Symantec vs. Spybot

[Steve]

Safer-Networking.org, the home of Spybot S&D, posted earlier in the week a slightly saddening story of the way they've been treat by the creators of Norton AntiVirus, Symantec. It was only just mentioned on Slashdot, however, so has only just come to my attention.

Some time ago Norton was reporting Spybot Search & Destroy as a false positive. Spybot informed Symantec of this, but they took no action, only getting arsey once Spybot publically pointed this information out on Safer-Networking. It was then that Symantec did something about it.

Since then, however, Symantec has begun recommending to users that they uninstall Spybot S&D because it corrupts Norton Ghost image files. They haven't given any information about this to the Spybot authors however.

Since we wanted to play fair, we gave them a full week to show us evidence that Spybot-S&D would be corrupting Norton Ghost images before we would publically announce this. Mr. Guido Sanchidrian, product marketing manager of Symantec, appeared offended when we told him that his mentioning of honourable non-public discussions in case of incompatibilities seemed to be a farce, but he told us they would take this very seriously and answer on the last day of the given timeframe.

Well, this time is over now, without any explanation why Spybot-S&D would corrupt Norton Ghost images, and I had to threat to sue them with legal action for compensation to get them to remove the name Spybot-S&D.

[Safer-Networking]

The bottom line is it looks as though Symantec is playing dirty and pushing an anti-spyware competitor out of the market. It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

[sawyen]

Im not suprised really.. Norton's security suite has been problems all along.. Everything gets so resticted, and I had to wait for a dozen files to get scanned before I get to complete the installation for FEAR. Moved to McAfee and all has been great..

AFAIK, Norton deserves the whipping..

[Jonny M]

Everything Symantec are doing now in the home-user space is complete turd, and the enterprise products they are buying out they are managing to totally destroy at the same time. Just buy NOD32 and be done with it.

[Kef9]

Spybot is the most amazing piece of software there is. I hope they sue for every penny.

Go Patrick!!!!!!

[scottyman]

that's pretty shocking IMHO,
I've got a number of clients who are running Symantec's Corporate NAV, which is giving no end of issues. Considering what they've paid for it - they (and I) get no real support. As a paid-for solution, it doesn't offer any real security benefit.
In most cases I've recommended an immediate switch to McAfee's small business solutions, as the built in reporting is far superior, and allow's an immediate overview of problem areas to management (since I charge for on-site support)
Plus, I can define global site policy, and monitor this remotely - rather than having to have a terminal services connection to the server and run a report manually.

It only seems to be their home user products that are affected, as none of the corporate products show this as a critical issue, which is an even more perverse action by Symantec.

I've just confirmed this by running a full scan on my g/f's office laptop (which has Corp NAV 9, remote administered by her MIS dept) and that's thrown up no warnings about the Spybot S&D which has been on her machine for a good 6 months now!

[TheAnimus]

Its funny how MS get an anti-trust suite for shipping IE with windows, yet lots of companies are okay to ship norton antivirus with their machines.

Not to mention when a company like PCWorld have a favourate its a rather more serious abuse of trust.

But a posistion of trust as an security suite, its far more damaging.

Everyone has a favourate anti-virus software, few choose symantec.
(Sophos, McAfee are mine).

[badass]

While I often find the behaviour of various companies despickable, provided their software is in my opinion best for the customer or home user I will still recommend their software, even though I would rather see them go bankrupt, as it (was, in previous jobs) my duty to go for the best solution for the business in question. Many IT people fail to do this and allow their fanboyness to make them recommend inferior prodicts to customers purely because they like them.
However with this having come to light, if anyone asks for my reccomendation on what to do for internet security, while I would occsionally recommend Norton Anti Virus (not internet security or personal firewall) depending on the situation, it seems that whatever the situation, the customer is better off getting rid of it. Not only are they not that good at actually detecting threats, now they are identifying competition as false positives.
I shall not be reccomending anything from Symantec again for anyone, and if they have it already installed, I will be far more likely to recommend they remove it and use something else.
I really wish they had not bought Veritas, as I prefer Backup exec to the other backup options available for most, and will still recommend it when appropriate.

[johnny02004976]

Just buy NOD32 and be done with it.

Could not agree more - i ditched Symantec for NOD32 and have never looked back, Spybot is also a nice bit of kit

[iranu]

Symantec software is now on my do not ever install list, along with AOL, NTL, BT, Dell, Sony, Zone Alarm and a few others (win amp might get a reprieve soon)

[fuddam]

Norton is Notorious, full stop. Messes up your system, clogs it with junk, slows it down etc

have avoided their products like the plague for years now. Good to see someone like Spybot kick them in the buttski

[Ed Omega]

I hope Patrick sues the s*** out of them. Symantec continue to make unfounded claims against other companies and it is about time they learned that this policy will cost them. I find it surprising that any norton product finds issues with Spybot as it seems to be totally unable to find issue with virus' or trojans, so actually flagging a legit product is some sort of miracle!!

Mcafee had an issue with Spybot about 18 months ago (under a certain setup it gave a warning about one of spybots files) and all they did was patch it as soon as they found it, no mess, no fuss and certainly no blaming Patricks product.

By the way, has everyone who uses Spybot donated? If you use it and like it (lets face it, its a brilliant product) then don't forget to send him a token of your appreciation.

[SpawnofSonic]

sadening really, spybot is an invaluable tool, i think they are trying to get their own anti-spyware out and wanan push spybt out of the market, i havnt used their home software in ages, too buggy, memory eating and leaves too much "mess" behind. Even their corporate stuff im not ot on, SOPHOS for corporate in my opinion. May have to check out this NOD32 though, havnt used it to date...

[Synergy6]

TBH, based on my own experiences with Symantec products, and other stories in a similar vein (such as Norton Protected Bin using Sony-esque root kit technology to resist uninstalls), stuff like this amazes yet fails to surprise me.
Full power and goodluck to Spybot, which is a program I've had installed for years now, and still regularly use.
Synergy6

[TheAnimus]

The concept of norton protected recycled bin is more than just a simple kernel mode hook (often called a 'rootkit'). So i think its a bit unfair to comment about that.

[Jonny M]

I really wish they had not bought Veritas, as I prefer Backup exec to the other backup options available for most, and will still recommend it when appropriate.

I prefer Retrospect

[nichomach]

Symantec's approach to the companies that they've bought IS pretty crap, as Caged's pointed out. In another thread, I pointed someone toward Volume Manager, which was a truly great utility for managing (resizing etc) volumes on servers on the fly - the enterprise version of Partition Magic with some neat additional features. Originally Powerquest, bought by Veritas and then apparently killed by Symantec but with no adequate alternative product.