Come Monday...The Symantec/Norton Virus?

“Come Monday…” is a weekly series that will involve a review of, or commentary about,  websites, movies, documentaries, television shows, sports, music, and whatever else may tickle my fancy at the time.  Be assured that these reviews will be generally positive, as in accordance to the Jimmy Buffett song “Come Monday.”  This is subject to change, however.  In fact, I would be most derelict in my duties to neglect going on a rant every once in a while.  For rants promote change, and change can be good—right?  Therefore, since good is generally considered as being a positive force in 99.3% of the parallel universes that I am aware of, even a rant could be considered as being something positive, and a genuine hissy-fit would be even better (so I’m told).

I realize that it probably sounds utterly ridiculous.  For [Symantec] is a widely-acclaimed producer of antivirus software under the [Norton] brand, but if you have ever had as much “fun” as I had over a period of around 36 hours last week, you just might start to wonder, as well.

The “fun” all started when YouTube stopped working on Firefox.  More specifically, I noticed that a YouTube video I had embedded in an article on here wouldn’t play.  Then I discovered that no YouTube videos would play.

A Google search for a remedy to the problem resulted in several suggestions to reinstall the latest version of the [Adobe Flash Player] on my computer.  It did not fix my problem.

Since YouTube appeared to be working just fine when I fired-up IE9 and Google Chrome, I came to the conclusion that the problem may be with my copy of Firefox 13.0.1.  So, the next move was to completely uninstall and reinstall it, with the complete uninstall including the deletion of the files that hold my personal settings.  The reasoning behind this was that the old Flash Player plug-in might keep the new one from installing properly.

I was wrong, I think.  In any event, YouTube videos would still not play on Firefox while they would on the other browsers.

Getting to what this is supposed to be really about, it was sometime during all of that “fun” I was having with uninstalling and reinstalling the Adobe Flash Player and Firefox that I obtained a link to install the [Norton Security Scan].  This was discovered when a new icon suddenly appeared on my desktop screen.

Yes, I am well aware of the fact that “extras” are often bundled with free downloads of certain software, but I didn’t remember seeing anything about the Norton Security Scan anywhere.  Now, there was an offer to obtain the the [McAfee Security Scan], but nothing about Norton.  Of course, with my vision still being significantly impaired, it could have been there in obscenely-flashing neon, and I still could have missed it.

Anyway, since the new icon was just a link to install the Norton Security Scan, I did not see (funny—huh?) any need for panic yet.  So, I just calmly deleted the icon, and when the search for where the install program might be hiding in my computer files revealed nothing, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I couldn’t help but catch my breath again after seeing that the Norton install icon had reappeared on my desktop screen as soon as everything came back up after I had rebooted my system.  With my eyes still being so blurry much of the time, I chalked it up to me just missing the file.  So, I repeated my previous steps, and then headed for bed.

The time for panic came the next morning when I saw a splash screen for the Norton Security Scan prominently displayed on my desktop screen.  Thankfully, the program was finally showing up on the list for installed programs that can be accessed through the Control Panel.  What happened to having to manually allow the program to install?

If you are wondering why any of this would hold any great concern for me, it has to do with the fact that more is most certainly not better when it comes to having multiple antivirus programs installed on your computer.  For they can sometimes cancel each other out, which would leave the door wide open for something really nasty to slither in and make itself right at home.

This computer came with McAfee, and I plan on uninstalling it and installing [BitDefender] as soon as I can better see what I am trying to do.  For I have about as much confidence in McAfee as I do Symantec/Norton, which is not much—be assured.

Okay, BitDefender can sometimes be irritating by blocking things that it should not, but that is certainly better than the experience I have had with Symantec/Norton in the past.  For I wound up having to completely remove everything off of the hard drive of our first computer (TWICE!) on account of a virus that was not detected by the Norton antivirus that came with it.

Yes, Symantec is often consulted by newscasters when reporting on internet viruses and other really nasty things, but does it not strike you as being rather curious that [Conficker] remains dormant and is supposedly on computers in places that are not all that easy to access?  After all, having something like that out there could sure sell a lot of antivirus software, and with Symantec supposedly being the experts, it would make sense to buy the protection that they have to offer.

No, I do not have any evidence to prove anything, and I am perfectly willing to accept that I probably don’t know what I am talking about.  Still, I wonder…

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