Why does Symantec suck, you ask?

I have a copy of Windows 2000 Server, and I wanted to get Norton AntiVirus for it. Naive little me, I surf over to their website, expecting to find what I need. There, I learned something interesting: home users don’t even get the option to license a version that runs on W2K Server, and if you choose the lowest option that does have a version available, you have to purchase a minimum of 10 licenses.

I just called their customer service desk to find out if this is true, and a rep verified that it is. He then proceeded to tell me this is because W2K Server “is not a consumer product” and “isn’t intended to be run by consumers,” and told me that perhaps I should have installed the Professional version, “which is the same thing but will run our products.” I explained that he was making assumptions that he wasn’t qualified to make, and he told me he “didn’t really care” if that meant that I took my business elsewhere. Stunning.

My recommendation to everyone out there — avoid them like the plague. Today, eTrust’s EZ Antivirus was recommended to me; I now have it installed on two machines (including the W2K Server in question), and I like what I see. The $20 price tag (versus $50 for Norton) doesn’t hurt, either.

Their Enterprise support is no better. We’ve been down for a week because they haven’t been responding about our Symantec Velociraptor router. We paid an extra $700 for Platinum support when we bought this Velociraptor and they still respond about as well as Microsoft.

Symantec doesn’t care about the customer.

My subscription ran out for ‘Norton Antivirus’ on new years day.

Guess what? An annoying little popup comes up every time the machine boots informing me that my subscription has run out, and I need to “subscribe” to it.

Screw this. It’s annoying. I remove ‘Norton Antivirus’ from ‘Norton SystemWorks’. Now what? My network access is utterly disabled. I reinstall, it works. I uninstall again, it’s broken again.

I go the the symantec site, and they have some sort of ACTIVE-X control there to ensure I can not request EMAIL support. They only have PAY telephone support, and only during “regular business hours”. I’m supposed to PAY these shits to FIX their own problem, which has conveniently slept there on my computer for the full subscription period???

I navigate around their utterly unhelpful site, and try some of the special “uninstall NAV” tools. None of them fix this.

I finally reinstalled Windows and all of my software from scratch to get this invasive and annoying piece of shit out of my computer. All of my backup images had ‘Systemworks’ on them, with NAV installed.

No virus ever fucked me as bad as SYMANTEC did.

NORTON used to be a good name, but now they’re owned by a bunch of greedy morons who make phone solicitors seem nice.

We have a Symantec firewall at our middle school…and let me tell you, it’s BAD. It blocks 70% of all websites or cuts them off and says there were too many foul words for it to display them. Everyone at our school hates it. We can’t go on supposed ‘humor’ sites, ‘game’ sites, ‘occult’ sites, ‘MISC.’ sites, etc. It is awful!

I stupidly upgraded my Norton AV to AV 2003 Prof. …. BIG MISTAKE. HUGE! No virus spotted for last 6 months. The min. I do the upgrade. AV 2003 screwed up my OS.

Furthermore, I can only download once after purchase. UNLESS I pay extra (so-called ‘Extended Download Service’) for multiple downloads.
WTF, we have to pay Symantec to host their software per yr?

WHAT A JOKE….of the century.

MS can’t beat that.

We’ve also got “Symantec Web “Security” at our middle school, and let me tell you. It is the biggest peice of s—t that I’ve ever seen. It blocks SOME inappropriate sites, but under the wrong catagories. A site about religious tolerance is blocked, but one that shows stick figures being disembowled (sp?) is not. Now it has started blocking YAHOO (and all linked sites) for god’s sake! Under Sex/Acts! I’ve talked to an administrator, but he says that the software is “nescessary” I told him that Internet Explorer has similar (superior) functions, but he ignored me.

So, a little school purchase symantec Ghost 7.5 enterprise to make images of their systems for quick recovery. Upon imaging a machine, they systems recovery console is no longer available due to a whacked administrators passwd. (No, the Hot Fix doesn’t work to remedy this, and neither does SP1 fopr XP)

I called Symantec to ask a question, only to find out that “support” wasn’t purchased for this product. F-em. I actually paid for a legit license, and get punished. Time for warez update.

