Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus • Hacker News Board

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#11

Post by wyday » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 4:48 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #8

wyday wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher detection rates is not better. Higher detection rates just means more false positives. This is a very bad thing for small companies releasing desktop software. Plus, have you used Symantec Endpoint Protection? It uses 8 megabytes of memory. Tiny.

Higher detection rates just means more false positives. Or better detection of viruses.

Ideally, yes. And that's certainly how companies are marketing their free AVs. The reality is that before we started signing all of our software, the free AVs detected it as a virus.

It's bad for business when you have to defend your product as not a virus (on top of trying to sell it!)

I wrote about it 2 years ago: http://wyday.com/blog/2007/useful-instantupdate-feedback/

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#12

Post by pj » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 4:50 PM UTC

kellishaver wrote: post #5

From what I"ve seen based on the number of customers we have who bring in computers so riddled with viruses that they won't function (about 500 so far this year in a town of 15k people), it's dangerous to rely on Symantec, because about 90% of those computers have Norton anti-virus installed on them. The rest are McAfee or nothing. I've never seen a computer with a free antivirus program like AVG or Avast as badly in…

I would suggest this is partly due to the fact that computer users who know about and install these software packages are more literate in general and therefore more likely to use their computers in ways less likely to be infected.

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#13

Post by bcl » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 4:51 PM UTC

IIRC ClamAV used to have the quickest response time for adding new viruses to their database. Smells like marketing FUD to me, must mean the free ones are cutting into their market.

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#14

Post by MoeDrippins » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 4:58 PM UTC

In other news, Microsoft says Linux is a bad choice.

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#15

Post by MoeDrippins » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 4:59 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #9

I'm not a Windows guy and I can't confirm this, but my windoze-guru friends always say one thing to people asking for advices: don't install Symantec products

Anecdotal, I know, but a few times I've UNinstalled Norton on my father-in-law's machines, replaced with either AVG or Avast, and stopped its incessant HD activity, speeding it up quite a bit.

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#16

Post by MoeDrippins » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 5:00 PM UTC

wyday wrote: post #3

michaelawill wrote: post #2

Standard executive talk. He's oblivious to the fact that many of the free offerings have higher detection rates than his companies products while at the same time have a much smaller footprint than any product they will ever make.

Higher detection rates is not better. Higher detection rates just means more false positives. This is a very bad thing for small companies releasing desktop software. Plus, have you used Symantec Endpoint Protection? It uses 8 megabytes of memory. Tiny.

> Higher detection rates is not better. Higher detection rates just means more false positives.

Awesome, so the machine I have with NO AV software at all with a detection rate of 0 must be the bestest!

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#17

Post by wyday » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 5:03 PM UTC

MoeDrippins wrote: post #16

wyday wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher detection rates is not better. Higher detection rates just means more false positives. This is a very bad thing for small companies releasing desktop software. Plus, have you used Symantec Endpoint Protection? It uses 8 megabytes of memory. Tiny.

> Higher detection rates is not better. Higher detection rates just means more false positives. Awesome, so the machine I have with NO AV software at all with a detection rate of 0 must be the bestest!

That's obviously not what I meant. Read my comment below: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=688388

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#18

Post by vaksel » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 5:05 PM UTC

pj wrote: post #6

Symantec is in my list of top 4 worst software manufacturers in the world along with Intuit, Hewlett-Packard, and Adobe. I would never -- ever -- trust my computer to Symantec. Their software is bloated, it's buggy, it believes it owns your computer and it fails at doing what it is supposed to do. Choose AVC or ClamWin and only download and install software from trusted sources. Disable autoplay. It's just like the r…

Don't forget to add Norton to that list of crappy companies.

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#19

Post by dryicerx » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 5:06 PM UTC

It seems that the bloated AV products from not just Symantec, but also Norton and McAfee, have a lot in common with the symptoms of malware and viruses

    - Sucks up CPU
    - Sucks up Memory
    - Sucks up Disk Space
    - A Small Performance hit
    - Uses network bandwidth
    - Annoys you to hell with reminders to buy their product
    - Close to impossible to get rid of at times

Re: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus

#20

Post by pj » Sun, Jul 05, 2009, 5:17 PM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #18

pj wrote: post #6

Symantec is in my list of top 4 worst software manufacturers in the world along with Intuit, Hewlett-Packard, and Adobe. I would never -- ever -- trust my computer to Symantec. Their software is bloated, it's buggy, it believes it owns your computer and it fails at doing what it is supposed to do. Choose AVC or ClamWin and only download and install software from trusted sources. Disable autoplay. It's just like the r…

Don't forget to add Norton to that list of crappy companies.

I think Symantec bought Norton.