nortons sells out

if you have not got the newest update yet for your nortons you may well be in for a surprise. they are now including ask.com in the nortons tool bar and also having it scan each web site for any search. it also adds the ask.com to to your google bookmarks. i for one am very annoyed and will be no longer recc them till this gets sorted if it ever does. just wanted to let you all know to watch for this update

 

Oh, that sounds annoying, luckily, i use chrome, so, no norton toolbar.

 

yeah same here but i heard they are working on it for chrome. imo to sell out to ask.com of all people though arghhh

 

yikes. I absolutely hate all toolbars.

 

toolbars should be banned from the face of the earth

 

You should be able to turn off the Norton toolbar. Just go to view/toolbars/ and deselect norton toolbar. I have norton internet security and just opened up the toolbar to see if it had the new update.. none so far. But yeah, I never add toolbars. As it is, I use the menu bar add on for FF to take out the menu bar.. it comes back when i need it by hitting the alt key.

 

every toolbar should be optional (and is in every software i use, including AV... and i mean installation itself, not only the option to disable it in the browser). can't you opt that thing out during the mentioned update?

 

no you can not opt out of this one it installs it without even telling you. if you have not got it yet just wait you will trust me is stinks

 

You can easily disable it in FireFox under the add-ons page.

I have a friend who creates the toolbars for Google, I don't know how he lives with himself.

 

no i won't, i'm using AVG (there is a toolbar too in it and i know that it's bugging many people too, but luckilly it can be installed/uninstalled as a separate component)

 

while yes you can its the whole fact it installs it for you without consent imo. and you can not totally remove it you can just disbale it

 

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate edition doesn't seem to have this problem.

 

hmmm... thats weird
im using NIS2009 and i dont see ask.com on my norton toolbar
but my friend using the exact same install of NIS2009 has the ask.com on their norton toolbar

only difference i can think of is that im running vista and they're running xp....

edit: nvm, for some reason their nis2009 updated itself (16.5.xxx), and mine hasnt(still 16.2.xxx).... so far

edit again:
nvm i see

so its only a matter of time...

 

I could not find anyway to disable the Norton toolbar. I could only disable it from view. So if they put more stuff on there I guess it does not matter being it will just be removed from view as well. Now if you actually like the Norton toolbar stuff the added junk would indeed be frustrating. Too bad, just when Norton started to get back on track with a decent AV. As for the corporate version not having the issue that makes sense.. For the same reason that business class PC's don't come with the crapware. Businesses won't tolerate it and they usually pay more to get a clean install.

 

I noticed it while using Norton 360 3.0 beta on Windows 7, the fact that the ask.com portion of the Norton Safe Web toolbar somehow manages to place my search requests from the Google search box in FF 3 into it's own search box is a bit unnerving.

To be honest, McAfee does this too with SiteAdvisor, (they partner with Yahoo) but they at least ask you first, and don't put your search queries in their search box.

What I'm more upset about is this type of behavior:

http://consumerist.com/5165874/symantecs-support-chat-upsells-and-freeware-but-not-a-lot-of-support

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2342634,00.asp

If this isn't a "fluke", then my respect for Norton and Symantec as a company has dropped significantly, no amount of performance enhancements can change that.

 

Totally agree, and here I was THINKING of checking out Norton. (I have been VERY anti-Norton but 2009 seemed to be getting some acclaim).

This makes my choice very easy.

I'm sticking with ESET.

 

yeah ill be ditching nis2009 myself and i hate to say that because it really was a awesome program.

 

It's very sad that they should sell out like that.

I kid you not...I was on a flight from BOS to JFK today and read the review of NIS2009 in PCMag, and thought, "OK...I give...I'll give it a try."

Thanks for starting this thread. You saved me some grief.

 

i've never used nis2009, however: does this piece of software allow to add or remove components? if it is possible, it could be offered after running the latest installation file. if it's not... then there is something for norton devs to put on the TODO list, with a high priority i'd say.

 

Hilarious, if only it wasn't so sad.
Using the free version of MBAM and claiming it's a Norton product...
I wonder how many consumers have been duped into paying hard-earned $ for tech support that uses freeware.
Symantec seems to quite happily pull the trigger while aiming at it's own feet.
Very, very saddening.

 

I was also using Eset. After I installed Norton internet security it found a few Trojans that Eset failed to pick up. So far I am not seeing the ask.com on my toolbar but I only see the toolbar if I enable it from view. I'm not ready to get rid of Norton yet.. its seems to be doing a great job for me.

 

Yes. Norton 2009 allows you to turn on/off most components. However, I can't find anyway to turn off the toolbar but can only remove it from view. For me, this is good enough. Now if they force the ask.com on my browser with no way to remove it from view then I will definitely run the Norton removal tool on my system. But this is not good enough for those that want to use Norton's other features on the toolbar like the antiphishing tab or the identity safe log in etc..

