Are You Still Using NAV 8?

[W3WN]

This recently came to light, and in the event we have others in the situation, I thought you should know:

Symantec (owners of Norton Antivirus) declared "End of Life" years ago on several products, including Norton AV 8.x, Norton AV Corporate Edition 8.x, and so forth. Despite the official lack of support, AV updates were (seemingly) still available.

That all changed on or about May 11th. People uploading their older systems found that they could no longer scan their hard drives; NAV (or whatever) would tell them that the "scan (was) stopped by user."

It's not entirely clear what the cause of this was. More than a few argue that this was a deliberate step by Symantec to force users of the older product to upgrade to the latest flavor. Symantec support claims that this was an unintended consequence, and since they no longer test application in EOL, they had no way of knowing it would happen... and since the products are in EOL they won't try and fix it, either.

Support then goes on to question why anyone would be using 8 year old AV software today, and at least one support person implies that this only affects stolen ("borrowed" "liberated" unlicensed etc) software or installations. See for yoursef:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/foru...n-stopped-user

...that aside, the fact remains that there are still embedded or proprietary applications that run on Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows ME, Windows 98, even Windows 95. Many of these are commercial use applications (ie laboratories and research facilities).

And I can personally vouch that a local network TV station runs several graphics editing machines on Windows NT, I've seen them on the tour of their new facility (yes CGC, I have pictures). I also know that a local hospital runs several machines on NT that are used to look at X-rays and similar image files -- I worked there a few years ago as a contractor before taking my current job.

The fact is that many of these businesses run on the old principle of "it ain't broke, so don't fix it." They need an AV package for the older hardware. Now their legitimate license has effectively been disabled, with no prior warning. (And who reads EOL messages posted on a company web site, anyway? Especially when one has no reason to check that web site for any other business purpose)

Bottom line: If someone you know (or you) is running the old Symantec AV software, it may no longer be working or working correctly. Suggest they update or outright replace it ASAP before they get hit with a little nasty.

[KC2UGV]

Yum... FreshClam...

ClamAV:

Supported on: Win 98-Win7, GNU/Linux, AIX, Solaris, and MacOS X.

[KG4CGC]

I don't know. They could be PhotoShopped.


I kid I kid!

My only comment is that I never liked their products regardless of how much I was told they were the best, strongest etc.

[W3WN]

I've also learned that Avast! 4.8, which is still (at the moment at least) on the free download page of their web site, supports Windows 98.

I've been wondering a lot lately about Peter Norton. Did he have any clue, when he sold his company to Symantec, how reviled his name would become because of them?

[kd8dey]

I also use avast. they are up to version 5 now. I used nortons when I first bought my PC. 3 bad points for nortons
1 Its a resource hog

2 after the initial install, all of the updates make it a headache to repair (especially if you get one of the nasties that try to disable nortons)since you cannot use the original installation file. you get the newer version already installed warnings stuff
so you are pretty much sol since you dont get a chance to save a copy of the update files to do a repair and loose access to your stuff

3 Nortons moves all your stuff into a (transparent to the user) archive file to protect your files. if you try to manually remove nortons in order to be able to try a reinstall with the original installation you completely loose all your stuff. (been there done that bought the tee)
so if you dont have a complete backup of all your stuff (And who does) you loose everything and end up at back at square 1 doing a complete wipe and install of the OS

[WØTKX]

Norton is also a "target of opportunity" and has been hacked/payloaded repeatedly. I use Avast mostly now, had AVG for a long time, and used Panda for a while before that.

And a "firewalled" router. It's good to have a PC running in a DMZ sometimes... Comodo is a current favorite.

[N9FE]

Got rid of that Damn Norton like 8 years ago. It's a F@cking RASH that won't go away.

[W4GPL]

Even if you were still getting signature updates, the scanning engine older AV products use is simply inadequate to take care of the more advanced malware that exists today. Hell, even the newest stuff on the market still lets stuff slip by... a lot. And if you're running something as old as NT 4.0 or Windows 9X, I certainly hope your IT department has taken steps to minimize/prevent their online usage. It might not be broke, but it still be one day because they sat on their hands and didn't upgrade.

[AA8AE]

Got rid of that Damn Norton like 8 years ago. It's a F@cking RASH that won't go away.

I agree, Did the same thing.

[ac0h]

Even if you were still getting signature updates, the scanning engine older AV products use is simply inadequate to take care of the more advanced malware that exists today. Hell, even the newest stuff on the market still lets stuff slip by... a lot. And if you're running something as old as NT 4.0 or Windows 9X, I certainly hope your IT department has taken steps to minimize/prevent their online usage. It might not be broke, but it still be one day because they sat on their hands and didn't upgrade.

This is correct.
Any IT department allowing NT or Windows 9x access to the big bad internet needs to be replaced.....
Anybody at home running dinosaur machines with outdated AV software is contributing to the ever expanding problem of Viruses/Malware..... pull your head out of your ass and quit being part of the problem.

No matter how good your AV/Malware software is your machine is always going to be vulnerable for the period of time that it takes the software provider to react to a new threat and release updated definitions or program updates.