You are all so right bloody Symantec does block the wrong f——— sites!
SYMANTEC down right sucks!

yep
had that problem as well.
it’s just so goddamn pointless in my opinion.

Before we had Symantec we had I-Gear, which i think is just like symantec, just a little more lenient. I’ve been told that this was designed by some Christian Fundamentalist, against anything and everything.

I can’t go on so many sites on the Net. i was once banned from www.lemonde.fr which is the site for the No.1 National newspaper in France. Needed it for my A-Levels - Administrators couldn’t do DÍCK to sort it out.

By the way. One way of getting round it when you’re posting messages is by accenting a vowel in the word you want to say
fúck shít etc.etc.

………….

Hey, geek, get a life. You are obviously a disgruntled individual who has an axe to grind. Sure there are problems. But overall, they provide the best comprehensive offering of products across the board.

Grow up, felch.

Wow, Mazzie — anything legitimate to offer, or just an ad hominem? I love when someone (or multiple people) give specific examples of problems, and someone else says “You’re wrong!” without any explanation. Super smart.

I have just finished re-formatting my drive and reloading windows to get the Symantec Norton 2003 AntiVirus off my machine. This stuff is pure crap. I would not allow me to access my Autocad and when I went into the options to turn it off it erased a system file, that made have to reload the operating system. Norton 2003 is a Virus. BTW: it did not find any virus on my machine.

Symantec is turning into a garbage software company. As I write this I have been waiting for over an hour for them to answer me why their software continues to fail. Supposedly I have the best support they offer.

I suggest trend micro. Avoid this company and its lame products.

About 2 weeks ago I installed the brand
new Symantec Systemworks Professional 2004
on my Windows 2000 Professional machine with
service pack 4 installed.

This was after Systemworks Professional 2001
hard drive defragmentation would no longer work
after upgrading to MS Windows 2000 service pack 4.

For this entire 2 weeks I’ve been struggling
because Systemworks Professional 2004 brought
my system to its knees.

It caused repeated crashes of Eudora Pro 6 with
NTDLL.DLL errors and unhandled exceptions.

It caused Corel Word Perfect 9 to have repeated
lockups and slow operation. In fact, most of
my application software ran a lot slower while
Systemworks Professional 2004 was installed. Other
packages that were previously reliable under
prior installed versions of Systemworks were now
unstable. And it was clearly not an artifact of
Service pack 4 as all of these problems started only
after Systemworks Professional 2004 was installed.

I think Symantec is no long a consumer/user-friendly
company and their latest Systemworks product really sucks.
It doesn’t even have all of the features that Systemworks
Professional 2001 had.

Screw Symantec….time to try another vendor of utilities….
…any suggestions?

Please reply both on list and to ajs@sagady.com

URGENT !!!!!!

Please note that GoBack will do something ??? to the boot sector so one can’t boot up. GB_orog.exe doesn’t work. Cntl Alt G doesn’t work. Tecj support Knowledge base doesn’t help much just a bunch of do this and that in which none resolve the problem.

Be warned

I have a dedicated server w/2000 with Verio and I was using pcanywhere to surf the net remotely and download enterprise firewall. After install, I went to install.. during install pcanywhere froze up.. and all my sites on the server went down.. I called tech.. and they couldn’t use terminal services to log in. They had to physically go onto the box and tried to uninstall and disable. They succeeded at disabling.. but the sites are still down.. Tried uninstalling.. said missing files.. Soo now my business is SCREWED and I will have to pay for a reinstall.. and then I’ll have hours of work to setup IIS etc etc etc AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Hi, all.

We’re trying to set up the DShield firewall log reporting utility cvtwin.exe.

We keep getting a ntdll.dll crash when we try to email the log file to DShield. When Norton AV 2002 is shut down, the error doesn’t occur.

Anybody have any idea why?

I am having problems with my Video crashing upon starting Systemworks 2004, 2003 works fine but with 2004 the startup screen for systemworks never populates the letters to the left of screen and the screen blanks momentarily before restoring with the default resolution.
I have proved it to definitely be systemworks 2004 as the cause of the problem-anyone know of a fix? My OS is XP Pro.