 

Ok, I just fired up my desktop which has XP and the ask.com search bar turned up on the Norton toolbar which was off. So Norton put the ask.com search and then proceeded to re-enable my Norton toolbar which I already manually disabled. Now I think Norton is asking for trouble when they start overriding a users settings like that. Anyway, I removed the toolbar from view (again) and its not coming back anymore. I just can't believe that Norton is putting crap like that on paid for software. If it were the free AVG I would understand. Since I don't care for the Norton's toolbar anyway; I don't care.. But it makes me think what they will do next.

And yes, I confirm that when you type a search in FF's search box it puts it into the ask.com search. But it does not enter the search it just puts it there. You have to enter it for it to go to ask.com. I can see Norton is trying very hard to put this spam in without over doing it.. They are dancing a fine line but no doubt will upset a bunch of customers and it will backfire. Its not enough to charge allot for the initial service. They are trying to trap people into paying for chat support now and for advertising.. They want a consumable stream of income.. Not just a fixed purchase price. They are on my radar now.

 

You think ask.com is bad? I got a whole afternoon uninstalling yoog.com (actual spyware that doesn't get deleted by anti-spyware) search toolbar that automatically installs itself into all browsers on my my sister-in-law's PC. I've warned her not to play those silly games she downloads for free off of the internets (diner dashes, sponge bobs, that sort of crap).

 

Yep, I should have been more clear, just couldn't find the right words to say, LOL

 

Why use Norton? It's becoming an adware itself.

 

Yikes.. these guys have a multi-year agreement with ask.com Read about it here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Askcom-and-Symantec-Announce-prnews-14233516.html

 

The actual internet security has a very light footprint. When I say Norton 2009 is light on resources I mean you don't even know its there. The detection rate is pretty amazing as well. You must be referring to the older versions of Norton because the new one is an exceptional product and this coming from a Norton hater. Even with this new ask.com search engine one can remove that from view in 2 seconds. So at this point, Norton Internet security is not reducing my system performance at all and its doing a better job in finding problems then my old nod32. I still recommend it.. as long as you can live without the Norton toolbar.

 

umm think all that is not bad enough see this thread:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=235642

and last i checked the nortons forums were gone

edit now its back up but they continue to remove all threads about the PIFTS.EXE. this is logging your info and sending out to a nortons server...

 

No it gets even worser I went to my powerdesk and windows explorer as well and when right clicking on a file.. it crashes the explorer/powerdesk. I used shellview to disable all the context menu crap from norton in hopes that I could bring back my right click support for windows explorer and my powerdesk.. no go. So I downloaded the norton removal tool and deleted it from system.. somehow I knew that would fix the problem and it did. I now have right click support back and no AV.. crap. The last major update for norton 2009 broke it.. Norton could not well leave something that worked alone. I was on day fifteen on my trial and was about to take the plunge on buying this pathetic piece of crap.. I'll probably never give these bozos another chance.

 

Dave Cole, senior director of product management at Symantec, said the PIFTS file was part of a "diagnostics patch" shipped to Norton customers on Monday evening. The purpose of the update, Cole said, was to hep determine how many customers would need to be migrated to newer versions of its software as more Windows users upgrade to Windows 7.
"We have to make sure before we migrate users to a new product that we can see what kind of load we can expect on our servers, and which customers are going to have to be moved up to the latest version of our product," Cole said.
As to why Symantec has been deleting posts about this from their user forum, Cole said the company noticed that minutes after the update went out hundreds of new users began registering on the forum, leaving inane and sometimes abusive comments.
"We want to be out there in the community, but by the same token, if we see abuse we will shut it down pretty quickly," Cole said. "There was no attempt at secrecy here, but people were spamming the forum and making it unusable to everyone."

 

That definitely concerns me. I have always heard, and read, that Eset had a pretty high capture rate.

I guess that a multi-layered approach is best. I have ESET, alongside Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware and malwarebytes anti-malware.

Does the search for security ever end???? Not as long as there are "bad guys" out there, I guess.

 

i stopped using eset a long time ago imo they are not as good as everyone says. they are very good but not the best. i also switched when other programs found things eset missed numerous times

 

Reading that stuff on the Wilders Security link from a previous post in this thread makes me realize that Norton/Symantec can't seem to leave well-enough alone.

So many of us had left Norton years ago because of the "bloat." They finally had a product which got some of us looking at Norton again, and now they do this.

 

And like I said, after that last update the right click shell options broke. Both my windows explorer and powerdesk program manager would crash the moment I right clicked on a file. The problem resolved itself once I ran the Norton removal tool. Currently I am back to Nod32 with comodo firewall. I would have liked to stick with the Norton but they freaking broke it so what can one do?

 

And this wasn't a 'sellout'....?



I remember ever retail package of Norton had the Hulk emblazoned on the box.