feature 'Complete', component '{edited}' failed. The resource
'C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Norton AntiVirus\' does not exist.

The problem can be fixed simply by moving the Norton anti-virus default start group back to where it was originally installed on the start menu - the exact location identified in the error message above.

April 4, 2005. Another person (thanks John) confirmed that this solution fixes the problem.

FYI

How to remove Norton Anti-virus by Jay Lee October 18, 2005 of the Houston Chronicle

Removing your Norton program using SymNRT SymNRT is a program that can remove some Norton software from your computer. SymNRT runs on Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. SymNRT will remove these Norton programs: Norton AntiVirus 2004/2005, Norton AntiVirus Professional 2004, , Norton AntiVirus 3, 5 and 10 User Pack 2004/2005, Norton SystemWorks 2004/2004 Professional Edition, Norton SystemWorks 2005/2005 Premier edition, Norton Password Manager 2004, Norton Internet Security 2004/2005, Norton Internet Security 5 and 10 User Pack 2004/2005, Norton Personal Firewall 2004/2005, Norton AntiSpam 2004/2005, Ghost 2003 and Ghost Version 9.0. Document ID:2005033108162039. Last Modified: September 6, 2005.
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/linked_files/tsgen/SymNRT.exe Added September 20, 2005.

Some Internet-enabled programs can no longer access the Internet after installing Norton AntiVirus 2005 Document ID:2004091310175206 Last Modified:10/27/2004

Windows does not load after installing Norton AntiVirus 2005 Document ID:2004092410273506 Last Modified:11/30/2004

Creating new program rules in Norton AntiVirus Internet Worm Protection Document ID:2004091413133506 Last Modified:12/23/2004

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Page created: December 28, 2004

Page last updated: June 26, 2006