My experience with Symantec's call center

[Ron V]

For some time I have held Symantec's Norton AntiVirus in pretty high regard as it does a pretty good job of keeping things at bay. It seemed to work better than McAfee. My opinion of their company changed considerably Thursday morning.

Earlier this week, I experienced trouble related to some Trojan downloader attachments. I've been busy the last couple of months working on my house, and I also thought that I had Norton set up to automatically update. It wasn't. The updates were over two months old. My fault, no biggie there. I updated Norton on the spot and it caught the attachments, but was unable to repair, unable to quarantine, AND unable to delete the files when prompted. My boss used to be our company's IT guy and I even asked him, he seemed perplexed as to why it wouldn't let me delete the files.

I also made a big mistake - I followed NORTON'S online directions that were posted for this particular virus, and I turned off my System Restore function before attempting to clean the virus (the premise being that the virus could be backed up). I should have tried to restore the system first to see if that solved the problem before doing such a foolish thing - Norton does not tell you to try this first. So, because I followed their directions, I now had no previous restore points to return to. To make a long story short, I used my Windows XP system restore disks that came with the computer and was able to do a standard restore without losing my documents and pictures. This takes about 50 times as long as using the restore function in your Start menu.

After I got it up and running again, I tried to update Norton's definitions (it had been knocked back to 2002 definitions during the system restoration) and it wouldn't update the virus list past July 2002. I dicked around on their website, and since it didn't seem to offer specific advice about this problem, I called their 800 number. This was the beginning of the end. I got hooked up with a lady at what is obviously a call center in sacred cow territory, if you know what I mean. After about 10 minutes just to get my name and address right, I nearly lost my temper while we tried to figure out my account number. The rep had no street English abilities and communication was next to impossible. After 15 minutes of accomplishing nothing except spelling my name and address out letter by letter (twice to get it right), she transferred me to a technical rep. He knew the English language better but had a heavier accent. All this time I can barely hear either of them because they are on the other side of the world.

I explained my problem, and he said, "We can't help you because you're running Norton AntiVirus 2002. It's out of date." I replied that the membership renewal which I PAID for is good until Sept. 2005, and that per my membership, I should be able to get updates on definitions through September, instead of cutting off at July 2002. His reply was, "You'll have to figure that out through our website, we don't offer any technical support to people with older versions of the software." The next few seconds were followed by a one-sided dialogue by yours truly, though I hung up on him before my Irish fuse completely reached my German percussion cap.

The idea of renewing a membership instead of buying a whole new package was to save some $$ and still get current definitions. As it turns out, I could have saved more money and gotten better results (see last paragraph). Regardless of what may or may not be in the agreement for tech support, the service was inexcusably poor. Not only bad business practice, but this trend of being so petty as to send customer service jobs overseas for the sake of saving a few bucks is the anchor pulling our country into the abyss. We pay money up front, and when there is a simple problem it doesn't get solved and all we get is some American-hating jerk who we can't communicate with, and yet he has one of OUR jobs. Symantec will be receiving a letter regarding this matter, and I've got $10 says they don't have the decency to respond, and even if they do they won't make things right with me.

I have since downloaded and updated AVG's free software, and it caught several attachments that Norton didn't catch even before I had restored the computer and lost the updates. My friend at work said he runs both AVG and Norton simultaneously and AVG always catches more, and is FREE.

[Spd-Kilz]

I prefer McAfee, I run the virus scan, along with it's Personal FIrewall Plus. It keeps me safe. I've never had a problem yet:)

Talk to Greg he'll tell ya the same thing I did.

I had Nortons on my brand new Dell, first thing I did was remove it and install McAfee:o

[ssent]

I can agree norton isn't as good as proclaimed. We run avg and norton simultaneously with good results usually. We also run spystopper it blocks ads (popups) and identifing software along with spybot. Spybot is a search & destroy tool it looks for trojan horses and spyware. Seems to do a good job. Avg and norton programs need to have the scheduler set to update and run everyday to be effective.

[Spd-Kilz]

For adware and spyware I run AdAware and Giant AntiSpyware together:)

[Jimboat]

Ron - seems that Customer service is getting harder to find these days. We have used the (free) AVG software (http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_avg_index.php) for several years, have found it has caught everything - some that McA and NAV have not caught. We've also found the Symantec and McAfee support to be somewhat unhelpful.

