I remember when folks used to ask me what Antivirus to recommend, I would never hesitate in saying Symantec. I was a huge fan of the Norton family. Many industry leaders saw Norton falling long before I did. It wasn’t until I had to tackle issues with my parent’s computer with Norton Internet Security did I start to see how bloated their software was becoming.

Earlier this year, I had two very bad incidents with Norton:

1. While doing a LiveUpdate with Norton Antivirus, I corrupted a boot sector rendering my computer absolutely useless. It was time, so I simply took advantage of the occasion to upgrade the drive and start over. The terrible part of this occurrence was that there were already a bunch of messages all over the net warning of the issue, though. Why wouldn’t they pull the update knowing that? It was enough for me to stop using Norton and simply rely on my ISP’s canned Antivirus application.
2. About a month later I decided I wanted to merge a couple partitions on my laptop. So - I purchased and downloaded PartitionMagic 8.0 and ran it on my laptop (running XP Pro). The process ran it’s course, safely shut down, and nicely booted up with the blue screen of death. It was a work laptop, so I bashfully contacted my IT guy and he got Windows up but couldn’t get the second partition back. Luckily, I had backed it up regularly.
3. Today, I noticed this article… Huge Security Flaw Found in Leading Anti-Computer Virus Software. Glad I never reinstalled.

One look at the Symantec site really puts it all into perspective. Check out that list of products!!! That’s absolutely ridiculous. Note to all… having more products adds more complication and doesn’t necessarily spell success. That list doesn’t even include the Veritas line of products that Symantec now owns.

I remember when they were simply a great Antivirus! Those were the days!