Either Safer Networking Ltd. or Symantec leaving the Anti Spyware Coalition...

[chaozhouzi]

Like most of you, I was galvanised to register to post after reading the news.

My 3 PCs come with NIS preinstalled. I removed them sometime ago because it let in trojans (3 nos.) into one of my PC. I managed to install Avast! to remove the trojans and there was no looking back since.

If you have NIS, do the same and get rid of this crap.

I have Spybot S & D, Zonealarm, Ad Aware and Avast on my systems now.

Keep up the good work Spybot team.

[reebangel]

I'm a 60-year-old woman with zero ties to the computing industry. I grind no axes. I bought the whole Norton Big Kahuna and was seriously annoyed at how many problems it caused with my computer. After 3 or 4 paid 'repairs' my techie had pity on me and told me that Norton was causing my problems. He removed it for me and sent me here. I made him my prize-winning Antique New York Cheesecake (with a card containing a less fattening token of my esteem...i.e. money) as a thank-you present.

Hi! [waves to everyone]

RA

[NJuser]

[QUOTE=Zenobia;45696]You mean this page?
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT...ocument&seg=hm

Yes, that was the page that I looked at.

I also agree that the pop up screen should have more information, such as what seems to be the Symantec position regarding SS&D from the above link.

From the forum mentioned below in your message it seems to be talking about a beta or trial version, but I may be mistaken, being more an issue.

Since Symantec updated the first link within the past week, I would have to assume that it is the current position of Symantec regarding SS&D.

I have used their products for years and have used SS&D for years and it was very helpful a couple of years ago cleaning up some problems that I had in spite of Norton's protection. Yes, I have paid for Norton and yes, I have made a contribution for SS&D.

[highlanditsupportltd]

We love Norton Internet Security - we make money by removing it from our customers' PCs!!!

[Pathfinder174]

All this from the company that `assimilated' Sygate... originally to expand their complete line of coverage for Symantec Firewall products. Yeah, that got k/o'd real quick, save their Enterprise lineup.

[Fuziwuzi]

I swore by the corporate version of Symantec antivirus for years. My company would get renewals and I would update as they came out. It would get new definitions on a daily basis.

About 2 months ago, however, my computer became infected with some sort of trojan that actually used the Symantec email proxy as its method of spamming/spreading. My computer tried to send out THOUSANDS of emails, dozens at a time. Thankfully I was able to catch it before many went out by turning off my cablemodem. I did a complete scan with Symantec, it found nothing, but nowhere could I find where these emails were being stored in order to delete them from Symantec's queue. Every time I activated my modem, the emails would try to send.

Finally, I uninstalled all of Symantec, powered on my modem, and went to the free.grisoft.com site to download the free AVG antivirus. During the install it detected and removed 3 trojan programs that were running on my computer, one a "trojan proxy tool" that obviously was designed to use proxies like the Symantec.

I emailed Symantec support, even included the found files, but they denied that their product was being used by any malware (even though I sent them system logs which proved it was). They were far more concerned with anyone else finding out their product was actually being targeted and thus unsafe than in attempting to correct the problem.

I'm now a paid AVG antivirus user and will never, ever go back to Symantec products. And neither will my company, we've cancelled all Symantec product use.

[ghalton]

Resource hogging software that is far worse to remove than malware! I despise the amount of time Symantec has cost me in "repairing" PCs both at work and privately, when the only fault was there garbage software.

Spybot has been a faithful friend for many years.

[glush777]

Re the Norton's versus Spybot issue, I have been using both for about five years. I experienced no problems until recently. The Computer Repair Shop advised me that the New Versions of Norton's are a nuisance - slowing computers down.

Considering their attitude, I cannot support Symantec or Norton in any way. I agree that anti-spyware should detect them completely.

[zaphodb777]

If you want to detect Norton, only do it if the following condition is true...

If there is a copy of NPROTECT.EXE on the hard drive, you can call the norton install hostile/malware. This program is the infamous Norton Rootkit (Aka Protected Recycle Bin). I found a Direct Connect++ p2p client running on my machine from inside the hidden (from the API) directory.

***ADVANCED USERS ONLY***

To neuter it, rename NPROTECT.EXE to XNPROTECTX.EXE and reboot. Then prowl your recycle bin via CMD prompt, and INSIDE (not at recycler root) every directory of your recycl~1 type in these 2 commands.

attrib *.* -S -H -A -R
attrib *. -S -H -A -R

Then go about deleting all the files you find therein. Don't delete the directories, unless you are sure you can. Never ever delete the root recycler directory.

As long as NPROTECT.EXE cannot be found at boot, then the rootkit cannot run.

(I of course take no responsibility for what you may injure following above setps)

Zap

[PepiMK]

That new Symantec knowledgebase article was a direct reaction to our complaint, coming right afterwards.
So that's one think we've got to thank everyone for, your voices already helped, thank you