I got a new laptop 3 days ago. One of the first things I saw after installation was NIS 2011 nagging about lack of protection. It apparently started by default but wasn't activated.
I also installed Mozilla Firefox, which wasn't installed by default and found Norton Toolbar 2011.7.0.8 and Symantec IPS 3.0 from the addons. What? I disabled both.
I activated NIS 2011 on day 2 after it nagged again, thinking that'd save me from some trouble. Then I started Firefox and noticed that the Norton Toolbar had apparently activated by itself? Wtf?
That feels quite intrusive. Another thing that feels quite intrusive is NIS 2011 recreating deleted shortcut on desktop (why would anyone need a shortcut on desktop when NIS 2011 runs automatically and is in the task bar's tray, in the start menu and the original shortcut still exists in the place I moved it to?)
In addition, the Norton and Symantec IPS plugins can not be removed within Firefox (only disabled). They can only be removed from the uninstall programs menu in the control panel (probably just deleting the actual files would work too). That again is quite intrusive and extremely annoying. I don't want to have any crap I can't delete on my computer!
These things make me remember two things... How I hate preinstalled crap that is being forced at your face and how deeply I loathe the Norton brand. I know, the actual software has probably gotten a lot better during the years, but at least some practices still suck. That doesn't matter though, since I will probably never lose the mental image of stinking pile of excrement that I've connected to Norton and partly to Symantec too.
So, I ended up uninstalling. I would've probably done that after the 60 days trial too, unless NIS 2011 would've turned out to be awesome software before that.
Why I am here is because the uninstaller asked me to give feedback and tell why I am uninstalling. When I clicked that button, it sent me to a page which doesn't seem to exist.
The page has images (mostly about awards of NIS 2011) and this black text on black background:
XML Error -
Error Reason: The system cannot locate the object specified.
Source:
Error Line: 0
Error Position: 0
At this point I just sighed.
When I registered on this forum, my password had to be between 6 and 20 characters in length. That is beyond retarded and I completely fail to see how you are supposed to be ANY GOOD in the field security with a practice like that.
Kind Regards,
"Hoping to never find a preinstalled Norton again"
P.S.
I intended to indent the error message code, and did that in the Rich Text editor. When I clicked post, I got the following error message and the indent was gone:
"Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied."
(edited for aesthetic reasons)