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Software Symantec Says LiveConnect is Not Adware
Brandon Hill (Blog) - November 10, 2006 8:52 AM
Print 35 comment(s) - last by Iger.. on Nov 15 at 6:14 AM
Symantec shoots down adware claims

Symantec is in the news again, and this time it isn't over Kernel PatchGuard. The company's new Norton LiveConnect software is being deemed by users as unwanted adware.

The new software was unleashed this week and has been filtering down to customers via LiveUpdate. The listing for LiveConnect would show up on customers' LiveUpdate dialog box, but gave no indication on what the software was. Customers who set LiveUpdate to operate without user intervention got no notification of the software update at all. As a result, customers were quick to label LiveConnect as adware that was out to provide private information to marketers.

Symantec was quick to dismiss the adware claims and says that LiveConnect is a necessary program to notify users of and download new program updates. "It's our mechanism for giving users major updates," said Rowan Trollope, Symantec's vice president of consumer engineering. Symantec states that the LiveUpdate program is simply not robust enough to handle the major program updates that have been made to products like Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security.

"We're in a bit of a Catch-22 situation here. Most people don't even know they're entitled [to these major upgrades]. I would argue that customers would be angry if we didn't tell them," said Trollope.

LiveConnect is here to stay, so Symantec users will just have to get used to the new software. Those who don't like the idea of another process running on their computer can uninstall the program and simply download the program updates manually from Symantec's website.

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This is why you should stay away from Symantec
By encryptkeeper on 11/10/06, Rating: 0
RE: This is why you should stay away from Symantec
By fic2 on 11/10/2006 12:36:05 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
But stick with McAfee...


LOL.


By Duwelon on 11/10/2006 12:59:40 PM , Rating: 2
I don't know any right now, because everyone I know has been smart enough switch away from it, haw haw haw!

Last I saw mcafee in use was in 2005. I purchased 10 copies because I got a really good deal that i would sell but after that, It will take an extremely good review of their product before I touch mcafee again. FYI, I ended up throwing several of the 10 i bought into the trash, no regrets.


By NaughtyGeek on 11/10/2006 1:00:09 PM , Rating: 5
McAfee caused me nothing but headaches and sorrow. Slowed what was at the time a high end system to a crawl enabling EMachines to trounce it. Both McAfee and Norton use entirely too much as far as system resources are concerned.

Here's hoping Vista smartens these companies up a tad.


RE: This is why you should stay away from Symantec
By Araemo on 11/10/2006 4:47:13 PM , Rating: 2
I've had plenty of problems with McAfee.

Then I got Trend Micro with a new motherboard. And it was worse. ;) I've been running with no memory-resident antivirus for quite some time. If I am accessing a file that I am unsure of, I run a virus scan manually. I know what to look for, and what to scan before I open it. For the miniscule number of virii that would hit me and auto-execute without my intervention... I live with the risk. ;) There is always that risk, even if you do run antivirus, what if you didn't get an update in time to catch the newest nasty? You end up in the same position I'd be in, having to run a manual scan and possibly do a manual clean. I've been responsible for cleaning up far too many virii that got past symantec, mcafee, trend, panda, AVG, etc.... that I no longer consider the performance and stability cost of having a memory resident antivirus to be worth the partial protection they provide.


Now, if you're the kind of person who relies on your antivirus to safe you, clicking around the web with security options turned off, downloading random exe's and zip files... well... perhaps the antivirus is less damaging to your system than the viruses would be, but in my case, I haven't had any virus problems on my personal system in about 8 years. (And yes, I do occasionally run virus scans just in case. Usually during major OS upgrades, before I do a clean windows install - no sense starting out with an infested install. ;) )


By Locutus465 on 11/11/2006 11:54:31 AM , Rating: 3
Try grisoft's AVG anti-virus. By far the best AV product I have *ever* used. I run the memory resident AV on my parents computer:

1.3GHz duron
512MB PC133 memory
80GB 7200 RPM hard drive

Result? Absolutly no system slow downs what so ever, and absolutly no viruses either! Note, this is an upgrade from the system I orginally installed it on:

K6-III 400
256MB memory....

