New job!

[Sidoh]

Huh?  I definitely think Symantec has a lot of credit.  My university (who doesn't have idiots for techs, mind you.  assholes maybe, but not idiots) issues free licenses to students and require all systems using their network to have it or some other antivirus program installed.  I realize that a somewhat considerable portion of which antivirus program they decide to promote is the price that they can get the licenses for, but they have to believe that it's viable if they're going to trust that it'll help keep their network safe.

[Warrior]

I like a company that is about security. I hate a company which makes it's revenues from flaws in a system. It's really low considering that they use those same flaws to install their solutions. There is no telling how the undocumented internal APIs they use will change and what havok it could cause on a system.

[Sidoh]

I like a company that is about security. I hate a company which makes it's revenues from flaws in a system. It's really low considering that they use those same flaws to install their solutions. There is no telling how the undocumented internal APIs they use will change and what havok it could cause on a system.

Wait, so you hate Microsoft too? O_O

[Warrior]

touche sidoh, touche.

[AntiVirus]

Good job sex muffin.

[iago]

I should point out that I will NOT be working for Norton, which is a subsidiary.

[Sidoh]

My university uses Symantec antivirus, not Norton antivirus.

[iago]

I've never even heard of "Symantec Antivirus", hmm! 

In any case, I don't think that's developed in Calgary, up here is a vulnerability analysis/reporting shop (securityfocus.com is up here, their vulnerability analysis, threat response, etc)

[AntiVirus]

There can only be one AntiVirus, and that's me. Damn posers.

[Sidoh]

I've never even heard of "Symantec Antivirus", hmm! 

In any case, I don't think that's developed in Calgary, up here is a vulnerability analysis/reporting shop (securityfocus.com is up here, their vulnerability analysis, threat response, etc)

:-o

[Newby]

Symantec's AV is garbage. It's the only anti-virus I've used that couldn't recognize a virus I told it to specifically scan. It recognized it a few weeks later finally... doing daily database updates too. Sad.

Sidoh: my father had a corporate license for Symantec. He wasn't an idiot either. He just made bad choices.

[Chavo]

Horseshit.  I've used Symantec Antivirus for several years at my university.  We recently switched to Trend Antivirus (for whatever reasons) and Symantec was 10x better.  Trend won't pick up everything that Symantec does and it almost never successfully cleans a file.  Not once when I used Symantec was it unable to either delete, clean, or delete on the next reboot a file.  I've never had it not detect a virus, are you sure it was a virus and not a bad piece of malware/spyware?  The other big name, McAfee Antivirus is even worse than Trend.  Once you install it, its a huge resource hog and good luck trying to uninstall it.

My dad uses Symantec at Boeing and anytime they have a problem that Symantec AV doesn't recognize, they send them a report (I don't know what all it entails).  Symantec is obligated by contract to respond with a fix within 24 hours.  Neither Trend or McAfee will make such a contract with Boeing...seems pretty obvious why.

Almost all of the 'free' alternatives online are much less sophisticated and generate lots of false positives.

[Sidoh]

Symantec's AV is garbage. It's the only anti-virus I've used that couldn't recognize a virus I told it to specifically scan. It recognized it a few weeks later finally... doing daily database updates too. Sad.

It's picked up viruses in a bunch of the downloads I have from years ago.  I think you just had bad luck with it.  I'm pretty sure that you know less on this subject than the network administrators working here or at most other universities.

Sidoh: my father had a corporate license for Symantec. He wasn't an idiot either. He just made bad choices.

Newby: congratulations.

Horseshit.  I've used Symantec Antivirus for several years at my university.  We recently switched to Trend Antivirus (for whatever reasons) and Symantec was 10x better.  Trend won't pick up everything that Symantec does and it almost never successfully cleans a file.  Not once when I used Symantec was it unable to either delete, clean, or delete on the next reboot a file.  I've never had it not detect a virus, are you sure it was a virus and not a bad piece of malware/spyware?  The other big name, McAfee Antivirus is even worse than Trend.  Once you install it, its a huge resource hog and good luck trying to uninstall it.

My dad uses Symantec at Boeing and anytime they have a problem that Symantec AV doesn't recognize, they send them a report (I don't know what all it entails).  Symantec is obligated by contract to respond with a fix within 24 hours.  Neither Trend or McAfee will make such a contract with Boeing...seems pretty obvious why.

Almost all of the 'free' alternatives online are much less sophisticated and generate lots of false positives.

[iago]

Almost all of the 'free' alternatives online are much less sophisticated and generate lots of false positives.

Free anti-virus is tricky, because it takes a ton of maintenance.  But there are decent free ones. 

[rabbit]

My university also "requires" Symantec AV (but they don't check, so eh).  I do notice that it's pretty clean.  Norton AV used to be such a hog, and usually ran my CPU 30% min.