Internet pirates attack everything from our personal bank accounts to entering our private email accounts. As a consumer, we try to protect ourselves using brand name products that catch viruses, malware, and spyware. One well known company, Symantec, offers Norton products that give us a false sense of security.
I purchased a laptop a little over a year ago and it came preloaded with Norton's 360 version 2.0 software. The subscription was free for the first year. It seemingly worked well for that period, and then the subscription reminder immediately prompted me at the end of my initial subscription to renew. I did thinking I was in good hands and that part of the subscription included Norton's online archive of data and documents.
I renewed my subscription and after the protection files were updated, I received two error messages. I contacted Norton's technical support and they connected directly to my computer to resolve the problem. Little did I know the incompetence of the technical support team.
Symantec's technical staff remotely accessed my computer and, without my permission, installed Microsoft's Group Policy Client on my Vista Home Edition computer. Symantec then proceeded, again without my permission, to uninstall Norton 360 version 2.0 and install Norton 360 version 1.0. They did this without my permission. It should be noted that the Norton 360 version 2.0 that I paid for included the online archive but this feature is NOT support in version 1.0.
My computer when through the process of updating the system files then asked me to reboot to complete the installation. I did and what followed was an error message that denied me total access to my computer. The error message said, The group policy client failed logon. Access denied.
I spent over 13 straight hours on the phone with Symantec Technical support getting no place fast. They kept blaming the issue on the operating system and Microsoft. I called Microsoft and was informed that the Group Policy Client was not delivered in the Vista Home edition that I had delivered with my laptop.
I contacted the BBB and yet Symantec's End User License Agreement (EULA) provides NO protection, warranty, expressed or implied, for their products.in fact, they even totally disclaim responsibility for errors and inept technical support resulting from using their products or service. Their product totally destroyed my computer and what is more distressing is the loss of critical legal documents that I cannot retrieve now because the technical team removed my version 2.0 and replaced it with an unsupported version 1.0 for online backup and archive.
Whether you place our trust in Norton, McAfee or some other software, beware: They make NO promise for support or the reliability of their products.in fact, most of these companies use open source code when possible, borrowing or pirating errors without testing.
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