Norton AntiVirus Subsciption Renewal
Discussion
GregE240 said "and believe me, I have first time experience of this both as a home user - of legitimate software - and as a corporate reseller)"
And you did'nt know it came with a 1 year licence? Do you expect them to supply you with indefinet virus definitions? Any company that does that is going to run out of cash in a very short time. Excuse me Shell, I bought a tank of petrol a week ago and it has now run out......can I have a free refill? You bought a licenced copy of some software (and thank you very much)that included a 1 year subscrption to updates, that has now ran out so the choice is yours. You can purchase an upgrade or uninstall and look elsewhere. The software is not useless, it will continue to protect you from the viruses that are covered by the updates that you paid for.
Dear Mr Wheeler,
My Chimera is looking a little long in the tooth, please may I have a shinny new T350C.
NO!
And you did'nt know it came with a 1 year licence? Do you expect them to supply you with indefinet virus definitions? Any company that does that is going to run out of cash in a very short time. Excuse me Shell, I bought a tank of petrol a week ago and it has now run out......can I have a free refill? You bought a licenced copy of some software (and thank you very much)that included a 1 year subscrption to updates, that has now ran out so the choice is yours. You can purchase an upgrade or uninstall and look elsewhere. The software is not useless, it will continue to protect you from the viruses that are covered by the updates that you paid for.
Dear Mr Wheeler,
My Chimera is looking a little long in the tooth, please may I have a shinny new T350C.
NO!
Great. You try and help people out, and this is the thanks you get.
It was for my neighbour, if you had bothered to read the entire thread, not me. My sub to Norton is still valid thanks very much, come renewal perhaps I'll renew my subscrption just to appease whats left of my tattered conscience. I might even sleep better at night, who knows.
It was for my neighbour, if you had bothered to read the entire thread, not me. My sub to Norton is still valid thanks very much, come renewal perhaps I'll renew my subscrption just to appease whats left of my tattered conscience. I might even sleep better at night, who knows.
[quote]although in my opinion your relatives not running AV software on their machines is a little misled.[/quote]
Not at all I am a compter expert, and it was my opinion they didn't need it for their usage and I stick by that. I'll explain. The trick is that lots of people don't understand how viruses are sent/recieved.
My parents use their PC for four main things. Writing letters, keeping the accounts for a local club (spreadsheet), Shopping from Tescos, and emailing friends.
The only risk they have is answering an email that is infected the others have no real risk. Now this is where people fail to understand how to minimize this risk. If you turn off previews for Outlook then the email is not openned until you double click on it. Leave the preview on and it will open to show in the bottom window. If the email doesn't open it cannot infect your machine, its that simple.
So you tell your client (in my case my parents) this and the problem of getting infected is reduced a great deal. The vast majority of email viruses are attachments. So if they recieve an email from someone they don't know they delete it. If its from someone they do know with/without an attachment but are suspicious of the title they will ring their friend to ask what it is.
By bringing in that simple rule the chances of catching a virus are extremely small. Since telling them the above guidelines they haven't caught anything.
Finally the last part is backups. My parents have been taught how to do backups of important stuff on floppy disks. So that in the event of a fault any work they need can be retrieved. So the machine can effectively completely fail with no real loss of data.
The only time my parents caught a virus was about 2 years ago. It was from a friend but they had got preview open (it was before it was realised that this was a possible method). It sent emails using their address book and guess what, my email address is in there so I was sent an infected email and my AV software detected it emmediately. One phone call later, a trip to my parents house and it was removed.
So in summary, they protect themsleves by only opening emails they are sure about. They don't use external floppy disks or new software. They don't download anything ever, and all the important work is backed up on floppy anyway. All in all the chances of them catching a virus is very small and IMHO not worth the expense of AV software also given that even if they do and lose everything it doesn't really matter as I can get it all back.
Finally ask yourself this question: When was the last time your AV software actually detected a virus in your email? I recieve approx 40 emails a day about the amount my parents get in a month! and the last time one was flagged up was my parents one 2 years ago.
If they started to download stuff then yes I would say they need AV software but their current usage.....risk about the same as a person with AV software catching an unknown. Hope that explains it a bit better.
>> Edited by smeagol on Thursday 19th June 01:48
Not at all I am a compter expert, and it was my opinion they didn't need it for their usage and I stick by that. I'll explain. The trick is that lots of people don't understand how viruses are sent/recieved.
My parents use their PC for four main things. Writing letters, keeping the accounts for a local club (spreadsheet), Shopping from Tescos, and emailing friends.
