Symantec Labels Vicars' Software as Spyware 268
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?"
once an essential application? (Score:5, Interesting)
An anecdotal Norton lifetime experience:
At one time I considered Norton an essential application/utility because I couldn't explain sufficiently to new computer owners why Norton (and McAffee, etc.) were unnecessary, evil, and just wrong for them. So, I'd always get their credit card number, hold my nose, and ante up their money for their peace of mind.
But after years of being called back and finding computer disarray on these "happy" users caused directly or indirectly by the intrusive "anti-virus" software suites such as Norton, I've switched tactics and now the very first thing I do when working on others' computer (with their permission of course) is uninstall any of the mainstream virus protection programs, download AVG free version and am done with it.
I've found since taking this approach virtually no call backs where any problems were created by AVG, with much happier friends and family who have at the same time saved themselves a couple of bucks.
Once an essential application Norton? Only in as much as Norton had been able to (and continues to) convince the world they are essential, not a hard task in the FUD universe that is Windows.
Antivirus (Score:4, Interesting)
Viruses and Virus scanners .. a vicious circle (Score:2, Interesting)
MOD UP, NOT DOWN (Score:2, Interesting)
Norton is an anti-virus program. It makes perfect sense that it should impead the effectiveness of the most long-lived and devastating virus of all time: religion [google.com].
Don't mod me down becuase you disagree with me. Post a response explaining why you think religion gets a bad rap and why you think it's such a huge benefit to mankind. Moderating me down so no one can read what I and paulsgre wrote is chickenshit. You're abusing the system. Mod down the "first post" and GNAA trolls; not someone who you disagree with.
Re:once an essential application? (Score:4, Interesting)
Man, is this the truth. My dad runs Norton and I told him once that I thought that Norton caused more problems than it solves, but he trusts (sigh) Norton. Long story short, just last night as a personal favor I went over to help a retired guy I know who was having trouble with his PC. He also runs Norton and it sucks! He has some crazy Norton program running to warn him about "unsafe" web pages. I was trying to help him with access problems to an online account he had and all this program did was pop up a box on every single account page saying that "This page is unrated." and making him check off one of three boxes (basically - continue, don't go there, go there this time only) AND then enter a password. This is a retired guy who is 73 years old. I can't imagine living like this where you have to click on a box and give a password just to surf the web, but that's how he lives. He doesn't even question the logic of this. I really don't know if he is maybe protecting the PC for his 5 year old granddaughter (why not just not let the kid use it?) or if he thinks it will save him from accidentally going to a "bad" site (he is very religious, by the way).
I feel pretty strongly that friends don't let friends use Norton. I work in IT and I don't know anybody in my field who uses Norton at home. I agree that AVG is better than Norton AV. The only Norton product I like is Ghost.
AV Not Essential? Come to College... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Trust me, I am an IT professional... (Score:2, Interesting)
I would have agreed with you... until Symantec wiped out VNC earlier this week because the latest patterns have determined that it is a "Remote Access Trojan".
I completely agree (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:well... yes? (Score:5, Interesting)
A client of mine had Norton 2003 on one of her machines and I attepted to get that sucker off so I could install Norton 2005. Hell no. Followed the crazy instructions on their website to the letter.
To this day, whenever they reboot the machine Norton 2003 asks them to register (which it then errors out on). Then Norton 2005 takes over.
(I would format the machine and reinstall, but there's a number of issues there that I won't get into, and the computer is only used a few hours a week.)
Re:well... yes? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree 100% (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:well... yes? (Score:3, Interesting)
I got my former employer to buy me a copy of NIS so I could help with problems they might have at work. I usually worked from home. I ended up switching to SAV 8/9/10 since I got a free copy as a student. Recently I transfered schools and they have Mcafee Enterprise 8. Not only did it catch a virus right after install, but it seems faster. I wouldn't say its lighter weight though. With SAV 10 I got around 235mb ram usage and now I'm at ~400mb on bootup. Of course there's a new version of xfire running too...
In general, I've had bad luck with the home editions of all antivirus software I've tried. They seem to bloat the interface, but its still confusing to my mother. I miss the days of lightweight antivirus software. Worst of all I don't trust any antivirus vendor. I'm a bit suspicious of overseas security products unless they're open source. Maybe someday clamwin will get an on access scanner.
Re:turning into? hardly.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The other problem is that a scheme like this requires that someone determine what privileges a particular application needs.
The answer to this is good defaults, possibly based upon templates. First, provide an official service for licensing and registration, that is locked down. Next give all new (not factory installed) apps access to their own registry and source files, that licensing service, and the ability to write new files in the users docs, but not read or overwrite existing ones. If it wants internet access it can ask. If it wants to read other files, it can ask. If it wants to read my e-mail address book or modify another program or the core os or read my IM buddy list, it can ask.
This means few existing programs and even fewer new programs will ever legitimately run afoul of these rules. As an added bonus VMs that can run programs from other OS's can use the same mechanism.
That may work well for businesses or high-security environments, but it's not going to fly at home, where most machines are administered by someone who knows enough to insert a CD and run install but not much else...
I disagree. Unless they run malware, most people will never hit any restrictions on default settings other than the occasional app that needs to use the internet and that is pretty self explanatory. So long as the UI is well written, this should be less confusing than what people deal with now and more in line with user expectations for their computer. Less than one in ten people I talk to realize that their computer does not already restrict programs they run. A common reaction is, "well why would it let some game send spam e-mail without telling me?" Can you think of a way in which a program would need (not currently does but with a good design) to violate the defaults I've described that would confuse a user?
Re:Dawkins aproach... (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw this article [alternet.org] on AlterNet today. There is a San Antonio, born again bible thumper, John Hagee, who is currently leading a national crusade to invade Iran because they think it will trigger the second coming of Christ, oh and the EU is the Antichrist. From the article:
"Thanks to the viral marketing made possible by the hundreds of evangelical leaders who have signed on to his new organization, his warmongering has rippled through megachurches across America for months. Hagee calls pastors "the spiritual generals of America," an appropriate phrase given his reliance on them to rally their troops behind his message."
So in this case these sermons ARE a virus, Oh where were you when we needed you Symantec.
This would be funny except the Republican party is right there with them. Ken Mehlman, the Republican party chairman addressed their convention and George W. sent this nut case a letter cheering him which he read at this Apocalypse Now Convention. There is a reason the U.S. so unconditionally backs Israel lately, the born again lunatics in power now think that the Jews have to control the holy land for the imminent second coming of Christ to happen and if places like Iran destroy Israel it will prevent the second coming of Christ. I've actually seen serious pieces on CNN about this.
If only this anti virus scanner had kicked in when this nutcase wrote his book(its sold 800,000 copies) and deleted it, it might have saved America from tilting in to complete lunacy.