Snafu
05-27-2005, 06:10 AM
A bit of a rant for this Friday morning.
Is it just me or does Norton practice shady marketing by praying on the fears of the unsuspecting?
I have used NAV System works for the past few years (I'll admit that I may not have known better 'til last year). This includes NAV as well as some Utilites. I have also installed Norton's Firewall.
Faithfully, I download updates, fixes, newer versions, whatever it tells me I need to update. I decided that enough was enough with Norton and the relentless fee to keep their proggy updated or the annual "new & improved" version (are annual versions really necessary?).
Anyways, all is fine with NAV and System Works for 364 days of the year's "subscription". On day 365 *BANG*. NAV starts popping up warnings about files being infected with Trojan-this or Trojan-that. Obviously concerned, I terminate teh net connection and start scanning with NAV. Luckily I was ready for Norton's little tricks and previously installed AVG and had it updated with current definitions. So I also ran AVG.
Now can y'all guess what both NAV and AVG found on my system? After searching through some 100,000 files/entries they both came back and told me that I was infected with NOTHING!!!
So WTF is going on here :scratch: ??? Why is a pop up window from NAV telling me files are infected with a Trojan virus if nothing is actually infected??? The nearest thing I can figure out is that this is a scam of Norton. I think it is still protecting your system (I am not 100% sure) based on the definitions it has but everytime it detects something a window pops up telling that a certain file was infected. The reason? IMO this is mainly a scare tactic to get you to renew your subscription or buy the Annual version of NAV. Basically a marketing scam to catch the less-informed for more money.
Here is another irk-some aspect of NAV. The Auto-Protect feature automatically disables itself with each boot. After booting your system you have to manually enabled the Auto-Protect feature at least once and more often than not I have had to enabled it at least twice before it woudl stay enabled.
Here is the last annoying bit. I receive daily reminders to renew the subscription. You can choose to have it remind you in 15 days (I will try this) BUT IT WILL NOT LET YOU TURN OFF THE ANNOYING REMINDER!!!
Now if this isn't a very cheesy way to make money then I don't know what is. They are nearly as low in my books as teh scumm that write the virus proggies to begin with.
From this experience IMO I think Norton really wants you to get infected. Why? So they can say "we told you to renew with us to keep your system safe" and collect some additional funds from you. What a crock! :rolleyes:
Although I woudl like to have NAV still running as a secondary AV program I am thinking of uninstalling every app that was installed with Norton System works. Mainly to be done with the annoying reminders and extra steps it takes to ensure that bloody thing still protects your system.
I am not sure how long I will keep it around. With a clean install I suspect I will loose all the wonderful updates and fixes that I downloaded over the year :beat: . So there is probably no reason to keep Norton around anymore.
What do ya think?
Is it just me or does Norton practice shady marketing by praying on the fears of the unsuspecting?
I have used NAV System works for the past few years (I'll admit that I may not have known better 'til last year). This includes NAV as well as some Utilites. I have also installed Norton's Firewall.
Faithfully, I download updates, fixes, newer versions, whatever it tells me I need to update. I decided that enough was enough with Norton and the relentless fee to keep their proggy updated or the annual "new & improved" version (are annual versions really necessary?).
Anyways, all is fine with NAV and System Works for 364 days of the year's "subscription". On day 365 *BANG*. NAV starts popping up warnings about files being infected with Trojan-this or Trojan-that. Obviously concerned, I terminate teh net connection and start scanning with NAV. Luckily I was ready for Norton's little tricks and previously installed AVG and had it updated with current definitions. So I also ran AVG.
Now can y'all guess what both NAV and AVG found on my system? After searching through some 100,000 files/entries they both came back and told me that I was infected with NOTHING!!!
So WTF is going on here :scratch: ??? Why is a pop up window from NAV telling me files are infected with a Trojan virus if nothing is actually infected??? The nearest thing I can figure out is that this is a scam of Norton. I think it is still protecting your system (I am not 100% sure) based on the definitions it has but everytime it detects something a window pops up telling that a certain file was infected. The reason? IMO this is mainly a scare tactic to get you to renew your subscription or buy the Annual version of NAV. Basically a marketing scam to catch the less-informed for more money.
Here is another irk-some aspect of NAV. The Auto-Protect feature automatically disables itself with each boot. After booting your system you have to manually enabled the Auto-Protect feature at least once and more often than not I have had to enabled it at least twice before it woudl stay enabled.
Here is the last annoying bit. I receive daily reminders to renew the subscription. You can choose to have it remind you in 15 days (I will try this) BUT IT WILL NOT LET YOU TURN OFF THE ANNOYING REMINDER!!!
Now if this isn't a very cheesy way to make money then I don't know what is. They are nearly as low in my books as teh scumm that write the virus proggies to begin with.
From this experience IMO I think Norton really wants you to get infected. Why? So they can say "we told you to renew with us to keep your system safe" and collect some additional funds from you. What a crock! :rolleyes:
Although I woudl like to have NAV still running as a secondary AV program I am thinking of uninstalling every app that was installed with Norton System works. Mainly to be done with the annoying reminders and extra steps it takes to ensure that bloody thing still protects your system.
I am not sure how long I will keep it around. With a clean install I suspect I will loose all the wonderful updates and fixes that I downloaded over the year :beat: . So there is probably no reason to keep Norton around anymore.
What do ya think?