There were no system slow downs on that either, and the AV protection was effective (as it it actually caught and removed some viruses on their system fixing it up like new).

I ran the free version for a number of years, then I bought the pro because I wanted to support them after the many years of protection the provided my parents. I was pleased that pro was only $30 and came with like 4 years of updates! I originally purchased 6.0 pro and now I"m running 7.5 pro for free!


By obeseotron on 11/10/2006 12:57:51 PM , Rating: 3
Yeah that's hilarious. People should either get something reasonable and free - AVG or Avast, or if they are going to pay, something good like Kapersky. No reason outside the corporate world to ever touch a piece of software from Symmantec or Mcafee.


By HaZaRd2K6 on 11/10/2006 1:08:13 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
...Trend Micro. Less resources hogged...


Yeah, right. I've got PC-Cillin 2006 installed, and it's constanly eating up 90%+ of my CPU usage. I had to turn off everything except the firewall for it to stop slowing my system to a crawl.


RE: This is why you should stay away from Symantec
By gramboh on 11/10/2006 2:03:23 PM , Rating: 2
McAfee is AWFUL, I am using it on my work notebook right now (no choice) and it is a HUGE resource hog for on-demand scan, unfortunately I don't have admin privledges so I can't kill the useless thing.

At home I used to have Norton until I was infected by something they didn't add to their database for 2 weeks after it was in the wild.

I switched to Kaspersky and zero problems since, plus the cpu overhead is small enough that I can use on-access scan without noticing a performance hit.


RE: This is why you should stay away from Symantec
By GreenEnvt on 11/10/2006 2:54:13 PM , Rating: 2
Mcafee is awful, Half the time I can't even get it to uninstall properly.

Symantec (not norton) is ok for business. I run it on our network at work simply because our head office does too.

Nod32 is my preference, very light footprint, very effective scanning.


By Etern205 on 11/11/2006 9:19:17 AM , Rating: 2
Symantec is the company that makes Norton Antivirus!
Whether it's for home or bussiness, it's still
made by Symantec.

And also as for McAfee, they suck!
and so is Symantec Norton Antivirus, Internet Security,
ahh all of their products suck, except for
Norton Ghost, which I find to be pretty useful. lol
Everytime is a customer brings in a machine to be fixed
the first thing I do is uninstall that crap, and put
in AVG free.

BTW: For those of you that want to get rid of McAfee, but
your having difficulities, go into safemode to do the removal. It's less of a hassle. ;)


RE: This is why you should stay away from Symantec
By MrCoyote on 11/10/2006 4:46:37 PM , Rating: 2
Avast Anti-virus and Outpost Pro Firewall is all you need. Much better than any other all-in-one package, and both of these programs use much less resources.


RE: This is why you should stay away from Symantec
By INeedCache on 11/10/2006 8:16:51 PM , Rating: 2
I consider anything from Norton and McAfee to be malware, and do my best to steer my customers clear of both. That said, we do make a lot of money servicing computers that are using Norton and McAfee. I guess they really are on the side of the reseller!


By Screwballl on 11/11/2006 2:36:34 AM , Rating: 2
People want security, safety and peace of mind. At first Norton (and the other big ones) show its "feel good" mentions of protection. Then when the PC slows down from the 3-5GB of Norton bloatware, people wonder whats wrong with it.
The typical PC user knows how to do 3 things: Start up/Shut down the computer, check email and surf the web. They don't want to be bugged by a program every day to download or buy something else. They want a nice quiet background program that does its job and only alerts you if theres a problem or a virus.
For the typical user I always suggest AVG and ZoneAlarm. For the power user I suggest AntiVir or NOD32 and a hardware double NAT firewall.

Symantec and Mcafee are going the way of AOL, abandoning customers 2 dozen at a time yet maintaining their connection with OEMs to get their products out to get people to pay once their trial subscription has ended.


