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back to article Norton for Windows 10 is NOT a box-borking beta, insists Symantec

A recent update to Norton designed to add compatibility for Windows 10 is incompatible with mainstream Windows releases, according to some users. Symantec is denying that these issues are anything worse than teething problems, although this has so far failed to placate critics. Users are loudly complaining about borked Win 8. …

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  1. Dan Wilkie
    Black Helicopters

    I don't understand

    Broken machines and self breaking software seem to be a standard part of every Norton product I've ever had the misfortune to use, or try and remove. Does this mean people were expecting it to actually work?

    EDIT: I should of course exclude older versions of Ghost - that used to be a magic piece of software that worked like you'd expect!

    21 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Ghost of the distant past

      "older versions of Ghost - that used to be a magic piece of software that worked like you'd expect!"

      That's in the distant past though, surely (at least for the SoHo end of things)?

      Or have they redeemed themselves since I stopped paying attention?

      2 0 Reply
    2. Siv
      Reply Icon

      Re: I don't understand

      I thought exactly the same thing when I read this, Norton/Symantec should be avoided at all cost. My experience is their AV products are so resource intensive that they cause more problems than the viruses they are supposedly protecting you against.

      I used Norton stuff back in the days of Norton Utilities and they were excellent and very tightly written and extremely light on system resources. With the takeover by Symantec things went downhill fast and I no longer use or recommend Symantec products for this reason.

      5 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Norton breaking machines and not working right? Standard operation for that piece of bollockware I would have thought.

    14 0 Reply
  3. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Unhappy

    Reluctant to join the mud slinging...

    But it's been sad to see Norton's decline from the original and excellent "Utilities" and (as mentioned above) the life-saving "Ghost" to this (alleged, coz I ain't tried it) sub standard software.

    1 0 Reply
  4. picturethis
    Childcatcher

    Norton utils was good, a long, long time ago

    When Peter Norton founded and ran the company (1982-DOS days), and up until he sold it, at the time, those utilities were far more advanced than anything Microsoft had ever developed and Sys Internals (1996) wasn't even a concept yet. I think I still have one of his books around for Dos internals

    The unerase utility saved my butt, many times. I kept buying updated versions even after symantec bought it, but it just kept getting more buggier and more bloated until finally one version completely screwed over a drive and that was it for Symantec -Anything, To this day, I won't touch any product in their portfolio ever again.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sysinternals

    11 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    "it appears to have let an alpha or beta release escape as production"

    That makes it sound like an accident - surely a company as big and experienced as this shouldn't make such glaring errors?

    Given that they are seemingly focused on being ready for Windows 10, I would suggest that this release was as planned, and that the Beta testing was intended to be done by their existing customers. With predictable results.

    After all, they would only be following Microsoft in seeing the user base as a free testbed.

    1 0 Reply
  6. Lee Taylor
    Trollface

    Norton is A VIRUS!

    5 0 Reply
  7. Sean Kennedy

    No sympathy

    I'm sorry, but if you are running Norton you gain no sympathy from me. They've been absolute shit long enough that you should have been forewarned if you'd been paying any attention at all over the past 10 years.

    8 0 Reply
  8. Dan Paul

    24 years of personal experience tells me that Norton is .......

    not ever going to be on ANY computer that I have to use, EVER AGAIN

    Without fail, back when I was FORCED to use it for a few years; Norton's installation or updates borked one or another program or operating system I had to use. Most issues were from obviously untested updates of their software.

    5 0 Reply
  9. keith_w

    Wow, something people hate more than Microsoft. I used to "joke" that no virus could run on a machine with Symantec AV on it because there weren't enough cycles left.

    6 0 Reply
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No love lost for Norton AV...

    it's bloatware on the best day, and on a bad day only Cryptolocker is worse.

    That said, is anyone surprised that Symantec\Norton aren't answering posts in their Forums?

    Forums are like the annoying talking computer that blocks you from talking to your ISP's support. Yes, i have already rebooted the bloody cable modem.It is just a cynical way to cut costs when you know all of your customers already hate you. So round them up somewhere with a few minimum wage Forum Mods, and try to delay them calling the support line(that they already paid for) as long as possible.

    In companies like Norton, forums are a cattle pen.

    Don't expect a fix for a problem that requires a Dev to materialize based on Forum posts. The way to get results to open a support ticket, file a bug report, and follow up with it. If you want to crowd source some heat under their backsides, then use the Forums to post your case number, and encourage other users to reference your ticket, and open their own.

    It's a matter of leverage... 20 complete bug reports are worth 2000 whinging forum posts.

    1 0 Reply
  11. Mark 85

    Symantec still around?

    I'm surprised although I thought for the last 10 years or so that the only ones using them were corporates where the IT Director still believes IBM is the PC of choice and the Internet is a new-fangled toy.

    1 0 Reply
  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Occasionally...

    ...Norton delivers a decent product but they are slow to fix problems. They act like they are doing you a favor to take your money. As far as filing Bug reports getting a fix, don't hold your breath. Norton has priorities and it's not fixing Bug reports. If they feel like it, they will eventually get around to addressing the problems. That could be next week, month or year.

    0 0 Reply
  13. Chris King

    Stick 'em on the compost heap with McAfee...

    You know a "security" product is bad when the uninstaller is the best part of the software.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Mikel
      Reply Icon

      Re: Stick 'em on the compost heap with McAfee...

      Agreed, but you know an anti malware product is no good when it can't even uninstall *itself*.

      OTOH, rendering a Windows Box unbootable is the only way to secure it, so... Mission accomplished!

      1 0 Reply
  14. Kev99 Silver badge

    Norton Borking? Or is it PEBCAK?

    I have NIS for Win 10 Beta and NU 16 running on my one pc. NIS is purring along. For NU, I had to load the most recent AMD chipset & video drivers. Not a problem there. Must be PEBCAK.

    0 3 Reply
  15. AlbertH
    Linux

    Strange that this bloated rubbish-ware even still exists. It's never worked - it's trivially easy to write "virus" code that does malicious things but isn't detected by this snake-oil (or any other "anti-malware" junkware). Infection methods are many and various, and -short of simply disconnecting your machine from the outside world - there's no way to secure it.

    The ONLY option is to use a less-vulnerable OS. The solution is obvious....

    0 2 Reply
    1. Joe Drunk
      Reply Icon
      Windows

      The ONLY option is to use a less-targeted OS. The solution is obvious....

      FTFY

      0 0 Reply
  16. Simon B
    FAIL

    After al these years people still install the Norton/Symantec virus? i thought the various incarnations of this virus were well known and people had stopped installing it?

    Oh well.

    0 0 Reply
  17. lighthors

    I'm a computer builder who has used Norton 10 years. Now, using Windows 7 - and not planning to update to Windows 10 - Norton is forcing me to update to their Windows 10 update - bugging me every 15 minutes to 30 minutes for the last week to update to it. I tried everything to stop their update - went into task manager - msconfig and startup options, everything. So finally, sick of their bugging me and constant interruption to update - I bit the bullet and accepted the update. Guess what - after an incredible barrage of stuff - uninstalling my present Norton, then Reinstalling with Norton MRnr - it was finally loaded. And then - it acted as if nothing was done and began to bug me the same as before - every 15 to 30 minutes. I've gone through this 3 times now - and it's the same loop - there is no end - Norton update has gone insane and I'm just about ready to drop it forever!!!!!!!. I called Norton and they acted as if they had never heard of this. Wake up Norton. At least put a button in your update that will give us the option of refusing it - instead of - Remind Me Later - because that is 15 - 30 minutes later - and your update is acting like a recalcitrant virus!!!

    0 0 Reply

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