Alright, look, when the stupid background tasks repeatedly cause a lag (sometimes up to 5 minutes, sometimes causing a crash) when they *stop*, then you have to give us the option to DISABLE THE £$%£^"£ING THINGS.
It's simple: I do NOT want background tasks. I've turned as much off as I can, but I still catch the £$%£%ing program closing its little "Norton is running background garbage" when I come back to my computer. I never asked you (Norton) to do all of my higher brain functions (like remembering to run a scan) for me.
I will NOT be renewing my Norton subscription.
StefCoulombe wrote:
Alright, look, when the stupid background tasks repeatedly cause a lag (sometimes up to 5 minutes, sometimes causing a crash) when they *stop*, then you have to give us the option to DISABLE THE £$%£^"£ING THINGS.
It's simple: I do NOT want background tasks. I've turned as much off as I can, but I still catch the £$%£%ing program closing its little "Norton is running background garbage" when I come back to my computer. I never asked you (Norton) to do all of my higher brain functions (like remembering to run a scan) for me.
I will NOT be renewing my Norton subscription.
hi,
Sorry you are unhappy with the product. There is a conflict between Norton doing its job of protecting your system and not being allowed to perform background tasks. The silent mode provides limited times of inactivity but it cannot be invoked as a permanent condition.
Please run the Norton Removal Tool
www.Norton.com/nrt
before you install your new security product
Stay well and surf safe
I know we disagree on a number of things, but let's be clear on this: Norton's "job" is what *I* have asked it to do (assuming that I ask it for something it is capable of). I am not hindering from doing its job. It's doing a great job at what it is asked to do. Unfortunately, the programmers seem to believe that I am incapable of setting tasks for the program by myself. This is not an issue of "a conflict between Norton doing its job of protecting your system and not being allowed to perform background tasks". This is an issue of the programmers thinking that all users are too stupid to know how to do those tasks on their own. Sure, many users may prefer those tasks to be automated, but once again, THOSE TASKS ARE NOT NECESSARY FOR NORTON TO DO ITS JOB. *I* can run scans, *I* can defrag and back up and do all those other tasks that Norton feels are important. For Norton to do its job, it must: detect risks WITH THE RESOURCES AND AUTHORITY GRANTED TO IT BY THE USER, and it must scan, clean, etc. etc. AS REQUESTED BY THE USER. That is "doing its job". (Besides, if the background tasks weren't screwing with my system, I'd be willing to just complain about it and hope for the best; however, when my "security" software starts causing more trouble than the supposed "risks" would, then the security software is NOT DOING ITS JOB.)
Once again: why is Norton too arrogant to admit that some of its mandatory functions are not always good/helpful?
There are certain background tasks that need to be run to keep Norton in good health. The developers have configured the program to run these tasks in idle time to minimize interference with the user doing other things. Complaints about interruptions from Norton usually arise from users who have configured the product so that "idle time" does not begin until the machine has been quiet for a long period, such as 30 minutes. If the machine is seldom idle for that long, Norton does not have an opportunity to run its tasks while you are away, and some of those tasks will be forced to run during non-idle time, causing the disruption. The best solution to this issue is to use a short Idle TIme Out period, allowing Norton to take care of business while you are not at the PC, rather than trying to prevent Norton from doing what it needs to do.
... so you've said, several times before. (I wonder if you have this text in a file, ready to be copied and pasted whether it is applicable or not.) These background tasks DO NOT NEED TO BE RUN IN THE BACKGROUND. It's quite simple. Norton can inform the user when these tasks need to be run, just as the user is informed when the updater should be run. Anyway, if you'd been paying attention, you'd have read that the problem is that Norton's background task manager is screwing with stuff that it shouldn't be screwing with. The problem I was writing about is NOT how Norton attempts to run those tasks while the user is active, "because the idle time-out is set too high". The problem is that when Norton runs those tasks, and I return to my computer, it prevents regular usage for a period of time while the computer tries to recover from whatever Norton was doing.
The best solution for this issue is for Norton to return control over the computer to the user. (There is no reason whatsoever why Norton can not include a "run bg tasks now" along with the "run update", "run quickscan" and "run backup now" options on the right-click menu. I would happily tell it do those things while I check email and whatnot. IF, that is, it meant that it would not be acting autonomously, without my permission, at other times.)
This is a product deficiency. It is not acceptable to run tasks that I do not want and I cannot disable. And I am not willing to let this 'Norton insight' violate my privacy.
If you cannot turn off all background tasks then this product is insufficient for my needs - fix this or refund my money.
I used to be a die hard Norton fan, today I think you have lost your edge, and I see why your not even in the top 3. Very dissatisfied this this current version.
My Windows 10 system is running in virtualized environment (Linux/KVM). In that case there is simply no way by which your developers could somehow figure out if my host system is idle. Every time your background task is running on the idling guest system, it totally locks down my non-idle host system.
Basically, that means that there is a real use case to run background tasks in a customizable manner. Or even disable automated execution.
Same applies to defragmentation: The guest-OS image is stored in a lzw-compressed btrfs filesystem on a SSD hard disk. That's at least three reasons why I do not want to run ANY sort of defrag operation on that system. Together with the behaviour to disturb my workflow, that makes even four reasons.