Norton's awesome product, and what it DIDN'T find or remove..

[Kitten Kong]

Hi everyone. Permission has been given by my client, for me to post about this.

Bit of a back story. Client previously had Norton 360, tune up utils etc, the whole 9 yards on their laptop.

Anyhow, said client brings in their laptop on Tues, as it was not booting up correctly. Quickly diagnosed and repaired.

Client asks me to give it a once over, so I do. Immediately on the desktop, I find the usual malware - pc optimiser, my pc backup..

In total, over 8900 'infections' were removed, with the normal tools.

I mentioned to my client, that Norton is pretty much regarded as a joke by most technicians, due to what it doesn't find. She said that Norton had remoted into her machine only 2 weeks ago, and didn't mention anything about malware on the machine.

So completed the job, and my client wanted to know exactly what was removed, as she was going to be in touch with Norton about this job.
34!! pages of report later (giving total details of what prog, removed what from where), she gets in touch with Norton this evening.

Thank you for contacting Norton Support! You are currently 1 in the queue.

If you need help with downloading and installing a Norton product, we have an online tutorial with step-by-step instructions available at www.norton.com/download
While you wait, please feel free to check it out.
You are now entering the chat room.

Welcome to Norton Support, my name is Vignesh Kumar_A. Please give me a minute to go through the information you have provided.
Bernie: if you give me an email address I will send a copy of the report
Vignesh Kumar_A: Hi Bernie I can understand your concern. I will certainly help you with this issue.
Bernie: How?
Vignesh Kumar_A: May I confirm your active email address as xxxxx.xxx?
Bernie: yes that is my email
Vignesh Kumar_A: Thank you for confirming, Bernie.
Bernie: hello
Vignesh Kumar_A: Bernie viruses are from the unwanted application which get downloaded in your computer while you use your internet.
Bernie: I know what they are and Norton are supposed to check and get rid
Bernie: that is what I paid for
Bernie: I would like a full refund for the past three years of having Norton and it not doing what it is supposed to. One of your tech was on here remotely recently and he didn't pick up a problem
Bernie: hello
Bernie: can you give me your attention please
Vignesh Kumar_A: I understand your concern, Bernie. The file system of Norton and with other software are different. By default Norton will block the virus in the background and will not allow any files which is suspicious file.
Bernie: it didn't
Bernie: it didn't block any
Bernie: there were thousands on my laptop
Bernie: that is my main complaint!
Vignesh Kumar_A: There are some software which will show all the files seem to be suspicious and will show it when you run the scan.
Vignesh Kumar_A: We do have a advanced virus removal tool and we can check if your computer is affected with virus or not.
Bernie: I want a refund
Bernie: your not going near my computer again
Bernie: I have had an advanced tool, your technician remoted in and claimed the computer as being clean. My computer was infected, so I took it to a professional, and now it is clean!!!
Vignesh Kumar_A: May I place your chat on hold for 2 min so that I will check with your records?
Vignesh Kumar_A: Thank you for your patience.
Vignesh Kumar_A: Bernie I will provide you a full refund for the Norton AntiVirus which was purchased on September 6.
Bernie: That will be satisfactory
Vignesh Kumar_A: Thank you, Bernie.

Usual story it appears of, Norton is the bees knees, it does everything it should do.. But they were fast enough in giving her a refund.. and rightfully so.

 

[mraikes]

I'm in no way a Norton fanboy, but there's a big difference between actual viruses and malware vs crapware like PC Backup and Optimizer. I see that stuff or similar on almost every machine that crosses my bench regardless of the A/V brand.

Does anything other than Unchecky stand a chance against non-malevolent junk like that?

 

[Kitten Kong]

There was far more, then the usual crapware installed. Mywebsearch, Funwebproducts, et al.

The vast majority of it was crapware, I have to admit, but over 8,000 infections.. the norton tech could not of looked at the desktop, else he'd of known it was infected, and or at least mentioned it to my client.

Unchecky is the best by far imo, for stopping the yes/next brigade. Every single machine which comes into the workshop has it installed by default.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Can't say for sure. I know some guys hate Avast, but I found a setting due to an article in PCworld recently. If you go under the menus to active protection, Sensitivity, and turn hueristics to the highest level, a little below that there's a setting that allows it to scan for PUPs as well. It was on a machine I was working on, and I'd already run my usual scans, turned on that setting, and shortly, ding ding it found and killed 2 more things after I'd run rogue killer, JRT, adwcleaner to name some. I'm not saying Avast is the greatest AV, but I use Avast on my home PC and will definitely be using this feature.

 

[mrapoc]

I tested the gfi vipre av on a crapware infected PC. Surprisingly it went after the pups too which is great. Most av hardly target them.

Unchecky is a good shout

 

[frase]

Avast is good, if one sets it up correctly. Though a paid solution, can't go past Kaspersky.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Yes, that's the key if using Avast is setting it up correctly. If you set it properly, avast seems quiet and well behaved, and seems to do a good job at catching things. I did try a demo of kaspersky as well and it seemed good also. I do like the fact of how light avast seems though, at least on their free product.