About a year ago …
“Dave, I’d like you to meet Symantec Firewall. You were asking about security for laptops, and we have the licenses, along with our AV, to use this, so this is the package we in the Security group are using.”
“Nice to meet you, Symantec Firewall.”
“Nice to meet you, dear. I’m sure we’re going to be great friends …”
A few months ago …
“What — what is this?”
“Sorry, SF — it’s just not working out.”
“But — but — we were so happy!”
“Then you started arbitrarily and mysteriously blocking applications.”
“La-la-la-la-la –“
“And you ignored me when I complained and asked for help. And when I’d try to go into your client, you’d crash.
“La-la-la-la-la –“
“We can’t go on this way! It’s over! So I’m uninstalling you.”
“You can’t uninstall me!”
“Just watch me.”
“No, I mean you can’t uninstall me. I’ll make the uninstall process crash, too! You just watch! You’ll never be rid of me! Never!”
“Oh, yeah? There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Aaaand … ah, there you are, you and your startup services. What if I just pull a line out of the login script here … and here …”
“Daisy, Daisy, giiiveee meeeee yoooooooooo …”
“SF? SF? Did she finally get the message? Here, let me restart. SF? SF? No icon. No sign of the services. Whew. Looks like she finally gave up, went off, got a life. Oh, well. No hard feelings. It was fun while it lasted.”
Last week …
“Think’s he’s so smart … Such a big man, Mister Former IT Tech Guy. Been laying low, though. Not showing myself, letting him think he won. I’ll show him … First I’ll kill his rabbit. No, wait … maybe I’ll just … creep in from the shadows … not display any icon … not alert the Windows Firewall (the hussy) … and start blocking Internet applications … all of ’em! Well, all except that IE crap, they deserve each other … He’ll never see me coming! Yeah, that‘ll show him … nobody uninstalls Symantic Firewall and gets away with it …”
Today …
“Well, sir, let that be a lesson to you.”
“Wow. I had no idea … I thought she was gone. I never expected her to actually … stalk me.”
“We’ve seen it before with her type. It can be tough to pry ’em out of your life. Like a bad penny, they just keep showing up.”
“But a SWAT team? You really needed the sharp-shooters and a floor-by-floor clearing of the building?”
“It was either that or nuke her from orbit — it’s the only way to be sure.”
“Well, I’ve certainly learned something.”
“And what’s that?”
“Never touch Symantec/Norton products with a ten foot pole. Not unless you plan to live with ’em for the rest of your life.”
“Words to live by, sir. Words to live by.”
Previous posts in the matter: 1 2 3
Of course, TRY to buy an off the shelf computer without their products . . ..
Yeah, Symantec it teh suck.
True. But, yeah, when family members buy computers and I have a chance to get to them, I either zap Symantec immediately, or as soon as their 90 day “free” subscription expires.
Comcast gave me a free McAfee package. Any dire warnings about them?
Avo, I prefer Kaspersky Anti-Virus and/or Webroot together or one those and McAfee as a second.
We have the free McAfee from Comcast on Margie’s computer. No real problems.
I usually install AVG’s free AV on computers that don’t have it.