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Symantec has certainly been known for buggy software that draws a lot of resources. But
there later releases are much better. I have Norton Utilities 3.x and Talkworks Pro 3.x.
Both run fine without causing any bugs on Win98. If you haven't tried their programs in a
while, then maybe you should try again. But there are so many variations of machine and
software configurations out there that you can never tell when there will be problems with
some particular mix. The solution to this is regular backups and using a recovery
application like Second Chance from Partition Magic people or GoBack. Second Chance has
saved my rear a number of times when some software install caused problems on my system
(lets me return back to a particular point in time when the system was running correctly).
As to virus scanner overhead - it isn't all that much. I have McAfee running in the
background now (there are 3 separate tasks). Together they are taking less than 1% of the
old 83 MHz computer I am working on now. But I don't like Symantec's scanner. I've tried
a few versions of it and never liked the interface. However, it does often win the first
position when they have major company AV shoot-out's.
Personally, I think anyone not running an AV scanner is a playing with fire. As I've
previously said, you can get a virus many ways (not just from email and not just from
attachments). There are a host of web sites that have malicious java and active-x apps on
them that for most users using default browser setups, will load and execute automatically
without one knowing. What if someone setup a java or script virus in a web page that had
something to do with trading? Hey - look at this new interactive neural net (or
whatever). How would you know it is there?
Not all viruses make themselves evident immediately. The best ones will do their damage
slowly, over time, so that by the time you figure out that you have been exposed (or worse
yet, spread the virus further), any backups you have are useless. And how about one of
the new variations of the current worm that is spoofed to look like it comes from Symantec
itself? How many times have you clicked on a notice sent out about a virus scare? What
if there is a script virus hung off that? Again, it doesn't always have to be in an
attachment!
An AV scanner is just cheap insurance. What does it cost? $20-30 street? Certainly that
isn't too much too spend is it? And if you're running a 300-500 MHz CPU, then you
shouldn't notice any effect whatsoever on performance.
And finally, the problem with most user breakdown stories ("I installed this or that and
it trashed my system..") is that the experience is often one of a relatively few
experiences based on some software that was tried years ago. Once someone has had a bad
experience, it's hard to get them to change their minds about the product in question,
regardless of how many versions or years have gone by (which should be a clue to
developers to ensure that they do a good debugging job <g>)...
JW
-----Original Message-----
From: listmanager@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:listmanager@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Earl Adamy
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 4:35 PM
To: realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [RT] Re: First "I love You", and now this. BE WARE!!!
Sorry to hear of your problems. A long, long time ago (Windows 3.1), I
had Central Point Software's (Tools) file management and scripting
utility package which included everything but the kitchen sink and was
the only 1.0 product I ever purchased which was virtually bug-free. v.2
was even better. Symantec bought out CP and promptly discontinued
support for CP so I "upgraded" to the Norton package which included a
virus checker. The virus checker was such a hog that I uninstalled it
within a few hours. The Norton something or other was so buggy that I
returned it for a refund. I subsequently tried another Symantec product
and it too was beyond my bug tolerance and the support was both poor and
arrogant. I would not touch another Symantec product.
What users don't realize is that virus checking software on high
intercepts virtually every machine instruction rending a high
performance system equivalent to a system more suited for use as a boat
anchor.
Earl
----- Original Message -----
From: "DonThompson" <detomps@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 11:40 AM
Subject: [RT] Re: First "I love You", and now this. BE WARE!!!
> Earl....
> "to throw money at the virus software companies which love to add to
the
> hype."
>
> It just isn't hype, the Symantec Norton Antivirus 2000, when place on
full
> strength can destroy, yes destroy stuff, never imaginable. I guess
due to
> the way it works, I had to uninstall and reinstall, Office 2000, two
times
> because NA2K corrupts Excel so bad it won't boot up. I lost a huge
> important spreadsheet, it is now so defective that it will corrupt
Excel.
> Don't ask why? I was getting page fault error in Ensign for Windows,
Excel,
> Netscape 4.7. When I installed Photoshop 5.5 it took a week of
fiddling,
> the NA2K was corrupting the .exe file .... and on and on. . Keep away
from
> this monstar!..
> I will concede now that I have it only checking the email things have
toned
> down. Very very few problems.
>
> But when I upgraded the virus signatures from them on Friday, it
crashed
> proproxy.exe the program that intercepts email.. nothing is perfect in
the
> computer world. But NA2K sucks major bigtime on programs and the OS
>
> Don Thompson
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Earl Adamy <eadamy@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 8:42 AM
> Subject: [RT] Re: First "I love You", and now this. BE WARE!!!
>
>
> > Thanks for the additional info ... have created an OE5 filter which
> > looks for messages with an attachment and ".vbs" in the body and
routes
> > them to a WarningAndReject folder for further inspection. Actually,
I
> > keep my system up to date with the Microsoft Windows Update
> > (IE5>Tools>WindowsUpdate) security updates and they do a good job of
> > plugging vulnerabilities and issuing warnings. Throw in a bit of
> > reasonable caution with file exchanges, downloads, and attachments
and
> > I've found no need (in 15+ years of using PC's) to throw money at
the
> > virus software companies which love to add to the hype.
> >
> > Earl
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Dennis Holverstott" <dennis@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: <realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 12:50 PM
> > Subject: [RT] Re: First "I love You", and now this. BE WARE!!!
> >
> >
> > > I wrote:
> > > > You need to create two custom headers,
> > > > content-type and content-disposition. Tell it to delete the
message
> > > > if either of those contains .vbs.
> > >
> > > Sorry about that, it doesn't work. Thanks to Gary Fritz for the
heads
> > > up. However, telling the filter to look in the BODY of the message
for
> > > the string .vbs does work. Apparently Netscape (in my case) and
> > Pegasus
> > > (in Gary's case) don't consider the attachment headings to be
> > "headers."
> > > I don't have a clue what to do with Outlook Express (other than
> > > Add/Remove Programs - Outlook Express - Remove.) Sorry, I couldn't
> > > resist that. :-)
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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