Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on symantec http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic symantec Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Disgusted with Symantec Tue, 06 Aug 2002 10:53:10 +0100 [Editors note: I have now edited this post for language and content] I think this is my first blogrant but I am disgusted by Symantec's idea of customer service. Like so many companies these days they hide any mention of a telephone number on their website.  I have one of their products though so I can find the customer service number in the manual.  I don't want customer service, I want pre-sales, but that's the only number available.  Why don't I use their web forms?  I need to wrap this up today. So I call the number and then hold, and hold, and hold for 27 minutes until I can't listen to the message telling me about how great their web site is.  I was going to hold on just so I could vent the considerable bile I had accumulated at a human being, however in a lucid moment I realised that wasn't going to give me satisfaction.  They don't pay these people enough to care. And that's just it, I guess what Symantec are saying is "We have a shiny but useless web self service system like every other anonymous corporation.  If that's not good enough then you can go screw yourself!" My last company was in the CRM market.   Unless their selling a Mercedes or 30" Sony WEGA the only message you hear from customers now is "do it cheaper, screw the customer."  I guess that's why my company was failling, we were trying to improve live interaction.  It's not a space that vendors care about. I hate this new world of anonymous companies.  The web site should be their, it should be informative.  But if all you can offer me is another empty self service channel I shall take my business to a smaller vendor, that still cares about it's customers and whether they are happy.   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000254.html Symantec suck Mon, 11 Aug 2003 14:01:35 +0100 Can I just say, as a soon to be former customer, to anyone from Symantec who may ever wander past here: Your company sucks and you deserve to lose all of your customers and go out of business -- the sooner the better. Thank you.  I'm all better now. (It appears I had a <A href="http://matt.blogs.it/2002/08/06.html#a244">similar experience</A> with them almost exactly a year ago -- I should have listened to myself back then) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001540.html Why I *really* hate Symantec Sun, 24 Aug 2003 19:35:13 +0100 I posted a quick rant earlier about Symantec, here is another more level headed one: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> They really, really, suck.</BLOCKQUOTE> A couple of weeks ago my virus subscription for Norton Anti-Virus 2002 ran out.  I tried renewing it but had little success, bouncing from one page to another.  Finally I ended up in the Symantec store where lengthy attempts to upgrade NAV2002 to NAV2003 (supposedly £29.95) always resulted in my being offered Norton Internet Security for £39.95.  No sale. No customer service either. I gave up and used NAV's constant whining as a reminder that I need to find another anti-virus vendor. So far I haven't figured out which one to go for (any recommendation?)  Then today my machine begins to misbehave a little.  Maybe it's Trillian 2 beta 2 again but it was just enough to make me wonder about a virus.  My resolve to steer clear of Symantec began to crumble and, despite all I have said, I decided to have another go, give them money and hope it chokes someone at corporate HQ. This time I pretend to be American and go to the US store where my serial number buys me access to the upgrade centre and I can see the upgrade I want as a download for $29.95.  Ok, fine.  But what's this?  On the confirmation page there is $6.99 for something called Extended Download Service.  It turns out that they want me to pay another $6.99 for the privilege of downloading the software again in the future.  Presumably the fear of a system crash leading me to have to pay another thirty bucks is supposed to make me give them seven more now.  No goddamn sale! If the product is $36.94 then price it as such, don't try and con me with crap like this. Symantec you suck.  May all your customers desert you for better vendors (lord let there be one!) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001580.html The long road Tue, 26 Aug 2003 09:11:15 +0100 My computer has been behaving oddly for a few days now.  Nothing outlandish, it's just become unusually sluggish like something is using CPU but the CPU monitor doesn't reflect this.  But I can see it anecdotally when it takes a few seconds for IE to mark a check box checked, or to do a screen repaint after a dialog closes.  Not normal. I suspect a virus or worm, but of course my copy of NAV is not up to date and can't be trusted.  So I'm evaluating the alternatives.  <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0108194/">Mike Wilson</A> put me on to Sophos and McAfee.  Since Sophos are apparently UK based I thought i'd give them a try first. The sign-up process is a little obtrusive but that's okay I just "n/a" for any questions I don't want to answer.  They have also missed a golden opportunity to impress me. On their sign-up form is a checkbox which asks me if I think I have a virus now.  I do so I clicked it, fully expecting them to whisk me off to some emergency response page where they would tell me comforting things like "here is how we will find the virus you have," and "don't worry it'll soon be gone."  But no, nothing.  The clue-meter didn't even twitch. Okay so I download the package and run the installer.  Everything looks very 90's but I guess Sophos is a smaller company than McAfee or Symantec so less attention is payed to gloss.  That's okay if it works. But it doesn't.  The installer gets to "creating task bar entries" and never returns.  I see Sophos services being started and get a new system tray icon.  But the application gives an error Anti-virus service failed error 997. and that's all she wrote.  Oh, to top it off the uninstaller never got registered and then the computer hung completely forcing me to do a total reset. Maybe this is not Sophos' fault.  But for software that could be needed in a computing emergency it seemed singularly unready to deal with the situation.  I'm not impressed. So, on to McAfee. The McAfee website led me very quick to their Virus Scan product claiming I could download an evaluation.  They don't make it easy though and it took me well over 5 minutes of hunt & click before I actually found the link.  Maybe i'm just blind but I think they could have made it a lot easier. They like Symantec also seem to have the habit of running you past pages where the buy now link is very prominent.  Perhaps they think I will accidentally purchase instead of getting the eval?  Or maybe they think that if they annoy me enough I will purchase it out of spite?  Either way I find it tiresome. But I do finally (after both creating an account on their site, waiting for the confirmation email, clicking the link, entering my details again, navigating... hello??  Anybody there?) get to download the software. And it tells me it won't install while I have NAV2002 installed.   What?  Not even enough to do a virus check?   I've read the horror stories some people have written about uninstalling Norton Anti-Virus.  I would rather just disable it.  But no, it detects it and it won't budge. So.  I'm stuck.  I have a 2 anti-virus product that don't work and one that won't even try!  I guess it may be time to reinstall this machine from scratch <sigh>   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001587.html I'd love to be certified virus free Wed, 27 Aug 2003 19:09:29 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> Doesn't anyone use anti-virus software? I've received more than 1,000 messages from people spawned by the <A href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&ncid=581&e=5&u=/nm/20030825/tc_nm/tech_internet_virus_dc">Sobig virus</A>. The happy note is it is almost all from spammers who are revealing their actual address, which creates all sorts of opportunities for fun. But, seriously, there are applications that can stop this. Or, one could use a Macintosh. People chuckle about the Mac, but not being a major target of opportunity for virus writers is a big plus. [<A href="http://www.ratcliffe.com/bizblog/">RatcliffeBlog: Business, Technology & Investing</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Some of us would love to be running AV software but have trouble doing so.  I now have a brand-new shrink wrapped copy of McAfee Virus Scan (bought even though the eval version wouldn't install -- i'll hang my data out to dry before I give Symantec another red eurocent) sat on my desk waiting to be installed.  But I can't do that until I have safely uninstalled my non-upgrading NAV2002.  Who knows how hard that might turn out to be..? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001595.html Another company that doesn't deserve your custom Sat, 02 Jul 2005 11:22:51 +0100 Leon Breedt thinks Adobe are a pretty arrogant bunch:<blockquote>If theres one thing I hate, its software that thinks it knows best and decides to take over the task of displaying particular file types. [<a href="http://blog.xeraph.org/articles/2005/06/30/die-adobe">Die, Adobe</a>]</blockquote>I couldn't agree more. In my last dealings with them they didn't return calls over two weeks, failed to do what they promised, and then, when I called them on it, said our business wasn't worth it to them. Thanks for wasting our time. Adobe, like Symantec (another company <a href="feed://matt.blogs.it/topics/symantec.xml">I dislike</a>), have too little respect for customers and don't deserve them. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002707.html