It's Legit
By Ard on 11/10/2006 11:34:04 AM , Rating: 1
I will personally shoot down these accusations and state, unequivocally, that LiveConnect is not adware of any kind. It's a program used to tell you about free add-on packs. The only time it ever pops up is if there's something available to download. There are no advertisements of any kind. Incidentally, I was able to add on additional anti-virus functionality to NIS2007 because of it.




RE: It's Legit
By Griswold on 11/10/2006 11:40:36 AM , Rating: 1
In other words, its malware because it makes you download more symantec bloatware.


RE: It's Legit
By Ard on 11/10/06, Rating: 0
RE: It's Legit
By Griswold on 11/10/2006 7:05:30 PM , Rating: 4
The millions upon millions of computer illiterates with pre-installed symantec "software" are lured into downloading more of this symantec garbage that slows down their system - all those who have ever been asked to get rid of this junk from a computer of a relative know what I'm talking about.

That was my point.


RE: It's Legit
By retrospooty on 11/11/2006 10:07:50 AM , Rating: 2
"The millions upon millions of computer illiterates with pre-installed symantec "software" are lured into downloading more of this symantec garbage that slows down their system - all those who have ever been asked to get rid of this junk from a computer of a relative know what I'm talking about.

That was my point."

And that is exactly right. Good point.


RE: It's Legit
By encryptkeeper on 11/10/2006 11:57:41 AM , Rating: 1
What's your Symantec employee ID number?


RE: It's Legit
By Christopher1 on 11/10/2006 12:55:17 PM , Rating: 1
Now, that is just unfair. Just because he was saying that this program is a benefit (which it does appear to be), that does not mean that he is a Symantec Employee.


RE: It's Legit
By Etern205 on 11/11/2006 9:24:07 AM , Rating: 1
Symantec sucks
just deal with it!
If you can't go find
a job at NOD32, AVG, or a place where
they make antivirus products that doesn't hog up
resources and then well praise you on how
well your products and how much we liked it. :P


RE: It's Legit
By retrospooty on 11/11/2006 10:06:46 AM , Rating: 2
"a program used to tell you about free add-on packs. The only time it ever pops up is if there's something available to download."

The very thought of that running on my PC makes me cringe... It may not be adware "per say" but it is certainly bloatware, and 100% useless.

Imagine a useless program running in memory connecting to some server to notify me when some other useless program is available. ICK!!!


RE: It's Legit
By Christopher1 on 11/13/2006 7:57:46 AM , Rating: 2
Useless? The pack that it would be telling you to download is not useless. Parental controls, a better version of Norton Anti-spam, and a few other things that when I checked out the site, appeared to actually be useful to most users.

The fact is that many people, when there is a major update to a piece of software, are too stupid or busy to go and download it, even if it fixes numerous problems or adds functionality that would help them.

This program might actually be a good thing for ALL programs to have inside of them, or something similar.


Switched from Symantec to NOD32
By yacoub on 11/10/2006 3:21:32 PM , Rating: 2
my Symantec subscription was up for renewal last week. I researched around a bit and found that Kaspersky and NOD32 seemed to perform the best in online indepentent testing of AV software.

I chose NOD32 (a few friends also use it and recommended it).

While it was a bit more effort to configure, it is now running smoothly and seems to be just slightly less intrusive into processor usage as Norton was. I never really had a problem with Norton over the years I used their AV software, however it was finally starting to get to be a bit much with the bloat and especially since they included a Security Center I had to then go out of my way to disable as a Service, etc.




RE: Switched from Symantec to NOD32
By Trogdor on 11/10/2006 4:53:14 PM , Rating: 3
Absolutely, I use NOD32 and it is a fantastic product. It leaves a very small memory footprint and works like a charm.

Norton and Mcaffee are such resource hogs. I'd use a free program before touching those two ever again. They haven't had good products for years.


