I have just updated to the new version of Norton this morning, and have noticed that as well as the Live Update button disappearing (as reported in the thread below), the scan no longer includes the SD Card. Even with the option turned "on".
It now only scans the device. In my particular case on my S3 - 249 items. My SD card is quite full, and prior to the update it would scan around 9000 items. With the SD option turned on it still only finds 249 items.
Has anyone else noticed this? I did see another user on Google Play had noted this problem as well.
I also suspect mine isn’t scanning my SD card since updating to 3.8.0.1196. It’s hard to be certain as I recently had to do a factory reset on my phone so there isn’t much on my SD card, but it’s definitely scanning fewer files than it did prior to the product update.
I certainly don't mean to hijack this thread as I have the same problem, but has no-one else also noticed that the scanner doesn't scan the SD card anymore?
It's only the device that gets scanned since the update.
I am also having this problem with the live updated selection not showing up on the menu list.
Second I too am having the problem with the scanning not scanning the SD Card. I use to have between 1400 and 1500 items scanned before the update. Now as I watch the list of items scanned, there is no showing of the items I have on my SD Card. Also it is only scanning around 350 items, compaired to the 1400 to 1500 items before the update. And yes, I have the SD Card selection selected.
I have just updated to the new version of Norton this morning, and have noticed that as well as the Live Update button disappearing (as reported in the thread below), the scan no longer includes the SD Card. Even with the option turned "on".
It now only scans the device. In my particular case on my S3 - 249 items. My SD card is quite full, and prior to the update it would scan around 9000 items. With the SD option turned on it still only finds 249 items.
Has anyone else noticed this? I did see another user on Google Play had noted this problem as well.
Sorry for the trouble. Can you please provide me more information on the SD card problem:
1. Run a manual scan with and without the “Scan SD Card” option enabled and note the total files scanned for both scans to see if there is a difference.
2. Let me know the Device make & Model and the OS version.
Vineeth: Android 4.2.2 HUAWEI Ascend p6, HUAWEI Ascend 300 g 2x android 4.0.3 SD Scan item is selected, but the card does not scan. Worse, the update does not work V. Norton Mobile 3.8 upgrade process reports failure, see the next thread. I use google translator, I am from Czech Republic. I apologize.
I'm on the same specs (Samsung Galaxy S3; Android 4.3), and my SD card is still getting scanned:
Scan with SD Card not checked: 413; time 29 seconds
Scan with SD Card checked: 414; time 35 seconds
Not much of a difference, but still a difference. Question: do the others reporting this issue have any apps installed on your SD cards? What this is starting to look like to me is that Norton has stopped reporting file types that cannot hold Android malware anyhow (e.g., your data files) as having been scanned...and that most of us, who may have used to want to move space-hogging apps over to our SD cards back when onboard storage built into our devices was so much more limited, aren't needing to do that anymore. This would produce what we're observing: NMS is indeed still scanning our SD cards if we've told it to...but we don't have any (or in my case many) apps there for it to scan.
I'm going to test this hypothesis by moving a couple more, infrequently-used, among my apps over to my SD card and run the two (with and without) scans again; will report back what I find.
I am still a little concerned on this observation.
I did some more testing and I have 4 apps on my sd card along with over 1000 other files.
When I do a scan with the sd card not marked for checking it scans 360 files and it takes 38 seconds. When I do it with the sd card marked for checking it scans the same 360 files and also takes the same amout of time of 38 seconds.
Still not sure what is going on.
Thanks for everyones feedback and I will keep an eye on this.
It does seem to be less a matter of apps than apks. When you move "an app" to your SD card, you're really just moving the app's resources and data--the executable portion remains on your device as a "stub" (you can see this in the entry for a given app in your app manager). So when I finally got around to moving a few apps like I said, it didn't change my numbers at all either...but it still scanned one more file with SD Card checked than without. What it turned out to be was an apk for an old version of Norton Tablet Security that I'd had to sideload when it first came out.
I wouldn't worry about a thousand (or even ten thousand) "other files," since it appears NMS isn't wasting time scanning file types that can't be infected with Android malware (note that the numbers we're all reporting are far too small to be all the files even on our devices themselves).
Prior to this update, I was scanning over 9,000 files. Now, only about 400 or so. I am sure the JPG files are not being scanned. Are you saying that JPG files cannot be infected? If so, I find it interesting that Norton scans those files on my PC.
I am saying that as far as I can see the new version of NMS does not scan JPG files. I agree that Norton does that on a PC but then I believe that JPG files can represent a threat to PCs. I am no expert, but I am not aware of any threat to an Android device from a JPG file. However if it is then passed on to your PC it will still need to be scanned for PC threats.
That is correct. Android malware doesn't work the same way as PC malware, because of differences in how the two OSes are structured. So many of the files that can serve as vectors for Windows systems cannot on our smartphones.
Andmike is absolutely right that infected file types that can harm PCs could be passed through our phones (essentially using them like a thumbdrive). But mobile antivirus apps have to operate in a leaner hardware and software environment than PC-based ones like NIS or 360--so it just isn't practical to make them beefy enough to screen for any file that might infect a different device running a different operating system,if it ever happened to get passed to one. Given the multitude of different devices and even OSes out there today, it's much more cost-effective to count on the AV protection of each device to detect the malware that might affect it.