Has there ever been a class action law suit against Symantic?

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KevySaysBeNice

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 7, 2001
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If not, there should be, honestly.

I have been building computers since the mid 90s and although I've been frusterated a fair number of times, most of the time it's been with hardware related issues, dealing with IRQ conflicts "back in the day", that type of thing.

But last night, I was almost to the point of calling a lawyer. I sold my mother's eMachine laptop and I decided to do a "clean" install of the OS from the "recovery" disk provided by eMachines. Of course I expected a few applications to install themselves, AOL, etc, and when I saw Symantic's Norton Anti Virus I was a bit annoyed, but no big deal. I unistalled all of the shit that was installed (QuickFix, AOL, AIM, CompuServe, etc, etc, etc) which was a pain in the ass but when I got to the Ani virus I couldn't figure out how to uninstall it.

Of course I tried uninstalling, however the program was running and it wouldn't let me uninstall.

I went through all of the menus in order to try and quit the application, or turn it off so it didn't start when I started windows. I turned off every single option, but there was no start-up option.

I tried CTRL-ALT-DELETE to force quite the process (SAVsomethingorother) and it said I could not quit the application.

So I said fuck it, restarted in safe mode to uninstall. NOPE, "REBOOT OUT OF SAFE MODE TO UNINSTALL".

In the end, I had to google in order to find that I had to downoload a program from Symantic to uninstall the anti-virus.

This is worse than most spyware I've encountered, and the worse thing is after the first month of the "trial" the software starts popping up requiring you pay however much (way too much) per month/year for the software.

Anyway, this all really pisses me off, and I was looking to rant or to hear others stories/opinions.

Thanks for letting me vent!
 
Yes it totally sucks when installs/uninstalls dont work as planned.
But the flip side, from a legal standpoint is you sign or agree to that little clause when you install the software.
Unless the masses had the same issue there's not much to be done about it. Best way to get back at them is to not buy their products
 
well, the problem was there was no way NOT to install the software. Of course that was eMachines problem for bundling Symantic with the restore disk, so they deserve some of my rath, but in the end it's Symantic who wrote the software and made it impossible to uninstall.

The thing is, it was a 20 minute pain in my ass, but somebody who knew nothing about computers, or god forbid doesn't even have an internet connection, how are they supposed to get rid of the software without paying?

I just feel like it isn't right. Sometimes I wish I was a lawyer or had more power to do something about it. For whatever reason this just really "hits home", most things I don't care about but I really just think about all of the clueless people out there who get fucked by the company.
 
Nonav is a program supplied from symantec and will remove ANY remnants of norton. It should be one of your programs you keep with you at all times if you work on machines alot. When we went from norton 8 to 10 at my last job, it REFUSED to let you install the new version while the old one was there. So EVERY machine we wanted to install it on had to be "nonav'd". Giant PITA.
 
I'll echo your sentiments, I personally think symantec tries to protect you from problems by ensuring that none of your stuff actually works. Since you can't do anything, no virus for you! Their antivirus/antispyware/firewall products have been the single common cause of so many problems that I may have lost count. I too had to do the un-install via the web download just the other day. That is why since back in the day when they came out with systemworks (also a flaming pile of poo)I have strongly urged people to buy anything but their product if it's even remotely possible.
 
Never had a problem uninstalling Norton but I will never use it because it's a bloated POS.

Now Symantec Corp Edition is a different story. We use Symantec Corp Edition at the county I work for and it's been pretty rock solid.
I also use it at home. Even thought they are both made by the same company there is a big difference between them.


Norton = Lose
Symantec = Win
 
Speaking of Symantec, anyone use Endpoint?

I spent hours removing that crap from a server registry because it dropped my network shares. Biggest POS I've ever used.
 
not read any of this but I can tell you I have wanted to take them to court a few times!!!


GRRRR

but the old Ghost (PCDOS based) was so good and still is, I can forgive them for everything.
 
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