I just got back to my main desktop, only to find the Norton Security Scan running with a scanning window showing. Fair enough you might say, except that I'd uninstalled it 2 days ago. WTF?
Let's go back to the start, where I made my first mistake. Three days ago I needed to install Adobe Shockwave player for some website. Can't remember which one and the site didn't work afterwards anyway. So phooey to that.
But in the installation of Shockwave, there was an option I missed to install Norton Security Scan. By missed I mean the option was set, "Install Norton Security Scan, dumbass?", and I missed it. First error was on my part. When I found out, I cursed.
So two days ago, I came back to my desktop, only to find Norton Security Scan running and scanning away. It said I had a virus. First, I was positive that this was one of those fake windows produced by some javascript on some website; I'd never installed that. On investigation, nope, it was a real process. I killed it from task manager and uninstalled it. I even went to Program Files to check it had gone. I ran the Reliability and Performance Monitor to look at when it has been installed: a day earlier. For the life of me at the time I couldn't remember installing anything that day.
Anyway, I put it to the back of my mind and downloaded and installed AVG Free edition to see if I really had a virus or not. No, no virus, only a false positive from a zip file from a Ray Lischner book from 1999. (The zip file was the same as the one on my earliest backup, back in the day when I did run a virus checker, ergo, false positive). I uninstalled AVG, and thought no more about it.
The next day I suddenly remembered about installing Adobe Shockwave and found the FAQ entry on their site talking about their provision of a free copy of Norton Security Scan.
And that was where it stood until just now: Norton Security Scan, large as life, running on my desktop. WTF, indeed.
If before I was pissed off, now I'm just livid. You see, there's some effing process on my machine which when run (Startup? Nope doesn't seem to be there) is reinstalling Norton Security Scan somehow, getting administrator rights to do so. Lo and behold, hidden away in Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Symantec there is a nice little setup program for NSS. This, gentle reader, is the true trait of a virus, not an application that is supposed to help.
So from now on, no Symantec, no way. If family or non-geek friends ask me about viruses, tracking cookies, internet security, I certainly won't be recommending Symantec. In fact I'll be telling them to steer well clear of them at all costs.
I've now uninstalled NSS again. I've nuked the Common Files folder for Symantec. I've gone through the registry and made sure all Symantec/Norton keys and entries are gone. I've even uninstalled Adobe Shockwave, which really I should've done before.
Now playing:
Scott, Mike - Open
(from Still Burning)
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2 Responses
#1 Craig said...
03-Jan-09 3:39 AMI would like to see a time line of when Norton products changed from fixing malware to becoming malware. I now avoid anything in a yellow box.
#2 julian m bucknall said...
03-Jan-09 9:47 AMCraig: I feel sorry for Peter Norton in a way. His surname is now forever associated with software that does dodgy things, like some back street car salesman flogging off cut-n-shut jobs.
Cheers, Julian
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