I've just installed NIS 2014 using the NIS downloader. I'm having the same issue that the members on this thread were having 7 months ago. It's still not been fixed. After disabling Automatic Program Control and enabling Advanced Events Monitoring, my PC will frequently freeze for 10 or 20 minutes. During which the hard drive is constantly thrashing about. The issue is something to do with manually allowing programs internet access. The pop security alert window is delayed in appearing (as mentioned, by as much 20 minutes).
Is Norton not taking this issue seriously? Having Automatic Program Control enabled is not an option for me.
The good thing about Norton's firewall (but bad in your eyes) is that it is designed for the home user that does not have any networking knowledge. They do not want to have to know or learn about network/firewall settings. Norton just handles it and allows the user to just use their computer.
Maybe you should be looking into a more enterprise centered product that allows you to have the fine control you desire.
I agree that for many, they want a plug and play Security Suite that doesn't need any supervising. Norton seems to be a great product in this regard. I don't agree that I should be looking at an enterprise product. Be able to manually choose which programs have access to the internet is a basic function of any firewall and indeed has been with Norton for many years. It is a function of NIS 2014 but unfortunately it doesn't work without freezing my (and many other peoples) computers. With all their resources I think they could and should've have fixed this issue by now.
If this issue was resolved I'd have no hesitation in coming back to Norton. I'm very happy with it otherwise.
Hi, FlexiPack. While I acknowledge you prefer to have some level of control over your firewall,I have to say that in all the years of using Norton, I have always had Automatic Program Control set to on, and never had a problem.
IMHO the Norton Firewall is pretty good at what it does, and I think not called the Smart Firewall, for nothing.
I've just spoken online with a Norton representative and he acknowledged that this is a known issue with no fix.
Hi FlexiPack:
There was more than one thread in the forum regarding the slow boot-up and high disk I/O problem caused when users turned ON the Advanced Events Monitoring setting of their N360/NIS v. 21.x Smart Firewall, and Symantec employee Basil confirmed here in slee2's thread NIS v21 High HD I/O that this bug was fixed in the NIS v. 21.2.0.38 product update. Several users in that thread also confirmed that the v. 21.2.0.38 update solved the problem on their computer. Could you please confirm that you have the latest version v. 21.2.0.38 of NIS (which you can find at Support | About)? Also try re-booting your computer and running manual LiveUpdates until no further updates are available to ensure you received the hotfix mentioned by Basil.
Also note that users who leave the Automatic Program Control of their Smart Firewall set to Automatic (the default setting) still have the ability to manually Allow/Block individual programs at Settings | Network | Smart Firewall | Programs Rules | Configure and create various custom rules - see the support article here.
Like F4E, I've always found that the default settings for the NIS Smart Firewall do a good job of controlling program access through my firewall. If you hover your mouse over the icon in the Trust column of the Program Rules window, you can see that programs with the highest "Norton Trusted" rating will be given full "Allow" access through the firewall, while programs that are still considered to be safe but only have a "Good" trust rating will be given "Auto" access and will be monitored more closely than the fully trusted programs. The level of access automatically assigned by the Smart Firewall can be modified by the user at their own risk if they choose to do so.
----------- MS Windows 32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox 29.0 * IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
I've just installed NIS 2014 using the NIS downloader. I'm having the same issue that the members on this thread were having 7 months ago. It's still not been fixed. After disabling Automatic Program Control and enabling Advanced Events Monitoring, my PC will frequently freeze for 10 or 20 minutes. During which the hard drive is constantly thrashing about. The issue is something to do with manually allowing programs internet access. The pop security alert window is delayed in appearing (as mentioned, by as much 20 minutes).
Is Norton not taking this issue seriously? Having Automatic Program Control enabled is not an option for me.
