{"id":1375,"date":"2011-04-16T10:25:13","date_gmt":"2011-04-16T14:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=1375"},"modified":"2011-04-16T10:25:13","modified_gmt":"2011-04-16T14:25:13","slug":"norton-takes-a-bad-idea-one-step-further","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/norton-takes-a-bad-idea-one-step-further\/","title":{"rendered":"Norton takes a bad idea one step further"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past couple of weeks we have been receiving emails \t\t\t\tlike this one from Elaine:<\/span><\/p>\n

“I have this morning downloaded some of your stationery \t\t\t\t(older Easter stationery) and Norton’s (yes, I know you don’t \t\t\t\tlike it) have sent up a couple warnings regarding it, classing \t\t\t\tit WS.Reputation.1, which I take to mean there isn’t enough \t\t\t\tpeople using it to give it a good reputation? Surely there is no \t\t\t\tproblem with your stationery? Thanks Elaine.”<\/em><\/p>\n

First of all, we’ll tell you what “WS.Reputation.1” means It \t\t\t\tmeans “Web Site Reputation”. If you notice the format of \t\t\t\tWS.Reputation.1, it’s in the standard format used for naming \t\t\t\tviruses, Trojans, and other malicious files.<\/p>\n

It’s incredible that an anti-virus company which has been \t\t\t\taround for 20 year would ever stoop to this kind of slick \t\t\t\tmarketing ruse. WS Reputation means the reputation of a file as \t\t\t\tdetermined by a community of those who use Norton. If not enough \t\t\t\tpeople rate it good, or don’t rate it at all – that file \t\t\t\twarrants a warning: a \t\t\t\tWS.Reputation.1 warning.<\/p>\n

Why would any anti-virus company rely on a “community” of \t\t\t\tpeople who cannot possibly be experts in virus or malware \t\t\t\tdetection to have anything to do with what a security program \t\t\t\tdetects as “dangerous”. It’s just astounding to me that people \t\t\t\tbuy into this “community” ruse. Is there something a “community” \t\t\t\tof users who have no special credentials does to improve an \t\t\t\tanti-virus product to make it better? No.<\/p>\n

It’s bad enough that WOT gets away with this sort of thing, but \t\t\t\twhen an antivirus starts warning users about download simply \t\t\t\tbecause the “community” is not familiar with it, or there’s not \t\t\t\tenough community postings about it, that’s going way too far. So \t\t\t\ta software program is guilty until its community deems it \t\t\t\tinnocent? It seems to me that people would want their \t\t\t\tantivirus\/antispyware\/antimalware program to detect real threats \t\t\t\t– threats that can harm their computer, threaten their identity, \t\t\t\tor subvert their personal information – based on actual \t\t\t\tunbiased, logical threat detection techniques and scientific \t\t\t\tdata – and not on the consensus of some unseen community of \t\t\t\tpeople whose only expertise is that they user Norton products.<\/p>\n

Norton, in their magnanimity, does provide a way for companies \t\t\t\twho make software to have their negative ratings removed: Simply \t\t\t\tfill out a long form (which would take 30-45 minutes) for each \t\t\t\tdownload for which you want the negative removed. In a few \t\t\t\tweeks, if Norton sees fit, the negative will be removed. And in \t\t\t\tthe meantime the site (our site) loses hundreds, perhaps \t\t\t\tthousands of visitors who probably won’t ever return because \t\t\t\tthey think (thanks to Norton) that we are distributing infected \t\t\t\tfiles. We have \t\t\t\tover 5000 downloads. Are we guilty because we cannot possibly\u00a0 \t\t\t\tfill out 5000 separate forms? We cannot possibly fill out that \t\t\t\tmany forms and wait for weeks while Norton decides if our files \t\t\t\tshould be whitelisted? We have been on the Web for almost 13 \t\t\t\tyears and we served millions of downloads; our files have never harmed a \t\t\t\tsingle computer; we never once distributed a single malicious file \t\t\t\tand we never will.<\/p>\n

Norton is pandering to its users, providing them a “say” in its \t\t\t\tsecurity warnings. Norton has seen its sales drop sharply over \t\t\t\tthe years as new companies with better security software have \t\t\t\temerged. Facing stiff competition, Norton, instead of lowering \t\t\t\ttheir ridiculously high subscription prices, or improving their \t\t\t\tprogram by getting rid of their high-rate of false-positives and \t\t\t\tlowering the amount of system resources it uses, has stooped to \t\t\t\tgamesmanship and pandering by enabling its users to have a say \t\t\t\tin what is dangerous and what is not. It has taken WOT’s silly \t\t\t\tidea to a new level.<\/p>\n

If after learning that Norton has sunken to a new low. Allowing \t\t\t\trandom, anonymous users to contribute to its threat-detection \t\t\t\tdatabase is dangerous and asinine. If someone still trusts in and chooses to use Norton \t\t\t\tafter learning this,then they deserve what they get. Instead of \t\t\t\timproving their product, Norton just keeps getting worse. It’s \t\t\t\talways been an expensive, intrusive, bloated security suite. \t\t\t\tNorton has always suffered from a very high rate of false \t\t\t\tpositives. And now by relying on millions of users most of whom \t\t\t\thave no expertise at all in antivirus detection techniques, \t\t\t\tNorton has become infinitely more inaccurate.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to believe that anyone with even a modicum \t\t\t\tof knowledge of the Internet and the real threats that we all \t\t\t\tface, \t\t\t\twould ever use Norton 360 or any other Norton security product \t\t\t\tto protect their computer.<\/p>\n

There are so many good free and less-expensive security programs \t\t\t\tavailable; we just don’t understand why anyone would pay $59 a year \t\t\t\tfor a product that – just when we think it couldn’t get any worse-\u00a0 finds a way to do just that. Norton built its reputation over \t\t\t\ta decade ago when it and McAfee were the only choices for \t\t\t\tantivirus protection PC users had. The world has changed and \t\t\t\tthere are many excellent choices for antivirus, antispyware and \t\t\t\tantimalware – which are better, cheaper, more effective. Norton \t\t\t\tisn’t a household name because it’s better; it’s a household \t\t\t\tname because of a reputation it built over a decade ago when the \t\t\t\tinternet was a very different place and there were only two \t\t\t\tantivirus products available.<\/p>\n

It’s bad enough that WOT engages in this community \t\t\t\treputation-rating ruse; but it is downright dangerous when an \t\t\t\twhen an antivirus\/antispyware security product does \t\t\t\tit.<\/p>\n

We were absolutely shocked when we learned that Norton would \t\t\t\tstoop to this level of incompetency. Allowing its users to \t\t\t\thave any say in its threat detection process is not only foolish \t\t\t\tbut dangerous to all its users.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past couple of weeks we have been receiving emails like this one from Elaine: “I have this morning downloaded some of your stationery (older Easter stationery) and Norton’s (yes, I know you don’t like it) have sent up a couple warnings regarding it, classing it WS.Reputation.1, which I take to mean there isn’t enough people using\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[15,930,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1375"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3858,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}