I am currently paying Symantec for 6 months worth of subscription and getting nothing in return because as of January “my product is no longer supported”. My subscription is still good though, and will apply if I choose to buy a new NAV version. Sorry, that is not going to happen.

A while back I bought SystemWorks 3.0 for Macintosh in order to keep the new G4 Titanium in tip top shape. I carefully read the System Requirement notes on the Product page and all was well. I would be able to boot my Titanium with the CD and all was compatible. NOT! When I got the CD it wouldn’t boot the Titanium. I dug through the Symantec site and found an obscure page buried in the tech support section saying, “Oh Yeah, you can’t boot the new Titaniums with the CD, worry, we’re working on that.”

I got the software installed without booting from the CD, but golly gee, my hard drive didn’t show up. Oh yeah, it’s not compatible with Panther!

They finally came up with an update that allowed me to see the hard drive, but, of course, I couldn’t do anything to fix any of the “major problems” found on my drive (almost all problems Norton finds are “major”, btw).

So now they have a replacement CD available which will boot new Titaniums. Just call the number on the screen! So I have just wasted the entire morning going through Symantec’s tech support menu system, which doesn’t have any option at all related to this. I’ve been on hold several times and disconnected three times. Hold times are running 18 minutes each crack.

So now I’m resorting to trying to get a replacement CD by emailing them.

norton sucks,and no support for another download if you get a corruped file from them.

I installed Norton System Works on my research machine and lost everything. Spent three days recovering from the VIRUS Norton installed.
I manage a data recovery service and lately have heard countless complaints about Norton products crashing computers, failing to register, and slowing computers to a crawl. You know-nothing posters defending Norton are fakes. Norton has always had installation issues. These “issues” are now are fatal 70% of the time. McAfee, AVG, and Avast have no such problems. Check the reviews for Norton on Cnet.

I’m sitting here at college, at A level fer f*ck’s sake, trying to find a way of getting round SWS.
It’s understandable where kids are involved but to be honest, at 17 and 18 there is no real use for a web blocker. It blocks ‘wicca’, ‘transvestite’, and pretty much anything useful, including various relevant media studies searches.
Just a thought.

Symantec SA, which distributes Norton anti-virus software in South Africa, is trying to rip me off by denying me access to the latest live updates, although my current subscription only expires in January 2005.

The company insists I must purchase my current 2002 version with the new 2004 software to reactivate the update service.

Symantec accepted my payment of US$39,95 on January 1, 2004 without telling me I needed to purchase new software.

I believe Symantec is morally obliged to provide the update service. To do otherwise is, in my opinion, fraudulent.

The company hasn’t responded to a fax I sent on April 7. And Symantec’s Regional Manager for South Africa, Mr Patrick Evans, has ignored a
registered letter I sent to him on April 16, 2004.

norton now makes the worst programs i have ever seen, i think that i could write a better program, it screwed up my computer beyond belief (and i am almost A+ certified) norton used to be good but now their product is just crap in a box.

I wish I had read this archive before, once again, upgrading my Norton AV. The Extended Download thing seems like a rip-off. If I need to re-install, I’ll pay the price to switch to another brand.

LOL!! All of you are dumbasses! You don’t know how to work the program, so you call symantec and get pissed at tech support because you have to pay. Either because your an idiot because you cant read the f—-ing manual, or you dont know how to navigate on the website.

Furthermore, read the instructions given to you before you install. And just to let you know. The tech support knows as much as is posted on the website. I know this because I work at symantec and I am 1 of those techs. Im 19 years old going on 20, and alls I do is go onto the syamtec website, look in there search form for whatever the issue is. And then I charge the mooron who does not know how use the website. $29.95 - And in the meantime while im taking the CreditCard Info, with the person on mute so they cant hear me laughing my ass off because they lost internet access after installing. Thinking, hmmmm maybe if they DISABLE the program, get online, and look at the documentation on the website, they would see it takes like 3 clicks of the mouse to fix the issue. This takes all of 2 1/2 mins to do.

As i read thru the post and saw that you all had nothing but negative things to say about symantec, thats fine, get fustrated, make Symatec hate website… But that fustrations to a 19 year old tech whom WORKs for symatec just makes you all look like moorons.

