Channel Register

Symantec wins big in UK bootleg software case

Dominic Contardi

"...software that won’t work properly, and may disrupt their system..." 

Joke

As opposed to Norton Anti-Virus, then?

Anonymous Coward

title 

"The court barred the defendents from dealing in counterfeit Symantec software..."

A bit like banning a 15-year-old joy-rider from driving in the UK for two years. Or are other people/companies are allowed to deal in counterfeit software?

Andrew Ness

@DC 

Coat

Yes - screwing up your system is entirely the province of Symantec.

They should patent it.

Anonymous Coward

Have Symantec been hacked then? 

Stop

I downloaded Internet Security 2008 from their web site and it does not work properly and disrupts my systems. Are they pedalling counterfeit software?

Honestly, I have used the Norton products for many years and for the last two years they have steadily got worse to the point that they are more disruptive than a virus. Makes Microsofts Live One Care look polished and professional!

david wilson

@dominic 

I think it's the glow of certainty that's the difference.

"Why buy knock-off software that may screw up your systems, when you could go legit and remove all doubt?"

David Neil

...software that won’t work properly, and may disrupt their system... 

Coat

Having seen PCanywhere repeatedly lock up windows servers in our place, I'd be hard pushed to tell the difference...

David Perry

software disrupting systems 

Norton AV may be slow but it's never screwed up on me. Their internet security suite as a whole, mainly the firewall, isn't worth bothering with.

Anonymous Coward

Norton AV: @Dominic Contardi 

Why the "joke" icon? It's true, and it's not funny :-( the amount of IT admin hours it wastes...

Anonymous Coward

Why bother copying ? 

Linux

Symantec stuff has been bloated crap for years now that applies 4 disc brakes to the OS !

Symantec should be paying the guy to give the stuff away.

Tom

Don't buy... 

Pirate

counterfeit software that won’t work properly, and may disrupt your system.

Only buy genuine Symantec software that won’t work properly, and will disrupt your system.

Anonymous Coward

At least you know with Norton 

That your system will be so slow and crippled that any hack attempt will probably time out, and the kids can't surf porn as they wouldn't wait long enough...

Cripples your system, but it's the good kind of crippling that protects you... kind of like breaking someone's legs so they can't throw themselves off the car park.

JeffyPooh

Symantec-Sucks.blogspot.com 

Thumb Down

I bought Norton Internet Security 2007 3-pack for my three PCs. I became so amazingly frustrated that I had to start a Symantec-Sucks blog simply to have somewhere to paste the many cut-and-paste screen captures of their blatant cock-ups. Image after image of blatant errors on their part. The blog has more than 100 posts now. And these are not silly little blame-the-user finger problems. These are plainly stupid errors on their part documented with screen captures.

I've removed the NIS crap from my old XP desktop (works much better now). The next two PCs will go freeware once the Symantec subscriptions expire. Why anyone would steal a pile of dung is beyond me. What next, steal a copy SAP? Gag me with a fork.

Richard Porter

Don't buy... 

Alert

Actually the software isn't counterfeit. In all probability the outfit was selling an accurate transcription, albeit in breach of copyright. Only the packaging is counterfeit. So if it cripples your system then it would do the same if bought from Symantec.

Jay

No more NIS 

Stop

I have to agree with one of the AC above. I've used NAV/NIS for quite a few years now, and until NIS2008 I had no real complaints (slowing stuff down is a given).

Quite simply NIS2008 is just horrible. For a few months when I asked my PC to shutdown it would seemingly hang on the shutdown screen. A bit of investigation pointed toward a Symantec process just not wanting to go away. This annoyed me so much I even logged a support call with Symmentec. They wheren't much help, but I don't recall seeing the problem as of late, so maybe they fixed that in one of the frequent updates...

...which brings me onto the new LiveUpdate front end. On previous versions of LiveUpdate you'd get a decent window that not only told you what it was downloading, but how big the files where and how much of them it has downloaded. Now you just get something with some red/green traffic lights telling you that it is either downloading or installing updates. So you have no real clue of what it's doing and more importantly, how long it might take.

Stuff like this combined with the nastiness that is Vista has prompted me to move to Mac in a few months when I've saved up my pennies. I know that Macs aren't invunerable and have their own problems, but I've had enough!

JeffyPooh

Norton downloads 46 files to check for updates 

Thumb Down

I posted on my blog about how NIS07 has to download about 46 separate files just to check to see if there are any updates. It takes about a full minute even with high speed Internet - just to CHECK for updates. My blog post on this subject included a cut-and-paste text grab of the entire 3-foot long process of checking for updates. What was their first reaction? They disabled right-click in that update window (as if that slowed me down by even 5 seconds). They really 'fixed it' in NIS08 by hiding the details of the world's most inefficient update check process. They're not only stupid, but they also have an evil streak too.

John Dougald McCallum

Semantic 'R' c**p 

Happy

I got rid of this Piece of Sh1te about a year ago now use Avira AntiVir Updates every day takes about 30/40 seconds No problems so far as for a firewall I use Comodo and its FREE !!!!!!!!