By obstreperous on 11/11/2006 5:17:32 AM , Rating: 2
Nod32 and Agnitums Outpost32 is the best security solution around, tiny footprint but both really effective. Microsoft and Dell use Nod32. The off the shelf stuff is awful.


Yay!
By JazzMang on 11/10/2006 11:16:30 AM , Rating: 3
Because Symantec products don't have enough bloatware already,...




RE: Yay!
By michal1980 on 11/10/06, Rating: -1
RE: Yay!
By Duwelon on 11/10/2006 12:56:59 PM , Rating: 2
A few customers of mine have purchased Trend Micro IS 2007 for their small businesses. It seems that TM is adding a lot of stuff to their product. I wonder, is every major AV doomed to turn to be bloatware sooner or later or what?


Tired of the Antivirus bloat
By Trisped on 11/13/2006 4:21:00 PM , Rating: 2
I got a virus once, from a school computer that was suppose to have anti virus on it. I then decided it was time to invest in some software, so I bought Norton Internet Security. I like the firewall, but didn't see the point of anything else.

I bought the updated version and the honeymoon was over. Instead of 1 icon in the task tray, there were 2. I constantly complained because I had Windows update set to notify, so it didn't download, install, and try to restart my computer while I was trying to watch a movie or play a game. It added a large amount of time to the start up. And the worse yet, I realized it had never done anything truly useful.

I am not sure what I will get when my Norton runs out, but I don't like any of my options. I am not a PC baby that needs my hand held all the time, I just want virus scans on newly downloaded files or files from out side the system. I like the firewall, but it could be a lot less system intensive. Anti-phishing is nice, but do I really need it?




RE: Tired of the Antivirus bloat
By Iger on 11/15/2006 6:14:39 AM , Rating: 2
As much as I prefer Opera to IE, IE7.0 actually has an anti-phishing filter, so I don't think it would be necessary...


Corporate Norton FTW
By AMD4ME2 on 11/12/2006 12:32:47 AM , Rating: 2
if only Symantec would make their consumer stuff as good as their corporate software all would be fine.




No problem for me.
By Iger on 11/13/2006 10:39:18 AM , Rating: 2
In this ever-lasting symantec bashing, I just wanted to say, that I've never had any problems with Norton Antiviruses versions 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2006... And these were installed year over year on 15-20 pc's (around 12 on my job for past 4 years and all the rest depending on what my friends were chosing each year)... I had a problem once with installing/uninstalling NAV2004 on localized version of Windows Me (and I really can't blame it on symantec :)) ). It does, occasionally (very rarely! like VERY), miss a virus, but it happens to every AV out there. AV is a safeguard - not a panacea (I hope I spelled it right :) ).

Lately I've tried pc-cillin 2006, Macafee 2006 and I have a Kaspersky Personal on my new job. Pc-cillin was the lightest of these, but missed very often and it's online scan Housecall always caught less, than symantec's on an infested pc. I didn't like Mcafee at all - much slower, than norton and a real pain to update... Maybe I didn't understand how to use it (I never tried too much, to be honest :) ), but I had to download all the major updates manually from their site... Kaspersky is noticeably slower, than Norton on my quite high-end working pc... It takes much less memory -= around 40MB's less, especially, when you sum up all the annoying symantecs little processes - I'm with you there, guys :) - (which, imo, is not that important on a modern rig with 1GB+ of RAM) but takes much more CPU and the updater is _terribly_ slow.
Oh and I've been repairing quite a lot of pc's infested with AVG... Say what you want - it doesn't depend on AV, but on a user who clicks "open anyway" :) AVG seemed lighter than Norton to me, but norton is not _that_ slow, imho, and as I've mentioned, I don't like the idea of updating manually...

All in all, while a free AVs seems good enough to powerusers, IMHO, Symantec's AV is one of the best available commercial AV and it doesn't deserve all the bashing.

Iger.




"We can't expect users to use common sense. That would eliminate the need for all sorts of legislation, committees, oversight and lawyers." -- Christopher Jennings











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