Norton Toolbar / Norton Identity Safe

[gbohn]

  This is infuriating... I loaded my three home systems with the Firefox 10 ESR simply to get off the madness/treadmill that is the 'Regular' Firefox update cycle.

  The 10.xxx version is current,  doesn't change much, and worked fine with Norton until now...

  If you think I'm going to upgrade my personal home systems to a corporate version of Norton, you will be disappointed.

  As it is, I'm now seriously thinking of switching to a different vendors product, since this was one of the main features that attracted me to NIS in the first place...

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

Hi gbohn,

Mozilla specifically states that Firefox ESR is for large organizations, rather than individuals.  It was never intended as a vehicle to allow individual users to avoid upgrading.  There are risks and downsides involved with running ESR that may be acceptable in enterprise environments, but which Mozilla advises may not be appropriate for individuals.  There are many tradeoffs inherent in the ESR model and, unfortunately, the Norton Toolbar is one of the casualties of the fundamental conceptual difference between Firefox ESR and the release update channel version.

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport:Proposal

[gbohn]

> There are risks and downsides involved with running ESR...

...

> There are many tradeoffs inherent in the ESR mode...

  And what might those be?

  This version is up to date on security patches and is (by design) feature stable. I don't want or need the latest 'features'.  I only want a stable browser with security updates.

  10 ESR certainly isn't  outdated,  unsupported, insecure, or abandoned.

  From a Norton perspective, this version is the least likely to have any major changes (far less so than the 6-week 'Feature Du jour' version). 

> Mozilla specifically states that Firefox ESR is for large organizations...

  That may very well have been their impetus. But. I don't really care what their 'justification' or 'business model' for this was.(They clearly got push-back for going from the prior model to the relentless feature update model).

  The ESR version fits my needs,  is freely available, and has current security updates. Most irritating of all is that it WAS supported  and working with Norton Internet Security.

  That is, until Symantec decided to stop allowing it to work because it was 'too old'.

> Norton Toolbar is one of the casualties of the fundamental conceptual difference between Firefox ESR...

  The only conceptual difference is that 10 ESR is not changing, except for security updates. Ironically, the exact thing that should make supporting it relatively easy...

[SendOfJive Norton Fighter]

Hi gbohn,

I posted links to articles where the advantages and disadvantages of the ESR version are explained, along with a full overview of how the ESR concept differentiates it from the release update channel version.  And you should care about Mozilla's justifcation and business model for ESR - you are using it afterall, and yet you seem to be expecting it to be supported as if it were no different than the release update channel product.  In fact, the only support you are assured of is critical security support from Mozilla.  Everything else is played as it lies.  Despite what you say about Firefox ESR 10 being a current product, it is essentially Firefox 10, which is otherwise not supported at all, being kept on minimal life support for the benefit of large organizations that are unable to adapt to a quick-release schedule.  It is not intended to be a fully up-to-date product with all of the features currently available in newer versions of the browser.  Meanwhile, Symantec still needs to redo the Norton Toolbar for every new Firefox release, and they have stated the reasons why it became impractical to maintain backwards compatibility with all of the growing number of old Firefox versions.  So yes, there are tradeoffs.

[peterweb Super Worm Eliminator]

Symantec is not the only company to have 'end of life' situations with support.

Because an outside organization (Mozilla) decides to create a workflow where their software is updated every couple of weeks, companies like Symantec that have to support someone else's software have to draw the line somewhere.

It is a fact of life in business, that you only have limited resources. With competition, you cannot just open the purse strings to supply the extra support, while keeping your prices in line with the competition.

You should be venting more in Mozilla forums to get them to stop their madness.

[dickevans Super RootKit Eradicator]

The one answer I haven't seen yet is 'why should a home/comsumer product be expected to support a commercial product?' If a commercial Norton product wasn't doing the job of supporting then I can see a point to the discussion. Right now is sounds like the apples aren't supporting the oranges and people are fussing.

Guess I just don't understand

[peterweb Super Worm Eliminator]

---

dickevans wrote:

The one answer I haven't seen yet is 'why should a home/comsumer product be expected to support a commercial product?' If a commercial Norton product wasn't doing the job of supporting then I can see a point to the discussion. Right now is sounds like the apples aren't supporting the oranges and people are fussing.

Guess I just don't understand

---

+1

If I am running server software at home, I cannot expect a home security solution to protect me.

If someone chooses to use commercial software at home, they have to deal with what comes with it.

[gbohn]

> If I am running server software at home, I cannot expect a home security solution to protect me.

  That's not quite the same. As I understand it, the only difference between Firefox 10 ESR and Firefox 10 was the update track. They were otherwise essentially the same, with the same functionality.

  The toolbar WAS functional and supported until recently...

  Or maybe NIS just couldn't tell the difference between the two... I guess we'll find out when the next ESR comes along.

[dickevans Super RootKit Eradicator]

---

gbohn wrote:

> If I am running server software at home, I cannot expect a home security solution to protect me.

  That's not quite the same. As I understand it, the only difference between Firefox 10 ESR and Firefox 10 was the update track. They were otherwise essentially the same, with the same functionality.

  The toolbar WAS functional and supported until recently...

  Or maybe NIS just couldn't tell the difference between the two... I guess we'll find out when the next ESR comes along.

---

Then I guess the same would apply to Ghost and SSR

One is a home product and the other a commercial version. Why should I have to pay commercial prices to get an up-to-date backup solution for my home computers?

[gbohn]

> Why should I have to pay commercial prices to get an up-to-date backup solution for my home computers?

  I think the 'commercial software' aspect is a specious argument in this case.

  As I understand it,

   A) Firefox is free. So there's no additional (any) payment received for the 'Commercial' version.

   B)  Firefox 10 and 10 ESR are essentially the same thing. One does not have greater (or even different)  functionality

         between the two. (I'm not even sure that the difference isn't only in the configuration files for the update server, etc.

         ...).

         When they were released, the only difference was the upgrade path. Firefox 10 and 10 ESR received the

         exact same updates. Security issues were simultaneously released for both.

         NIS Toolbar didn't differentiate between the two since they are basically the same thing. Life was good.

   When 11 was released, the 'regular' channel was directed to upgrade to Firefox 11. The 10 ESR channel

was not. Updates for Firefox 10/10 ESR continued to be released for Security issues only.

    Same deal with 12 and 13. 'Regular' channel was directed to update, ESR channel stays on 10 just applying

occasional security patches.

Then, with the release of 13, Symantec decided that 10 was too old, and prevents the Toolbar from working on any 10 version.

 One could argue that this is their prerogative. But I don't think the 'commercial' aspect is applicable in the traditional sense.

 There aren't any prices involved here... And the product is virtually identical to the 'home' version.