The only risk they have is answering an email that is infected the others have no real risk. Now this is where people fail to understand how to minimize this risk. If you turn off previews for Outlook then the email is not openned until you double click on it. Leave the preview on and it will open to show in the bottom window. If the email doesn't open it cannot infect your machine, its that simple.
So you tell your client (in my case my parents) this and the problem of getting infected is reduced a great deal. The vast majority of email viruses are attachments. So if they recieve an email from someone they don't know they delete it. If its from someone they do know with/without an attachment but are suspicious of the title they will ring their friend to ask what it is.
By bringing in that simple rule the chances of catching a virus are extremely small. Since telling them the above guidelines they haven't caught anything.
Finally the last part is backups. My parents have been taught how to do backups of important stuff on floppy disks. So that in the event of a fault any work they need can be retrieved. So the machine can effectively completely fail with no real loss of data.
The only time my parents caught a virus was about 2 years ago. It was from a friend but they had got preview open (it was before it was realised that this was a possible method). It sent emails using their address book and guess what, my email address is in there so I was sent an infected email and my AV software detected it emmediately. One phone call later, a trip to my parents house and it was removed.
So in summary, they protect themsleves by only opening emails they are sure about. They don't use external floppy disks or new software. They don't download anything ever, and all the important work is backed up on floppy anyway. All in all the chances of them catching a virus is very small and IMHO not worth the expense of AV software also given that even if they do and lose everything it doesn't really matter as I can get it all back.
Finally ask yourself this question: When was the last time your AV software actually detected a virus in your email? I recieve approx 40 emails a day about the amount my parents get in a month! and the last time one was flagged up was my parents one 2 years ago.
If they started to download stuff then yes I would say they need AV software but their current usage.....risk about the same as a person with AV software catching an unknown. Hope that explains it a bit better.
>> Edited by smeagol on Thursday 19th June 01:48
"When was the last time your AV software actually detected a virus in your email? "
Almost daily, sadly. Such is the joy of having a website with my email address on it.
Just a minor point to back up the decision not to have AV software on machines (if you want to go down that route, not that I would but that's just me) .... my parents have NAV installed on their PC. They fully know about not opening attachments and dodgy emails etc, however last week my Dad had a "senior" moment and opened 4 emails from the likes of "support@microsoft.com" etc ... you can imagine the results.
When I asked him how up to date his virus definitions were, he said about 4 weeks. You see, he's on an awfully slow 56k dial up, so he'd turned autoupdate off, and only updates every now and then. So .... new virus, not in definitions .... one knobbled PC awaiting my attention the next time I go up to Sheffield.
So even with AV installed, they can still get knobbled.
(edited coz the quote system seems to have gone a bit silly)
>> Edited by nevpugh308 on Thursday 19th June 09:05
Almost daily, sadly. Such is the joy of having a website with my email address on it.
Just a minor point to back up the decision not to have AV software on machines (if you want to go down that route, not that I would but that's just me) .... my parents have NAV installed on their PC. They fully know about not opening attachments and dodgy emails etc, however last week my Dad had a "senior" moment and opened 4 emails from the likes of "support@microsoft.com" etc ... you can imagine the results.
When I asked him how up to date his virus definitions were, he said about 4 weeks. You see, he's on an awfully slow 56k dial up, so he'd turned autoupdate off, and only updates every now and then. So .... new virus, not in definitions .... one knobbled PC awaiting my attention the next time I go up to Sheffield.
So even with AV installed, they can still get knobbled.
(edited coz the quote system seems to have gone a bit silly)
>> Edited by nevpugh308 on Thursday 19th June 09:05
I wasnt jumping down your throat, just pointing out that you (or your friend)paid for a years subscrption (I take it that you were more than happy with the service that the software gave you during that period - hence the reson that you tried to circumvent the licence when it expired) then start whining when it runs out and you have to renew, what did you expect?
If you don't want to pay for software its easy, just go onto kazaa and download it (including Symantec AV 2003).
If you don't want to pay for software its easy, just go onto kazaa and download it (including Symantec AV 2003).
Chris, point taken mate. I think we may have to agree to disagree on this one. However, when my neighbour bought Norton AV2002, it doesn't exactly have emblazoned all over the box that the product will only last for one year, unless you renew or replace.
As a home user, I would hope you could understand my neighbour's annoyance that software would just cease to function. Aside from AV products such as this, no other software product that is timebombed like this immediately comes to mind (unless its MS related software that is a 120 day licenced preview copy or something).
I was asked to get it working, which I did. During my research into the subscrption process and subsequent success I thought I might share my findings with persons on here. I'm actually regretting doing that now, despite some complimentary e-mails.
As a home user, I would hope you could understand my neighbour's annoyance that software would just cease to function. Aside from AV products such as this, no other software product that is timebombed like this immediately comes to mind (unless its MS related software that is a 120 day licenced preview copy or something).
