Will You Be the Guinea Pig for Symantec?

In one of my infrequent stops at PC Magazine, I happened upon the announcement that Symantec, owner of the once respected Norton trademarks, is releasing the newest revisions of its Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus products. The products are dubbed 2010, and will be released sometime later this year, probably to coincide with the launch of Windows 7.

Unfortunately, these betas are set to time out in 30 days after installation, so if you had ideas that you might be able to continue to use them until the retail product is released, think again.

While some might want to see if these versions are any better than the previous ones, or how well they integrate with Windows 7, I really can’t see the reason to put up with all the trouble that Symantec products generate these days. In case you aren’t aware, Symantec is nearly as paranoid about piracy as Microsoft, and installing their products, then removing them at a later time has become so fraught with problems that the company has had to release tools to remove all traces from their assaults on the Windows registry.

That aside, since many will be deep sixing their Windows RC installs anyway, I still have to wonder why anyone would want to volunteer to be part of the unpaid workforce that helps them ‘perfect’ their products. In my work with computers of individual users, I would conservatively say that one in twenty calls is due to the misunderstanding, or misuse, of Norton Internet Security. Though properly set up, the product works well, it is very easy to ruin the settings, and get into trouble, where some small disaster will be the result. The interface is so clumsy for the non=technical user that the easiest thing to do is usually remove and re-install, or, better yet, convince the user that other remedies, causing much less trouble are available. (I have mentioned the use of AVG or Avira free editions, and the settling upon Comodo for firewall services in past articles. Should you need parental controls, there are free versions of those as well, and many of those features are frequently built into the latest router offerings from large ISPs)

The article does mention that users of these products will receive parental controls free, but my take is that this is too much trouble to get a small freebie.

Should you be curious (remember what happened to the cat!) or a glutton for punishment, the betas can be found here -

Norton Internet Security 2010 beta

Norton Antivirus 2010 beta

for those who wish to go elsewhere, with proven, free alternatives -

AVG Antivirus Free

Avira Antivir Free

Comodo Internet Security (firewall and antivirus … use the firewall, say no to the antivirus)

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One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.-    Rita Mae Brown

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