SillyDog701

[Ron Williams]

Recently I had to call symantec regarding norton personal firewall and had near the same problem as the editor below. The only difference is that it took me longer to get in contact with symantec. Anyway, since symantec is not able to provide adequate support for there products I am discontinuing my purchasing of there new products. After using Norton Antivirus and using it since 1996 and getting used to there interface, I will now change to the mcafee which may be the same tech support but less price. I know if symantec continues to neglect there customers they will lose them quickly, and with editors reports like in the link below, new users will not want to use any norton products.

Link to editors report
http://news.com.com/Symantec+support+wo ... 06363.html

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[profman]

Bad customer support is endemic ("characteristic of or prevalent in a particular field, area, or environment") to the software industry. (I certainly have more luck finding solutions on the Internet or developing my own solutions.)

The quality of software from McAfee has, in my experience with anti-virus programs, been lower than Symantec, so I stick with Symantec in this and other software categories. I usually buy Symantec software on sale and/or with a rebate so that I spend less than $20 (US) and, hopefully, less than $10 (often free after rebate).

Protecting your PC with software of any decent brand (including Symantec or McAfee) is always a good idea, regardless of which brand is my favorite or yours.

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[Antony]

Running a customer support (over the phone) cost a lot for the companies. Most companies would prefer provide online support or support over email.

In short, it would be easier to read the manual or on-screen help instruction first. It that does not work for you, try their website for knowledge base articles. I would leave the telephone support as last resort.

Now, back to anti-virus issue. I do find that Norton AntiVirus works very well, but all firewall related products from Norton are a bit complicated to configure.

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[Ron Williams]

you would think that symantec would automatically configure commonly used programs to be able to connect to the internet. Also why don't they ask you when a program attempts to connect to the internet for the first time, if you want to allow it or not and accept that until you change it in the control panel of the firewall.

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[James]

I used their firewall for a few years and like Antony said... it's a bit tough to configure. This past autumn my wife and I opted for the security suite from Trend Micro's PC_cillin. It's much more user-friendly (at least in my opinion) and updates several times a day. It even has a scan for spyware. Something you might want to consider for the future. With rebates it cost only $27.

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[keith]

Both I and my parents have been using Norton AntiVirus for a long time, and have liked it, but i have also noticed the bad tech support. I recently switched to mcafee on my XP machine, and will soon make the switch on my ME machine also. I have to say, i like it alot better.
Keith

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