Can You rely on Norton Anti Virus and Live Update?

Hi All,

I think that it may be time to dump NAV now!
I have been using it for about five years with just the occasional hitch, but now the lack of support is getting to be annoying, and its recent behaviour has been leaving my machine open to viruses. I have read the other posts about Live Update not functioning, but my LU has been lying to me!
I am using Norton System Works 2003, with an up-to-date virus subscription, and I have the habit of starting Live Update two or three times a week just in case I have missed anything. Yesterday I ran Live Update, it connected, ran the update check, and reported that all my Norton programs were up to date. However, I checked the last update downloaded and found it to be fifteen days ago! I used the Intelligent Updater to get the latest virus data OK, but it worries me that LU should lie about available updates, and that even with a current NAV subscription there is no support from Symantec.
It is also rather worrying that Zone Alarm Pro did not warn me that my virus protection was out of date. It always has done in the past if I missed an update by even one day. I shall be raising that point with Zone Labs.

Roger

 

r. leale--I understand you updated the NAV virus definition updates manually using Intelligent Updater at
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/download/pages/US-N95.html
That is what I have been doing for years.
Someone recently tried to tell me that if you set NAV's Live Updates to automatic you will get all program/engine updates every Wednesday and virus definition updates as they become available, since a check is made every four hours. I have certainly not found the latter to be true.
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=45932
P.S. I also found over the years that Intelligent Updater gave me virus definition updates long after the subscription was over, but of course, I got no engine updates.

 

Hi Jim, I'm not clear on what you find not to be true. When once upon a time I ran LU, LU set up by default a schedule of checking Symantec's servers every four hours as Johanna referred to in that thread, easily checked by going into Scheculed Tasks in the control panel.

I stopped using LU because it was more effective to manually check or as you do, use Intelligent Updater via Rapid Updater. A huge percentage of Symantec problems seem to originate with LU developing problems over time, which this thread being the latest example

Regards - Charles

 

charlesvar--Maybe automatic LU does "check" every four hours, but neither that or using LU manually got me new virus definition updates very often.
So I use LU manually every now and then to get engine updates, but go to the site mentioned to get new virus definitions daily.

 

Hi Jim,

but neither that or using LU manually got me new virus definition updates very often.

So I use LU manually every now and then to get engine updates, but go to the site mentioned to get new virus definitions daily..

Agreed, to quote myself: I stopped using LU because it was more effective to manually check or as you do, use Intelligent Updater via Rapid Updater.

I use RapidUpdater which updates the defs instead of downloading them all again from the same source as you do.

The notion of using auto LU is silly in the case of Symantec, whether it checks every four hours or not - useless if nothing there, so again, agreed. I've been puzzled why Symantec doesn't run their auto update the way everyone else does.

Regards - Charles

 

I've been using Norton a/v as a part of Norton System Works 2005 in XPpro/SP2 It auto updates new virus information fairly regularly, but you can check for yourself at any time. So far, it has worked faultlessly for me on two drives - indeed it has caught e-mail viruses before I open them. I also use anti-trojan software which sometimes finds possible trojans in downloaded software (including in its own software!!!!)

I do accept the Symantec's help facility leaves a lot to be desired.

 

okay this may sound stupid but where are you getting norton antivirus to update every 4 hours. not a setting from what i can find in my norton 2005. my understanding is symantec updates definitions, etc every weds night for downloads on thurs. thats what one of their tech once told me unless there is a critical bug out there that needs to be zapped.

personally am switching come oct when my sub ends and going with bitdefender pro. good program, good reviews and i've installed many times on clients machine and its just what it says it is. not over powering on the machine either and you can set the update frequency to whatever you wish. default is every 3 hours.

i tried zonealarm combo program the firewall and antivirus. wasnt impressed. i love their firewall but wasnt crazy about the antivirus. dont like the interface of ez armor either. pccillian is okay also.

just my 2 cents.

 

Its even worse than four hours: Thru the control panel > scheduled tasks you'll see Symantec NetDetect, look at the Schedule tab, its every 5 minutes. Since I disabled it first thing, didn't pay any more attention, forgot that it was changed to 5 minutes, possibly with NAV2005, I just don't know.

I use ZAP (Pro firewall w/o the rest of the "stuff ") on one of my XP installations and like it very much.

Regards - Charles

 

gghartmann--

Presume you have NAV set to AutoProtect and run at boot, so you have the NAV icon in the Notification Area (formerly Systems Tray). Right click on that icon, click Open Norton Antivirus and I think the first window you will get will show Automatic Live Update at the bottom. Click on those words. In the right hand pane click Enable. Or you can right click that icon|Configure Norton AntiVirus. Under Internet click LiveUpdate in the left panel and check the appropriate boxes in the next window|OK.
Of course, you can also do the above from Start|All Programs|Norton.

 

Perhaps there is a little confusion here

The fact that NAV wants to connect to Symantec servers every 5 minutes doesn't mean that the latest Virus def updates are downloaded.

