Anti-Virus Company Sued for Scare Tactics

[Xaryn Mar]

Heh, antivirus-makers and virus makers have consisted more or less of the same people since at least the Amiga 500 days of disk-sharing.
And Norton has been a pain as long as I can remember.

 

[Koroviev]

This reminds me of the Prudence organizations in Phillip K. Dick's Ubik. They seem effective in theory, detecting and preventing telepathic security breeches, but those who hire them lack the knowledge and expertise to determine whether or not their services are actually required and for what duration. It should be noted that Ubik was published back in 1969.

 

[Knight Templar]

I think anybody who's ever used Norton could tell you thats how the thing operates. I always wondered how something that slowed the computer down so much could be so ineffective, I knew it was scaming people but I didn't think it did nothing at all.

 

[DiMono]

I've only used AVG since giving Kaspersky the boot for being a resource hog. I will never pay for antivirus protection, because as others have said, it mostly comes down to being diligent and careful as a user. I am, so I don't worry about it.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

ugg this whole thing again. Viruses are attracted to computer illiterates like a rat to cheese.

For someone like me, AVG and a sweep of my temp files is all I need to get rid of most issues.

But for the majority of my family, I have to have an antivirus because they're computer-illiterate enough to BELIEVE the fake messages and click them anyways. (even though I've warned them about em at least five dozen times when removing viruses from their computers)

I can believe that Norton uses scareware tactics, but they aren't that useless. In fact in terms of effectiveness for computer illiterates who need a form of protection, I'd place them in 2nd or third (with Kaspersky placing first.)

Now if you're like the article writer, or me, AVG is perfectly fine. (usually)

 

[Twilight_guy]

And here come the alpha nerds to debate the politics of what anti-virus program works the best... god I feel ashamed to be a computer scientist sometimes.

This is just really not cool on Symantec part and its good to see someone calling out things like this on their scare tactics. People put a lot of trust in antivirus program that they have to just trust to work and betraying that trust is pretty low.

 

[Elementlmage]

I've certainly been unimpressed with so-called security suites for a long while. Freeware alternatives such as AVG do the job just as well, and are devoid of such fear-mongering messages.

Bad Greg Tito! BAD!



In all seriousness, AVG is garbage compared to a decent program like (bleh, cant believe I'm saying this) Norton, and pales in comparison to a serious program like Kaspersky, the biggest disparity being detection rates. AVG has always hovered in the low 90's, where as Norton is in the very high 90's (98+) and Kaspersky has always run in the 99.5+ range (AV only, Kaspersky is NOT an anti-malware program!) However, each one is a gradually larger resource hog, so I can definitely understand someones trepidation towards using them.

 

[uzo]

Anti-Virus Software ? Can you say 'oxymoron'? These things are the worst viruses of all, because they claim to be helping. A virus at least has the decency to laugh in your face, not snigger behind your back and take your money.

EDIT: Yeah .. I guess it's not really an oxymoron. Maybe I should just say 'moron'.

 

[MercurySteam]

I've seen Norton do this on my sister's laptop ever since it expired. I assumed that ir was normal considering it came installed on the darn thing and was prepared to do anything to make sure you keep using it. Christ, even Mcafee doesn't pull this shit. I'll go uninstall it as soon as I can and put on Avast or something.

 

[Frizzle]

Is it me, or did anyone else notice Symantec didn't say anywhere in their statement that the software prevents or destroys viruses or malware?
Yeah great you can shred files that we delete, or help us recover something we accidentally deleted. How about that part where you keep the computer from getting infected like you promise?

For the record I use AVG free and Common Sense.