I was asked to get it working, which I did. During my research into the subscrption process and subsequent success I thought I might share my findings with persons on here. I'm actually regretting doing that now, despite some complimentary e-mails.
As far as I'm aware, the NAV subscrption is for updates to virus definitions not for using the software itself. So what you're buying in the first place is tool to detect/remove viruses that has one-year's free updates of the definitions thrown in. It's a bit like buying a new car and expecting free servicing for life.
At around £30/year for AV software I think this is a pretty small price to pay to protect me against the morons who write viruses. I know from experience how destructive they can be and how long it takes to partially recover from them.
Some people may argue that it should be built into the OS, well perhaps but you would still only get the "tool" not the definitions which need to be updated regularly. Also, don't think that viruses are the domain of MS - they just get more publicity be it good or bad, and given that most people use their software if a weakness is found then more people are affected. I'm not trying to defend MS, BTW, just stating the obvious.
However, whilst I don't have a problem with the subscrption of NAV I do have some sympathy with the home user who has multiple PCs. Can't think of a way around that!
In terms of whether any AV software is good, bad or indifferent is whether it protects you! NAV is used by most of the large corporates, not because of the price but because it works. I can only say don't leave it to chance - £30 will seem like a small amount to pay compared to the amount of time/data you will lose if you get infected. And then you'll buy it. Like I did...
Andy
At around £30/year for AV software I think this is a pretty small price to pay to protect me against the morons who write viruses. I know from experience how destructive they can be and how long it takes to partially recover from them.
Some people may argue that it should be built into the OS, well perhaps but you would still only get the "tool" not the definitions which need to be updated regularly. Also, don't think that viruses are the domain of MS - they just get more publicity be it good or bad, and given that most people use their software if a weakness is found then more people are affected. I'm not trying to defend MS, BTW, just stating the obvious.
However, whilst I don't have a problem with the subscrption of NAV I do have some sympathy with the home user who has multiple PCs. Can't think of a way around that!
In terms of whether any AV software is good, bad or indifferent is whether it protects you! NAV is used by most of the large corporates, not because of the price but because it works. I can only say don't leave it to chance - £30 will seem like a small amount to pay compared to the amount of time/data you will lose if you get infected. And then you'll buy it. Like I did...
Andy
victormeldrew said:
I still don't think the punter should be having to pay for AV software and/or upgrades. If its not MS that should fund it then maybe the ISPs? Discuss!
I'm afraid I disagree.
It's not just MS software that suffers from virus attacks, but also Linux systems, Macs, and will probably include PDAs & phones in the not-too-distant future, so I don't think that it's yet possible to code software that could be certified virus-proof. This being the case, why should any software house have to accept responsibility for, what is in essence, damage caused by vandals?
As an analogy, would we expect our car manufactures to accept liability for acts of vandalism to our vehicles? Regarding paying for AV updates, can't this be likened to buying a new car & then complaining a year later when you need to re-insure it? AV updates are simply a form of insurance, & it's up to individuals whether they want to pay for further updates & stay "fully-comp", or not - "third party only".
griffless said:
I'm afraid I disagree.
It's not just MS software that suffers from virus attacks, but also Linux systems, Macs, and will probably include PDAs & phones in the not-too-distant future, so I don't think that it's yet possible to code software that could be certified virus-proof.
That's because there isn't such a thing! "Viruses" take many forms but in essence they are programs which may (or may not) do harmful or unwanted things.
For example, a program that pops up a message every 5 minutes and says "Hello" is annoying, has no other effect, but it is a virus. No-one could stop this apart from the user of the computer not installing the program (which is generally sent via email) in the first place.
The AV companies analyse the program, detect its "signature" and then create an update to their definitions to detect/delete it. Until the virus has been created and sent to people it can't be detected.
griffless is right in saying that PDAs and phones are at risk. Any piece of equipment that can accept programs from other sources is potentially at risk, and the wider the use of that equipment the greater the risk.
Andy
Why pay for a virus detector? when you can go here and get a free one with free updates.
www.grisoft.com/html/us_index.htm?session=24b3d0266be68b85a28f92c0bcf49737
www.grisoft.com/html/us_index.htm?session=24b3d0266be68b85a28f92c0bcf49737
I agree with all of the anal-ists. You should pay for software, otherwise them and me for that matter would be out of work, nad have no nice toys to play with!
But if you want to try uninstalling the NOrtons and then re-installing it it will give you another years protection for free!
I dont endorse, but what the hell!
But if you want to try uninstalling the NOrtons and then re-installing it it will give you another years protection for free!
I dont endorse, but what the hell!
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