Symantec reserves the "up to the minute" defs for the Intelligent Update site - that was what I was referring to when I wrote that I was puzzled by Symantec's not making the same defs available via LU.

Regards - Charles

 

Trend Micro is better

I was so fed up with Norton that I switched alltogether, for less money you can go with Trend Micro, get both the firewall and antivirus, and it updates every 3 hours, takes less system resources, which I felt right away after having dumped Norton and installed Trend Micro. Norton used to be much better, no longer

 

No more Norton AV for me...

SystemWorks 2003 was the last reliable product they had, so it's disappointing to hear that now has trouble too.
I had been a loyal Norton customer since 1997, but after installing SystemWorks 2005 on one machine and 2005 premiere on two others, I had nothing but trouble.
Two of those machines have now had their hard drives formatted, and everything reinstalled except Norton. One has eTrust EZ Armor, and the other has eTrust Antivirus; while they both do a great job and have each caught some bad things, I do prefer the interface of eTrust Antivirus. I can see them performing actual updates several times a day, not just "looking at the server ". I have them set to update every 8 hours, but have seen some updates occur in between times. I don't care what you did with Live Update, you only got fresh definitions once a week. The final straw for me was when I went to the Intelligent Updater and was told that I couldn't get updates because my subscription (good until November) had expired. This is the same machine that got infected because Norton decided to unregister itself, and instead of giving any real warning, it just quit doing anything at all.
After posting here and asking people's opinions, I settled on the Computer Associates products (will upgrade the EZ Armor machine to eTrust AV when it's subscription is up), and have been quite satisfied! I called them more than once to ask questions, and always got them answered!
After I made a lot of noise, Symantec has offered to refund me the retail price of the 2005 products; too bad I can't collect for all the hours wasted trying to get their products to work, and then cleaning up after them.
Much happier with eTrust!
Dave H

 

Okay I know what intelligent updater is, but what is rapid updater?

Alicia

 

My experience....

I've had similar problems with older versions of NAV as well even with the Coroprate Edition I have for my work LAN. What I found was that I needed to check Start - Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Scheduled Tasks to make sure the Updater was actually a valid task. If not there then it won't run even if Norton Schedule (In the NAV program) says it will.

Also note that you will only get DAT / Virus Signature files in you updates as Enginee files and other utilities may not be published any longer for your version of the software.....every couple of years - no matter who's software you are using - engines and utils will change to address "modern / more current" bugs.....it will pay in the long run to make those update purchases.....the most I expect to get out of any of these programs - Norton or McAffee or Tren Micro is about 2 maybe 3 years beofre having to bite the bullet and upgrade.

 

Nobody has commented on the most critical point of my initial post yet!
When I run Live Update, it runs, checks for updates at Symantec, (I can see traffic in ZA), and then reports that all my Norton 2003 products are up to date. I was connected by broad band for 15 days with outdated virus definitions because of that.
That is more than just a small failure on the part of Symantec, it is getting close to being malicious, and have you tried getting support from Symantec lately?

Roger

 

Hello Alicia,

www.excessive-software.eu.tt Scroll down a bit to RapidUpdater v1.0

Hi Rodger,

This variation of LU problems I've never run into.

Support and Symantec is an oxymoron.

http://castlecops.com/forum82.html is a Symantec support forum at Castle Cops - you may want to run it by them.

Regards - Charles

 

Norton will NEVER again touch any PC I control

After using Norton prroducts from the beginning, when Peter sold the company things started going the way of a badly run corporate entity. After having troubles in 2003 with Norton System and getting no support (without paying thru the nose) and finding out that even after uninstall that their stuff was still hanging around. I reformated and vowed to never install a Noton product again.
I now use AVAST Pro anti-virus they push definition updates almost daily without me having to do anything. A little blue box appears for about 5 secs and a voice tells me that the definitions have been updated. I highly recomend it.
I miss Peter Norton (the person)!!!!!

 

Thanks for the link to the Rapid Updater Charlesvar.

 

I get this error if the rapid updater tries to run when my screen saver is on.

Failed to download file from Web. (#3, Line 5)

Invalid URL supplied.
http://definitions.symantec.com/defs/rapidrelease/newdefs.txt

Anyone else seen this? I have given SUF60 Runtime access thru ZA as a pass lock program. It runs fine when the screen saver is off. I have it set thru task scheduler to run once a day at a specific time. I do not have my computer set to sleep/hibernate/nod off after a specific time interval, ever. I even set the password as the little wizard suggested. What is that for, to make sure no one else changes the schedule?

Any ideas?

Alicia

 

Add one more person who formerly used Norton AV/Firewall and finally chucked it a year ago (after seven years of faithfully using nothing else). Like a former poster said, Trend Micro uses fewer resources, gives updates every three hours and has provided excellent protection for the past year now at a fraction of the cost of Symantec's equivalent.