I have already printed this website and have it hanging up in about 7 locations of the building. Frankly, we find it humorous… Keep of the good laughs.

Wow, “Mitchell” — I was about to delete your comment, but realized that it proves more of our collective point about Symantec than you could possibly realize. Keep up the good representation of Symantec (if that’s where you really work!).

I love it “Im 19 years old going on 20”. Oh thanks for letting me know 20 is after 19, I almost forgot about that. Man! If you didn’t tell me that I would have thought you were going to be 19 for the rest of your life.

By the way… I am 5 and 3/4 years old…..

Jesse? is that the best thing you could come up with? well, can’t really expect to much from a 5 year old little boy. And “Jason” - even though you think you can use my comment to favor on your site, I still prove the ignorence of the people whom post on this site in negative ways. Such as yourself “Jason”, you were not exactly negative, but ignorenet. Just as a fact - it takes at least 10 licenses to have the corperate edition of Norton AntiVirus, wich is made for servers. Now, Norton AntiVirus will NOT work on a Win2Kserver. Only the corprate edition. This is where you are probably either confused, or YOU didnt make yourself clear. FOR MORE INFO ON WHAT WE SUPPORT OF NORTON ANTIVIRUS GO HERE >> http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2003071809171806 And yes it is unfortianate for you, but if you want REAL protection, then Norton Anti Virus is as good as they get.

Now, as somone who works for the company, I dont use their product even though I get it for free. NAV’s requirements are not much, but enough to slow down a programmer in the time of need for the processor.

But to tell you all the truth, there is NO antivurs that really does the job very well. This has been compared in our test labs. Our product beat the other compeditors - McCafee, Trend Micro, eTrust and a couple of others I dont remember. And ours was the only 1 who had virus defs for every virus we tested it with. Trend Micro seem the be the next top one.

Your guys complaint are taking seriously, and yes we do care about our customers. And im sorry for a rud comments I may have made, please dont take it personal. And if ANY of you have any questions about the products, then please feel FREE to email me at work or home.

Work: Mitchell.Kinard@ece.com
Home: Admin@wwn.servegame.com

I work Monday-Friday 8:30am - 5:30pm, thre rest of the time, im usually home.

Please e-mail me, I would be pleased to help ANY one out with a straight answer.

Keep it up, Mitchell — I’m enjoying your lunacy.

Good job Mitchell, What a bunch of noobs. Oh, I fucked up my system because I am too dumb to read a user manual that is written at an 8th grade level. Hey, what do you all expect, for the program to install itself and work without a hitch on a poorly maintained out of date OS? Oh that’s right, you guys just install what your IT buddys tell you to install. Why don’t you all do a search on the net and find out what a firewall does before you install it and complain that you can’t get on the internet. Also ask yourselves this, Why would a program install on thousands of computers every day without a hitch and why would a program be rated the best in the world, and not install on my computer. Oh, wait, maybe there is something different about my computer, it is old and out of date. I know some of you are saying, then why did it not work on my brand new computer that I just got from Dell? Simple, can you say BAD IMAGE. Computers are not perfect. The people who build computers are not perfect. Programs are not perfect. And most of all the people who write programs are in no way perfect. You have on average 50 programs installed in add/remove programs. Those programs are written by different companys. There is no way to research how every program will interact with 1. each other and 2 with windows itself. Which brings me to my next point. Lets assume that you have an older system and all of your windows updates are current and you do regular disk maintnence. What about the memory leakage in Windows? Why do you think computers slow down even with new hardware and an old OS? You all need to take a good look at your systems first then start to point the finger. Like Mtchell said, I am very sorry that you do not possess teh technical skills to go to a web site, click search, and type in your problem. Poor, Poor, Peaple.

I mean, seriously, Mitchell — do you understand so little about computers that you don’t know that I can see the IP address from which you post? Nice try, Mitchell! I’ve gone ahead and changed the “Posted by” information on the last comment to your own (Admin@wwn.servegame.com), so that the real owner of the email address and website that you falsely put in doesn’t get spammed as a result of your jackassery.

I also closed comments, Mitchell, since it seems that all that’s happening here anymore is you’re behaving like a moron.

Oh, and I’ll be sure to let your HR director know about the post, too…