[SportJ-US-1]

I found that Norton Customer Service to be nonexsistant last year. Unfortunately for me with 3 computer networked to keep protected and so far Norton is the only one with a program for multi-computer systems.

[Euroski]

I don't call support unless it's to return a defective computer part under warranty. I run norton along with their firewall and have no problems to date. But then again I'm on dial-up and miss a lot of the crap going around. I can tell you this... I recently upgraded my computer with a new hard drive and did a complete new install of all my programs including norton. Once installed norton said I have a full year of free updates. Not bad considering on my old drive norton was about to expire.

[Arizona Ed]

Hello all,

I do computer support for a living... The most reliable setup that we have found and use on all of the computers we install and support is: Windows XP with all updates, Norton Antivirus, and Ad-aware. Install Norton Antivirus only (no firewall, no internet security, etc). Products other than Antivirus from Norton generally cause more damage and confusion than they are worth. Allow Antivirus to be in charge of antivirus duties and NOT communicate with other software (default). If you need a software firewall, enable the one from Microsoft. Despite Norton's lousy tech support, they have consistently been the first company to release updates to detect and remove the worst viruses. Ad-aware has consistently been the fastest company to release updates to detect and remove spyware, and its free. Run it about once per month (more if lots of browsing of "bad" web sites). A note on firewalls... Software firewalls, even Microsoft's integrated with Windows XP, are essentially a band-aid. The best and most economical firewall for general users is a hardware router. A broadband cable/DSL router like the ones from Linksys are inexpensive (~ $60) and extremely effective in stopping 98% of Internet borne viruses and worms. We recommend a router coupled with XP / Norton Antivirus / Ad-aware.

Well, that is my advice for what its worth :) .

[1BadAction]

Hello all,

The most reliable setup that we have found and use on all of the computers we install and support is: Windows XP with all updates, Norton Antivirus, and Ad-aware. .
yep... that and sh*tcan IE and get firefox. IE blows

http://sfx-images.mozilla.org/affiliates/Buttons/120x60/safer.gif

http://img7.exs.cx/img7/5748/internetexplorer3za.jpg

[Spd-Kilz]

I use Giant AntiSpyware and it catches stuff that Ad-Aware misses:eek:

On top of that, it tells you exactly where the files are from, unlike Ad-Aware where it gives you a general code for the same thing.

[Dukeofchippewa]

[QUOTE=Arizona Ed]Hello all,

I do computer support for a living...
HELP. No one has been able to figure this out. I have 1 puter networked it can access all sites on the web except Microsoft and McAfee. Dell has had me do everything including formatting the hard drive. I'm using IE6.:confused:

[Arizona Ed]

Duke,
My best guess is that you have the CWS spyware "trojan" or one of its kind. Did you reformat & did you do a non-quick format? If not, a non-quick works best. You must reload the OS from scratch. If you reloaded previous software or files onto the new OS install, then the trojan will come back. If you are networked, it is probably on all computers and will jump around. CWS and its kind are nasty. There is a program available called CWShredder that will get rid of it, but it should only be run by experienced users. If you make a mistake or get the wrong program, it will make things worse. The best solution is to format all drives and reload all operating systems. Run Ad-aware on all files before reloading them onto clean computers. You can read about CWS trojans at http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/ . But be VERY careful -- backup all critical data. Also note, often CWS variants will also block you from going to merijn's site!

The easiest solution? Download & install Netscape browser (www.netscape.com) or Firefox (I don't know much about Firefox) and use it instead of Internet Explorer. This should solve many of your problems. However, you won't be able to get windows updates from Microsoft's site...

That is my best guess based on your description... Good luck!

[Dukeofchippewa]

I did a complete format. I run MS, McAfee, and Ad-Aware. Master has no problems, but I've got to figure out a way to update Windows on slave.

[1BadAction]

ed- you ought to give firefox a try... Standard VS standard setup, firefox isnt noticably different, but on broadband heres a tweak that will make it about TWICE as fast as IE is.


try this tweak I found, speeds it up ALOT if you have broadband.


1.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0”. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

[Spd-Kilz]

ed- you ought to give firefox a try... Standard VS standard setup, firefox isnt noticably different, but on broadband heres a tweak that will make it about TWICE as fast as IE is.

I did that a while ago, and I've had problems viewing images. I turned all those back to stock (so to speak) and it fixed the problem. There was a glitch on my end I guess since I heard it hasn't happened to other people. I have all 3 browsers, I just choose which one I use:cool: