Comcast dumps McAfee for Symantec's Norton security suite

[dslabby]

Comcast dumps McAfee for Symantec's Norton security suite

05:44 PM Jan 20, 2010

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/01/comcast-dumps-mcafee-for-symantecs-norton-360/1

http://security.comcast.net/norton/resi/?CID=NET_33_248

Sally Jenkins is VP of consumer marketing at Symantec.

Courtesy Symantec:

Antivirus giant Symantec just announced a big triumph over rival McAfee. Starting today, Symantec's Norton Security Suite will begin replacing McAfee's antivirus service for some 15.7 million home and business subscribers to Comcast's high-speed Internet service.

The revenue boost for Symantec -- and loss for McAfee -- is a big number. Comcast will pay Symantec an undisclosed amount for delivering ongoing Norton protection for up to seven PCs for each of Comcast's 15.7 million broadband subscribers.

Comcast subscribers will now get a version of Norton Security Suite similar to the one Symantec sells online or at Best Buy for $79.95 a year, says Sally Jenkins, vice president of consumer marketing. She declined to disclose how much Comcast agreed to pay Symantec for protecting up to seven PCs per Comcast household, which could total as many as 110 million computers.

"It's a huge win and a great win," says Jenkins. "We're very excited. McAfee was the incumbent and we have displaced them with this new partnership with Comcast."

Jenkins notes that Symantec has similar supplier deals with ISPs Earthlink and UOL in the U.S.; T-Home and 1&1 in Germany; and Emobile in Japan.

[mzta cody]

Doesn't really matter, as both McAfee and Norton are junk. Why use this? Oh, right, for the illusion of safety, as these all have the multitude of green indicators for "you are protected" and so on. Most of us in the know, we'll continue to use the lighter and always FREE alternatives.

Replacing junk with different junk. Lol!

[P!P]

I'm a PC Tech and a lot my customers use what Comcast provides because they feel they're paying for it or something. I hate both McAfee and Norton and tell my customers as such. I don't use any virus protection since I know what I'm doing but if I were to use something, I'd probably use like AVG or Antvir for real-time scanning with MBAM (Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware) for on-demand scanning. All free and in my opinion better than McAfee, Norton, or most AVs out there.

[i_was_here]

@mzta cody

1. Do you have anything better to do than bash Symantec? NAV has supposed gotten much better.

2. So you don't think the lighter and free alternatives have green indicators too? And Im sure free AVs have the "illusion of safety" as well. For example maybe on a computer running MSE a piece of malware goes undetected but then you switch to avast and it detects it.

[Scorbing]

Doesn't really matter, as both McAfee and Norton are junk. Why use this? Oh, right, for the illusion of safety, as these all have the multitude of green indicators for "you are protected" and so on. Most of us in the know, we'll continue to use the lighter and always FREE alternatives.

Replacing junk with different junk. Lol!

I agree with you 100%. I will tell you this true story:

I work for the cable company here in Central Florida and I am a PC Tech for them. The other day I went to a customer home to fix an internet issue. Customer was complaining that she couldn't connect to the internet and was of course blaming our service and equipment. When I got there, she had a brand new PC with Norton Internet Security 2010. Up to date and with a subscription valid until 2011. I checked our stuff and everything was fine. Then I opened her Norton and scanned her PC and Norton said there was nothing. That her PC was clean. So I went ahead and installed Malwarebytes and scanned her PC with it. Guess what?

Malwarebytes found 247 infected objects, some from Rogue Software (they make that fake antivirus called Antivirus 2009) and a lot of backdoor and other trojans. So what does this tell you? Very simple: Norton sucks. The little green lights that tell you "you are now safe" mean nothing, like you said.

I was able to remove the infected objects with Malwarebytes and guess what? Her computer was back to normal. I told her to get a real antivirus such as NOD32.

[master2k27]

I agree with you 100%. I will tell you this true story:

I work for the cable company here in Central Florida and I am a PC Tech for them. The other day I went to a customer home to fix an internet issue. Customer was complaining that she couldn't connect to the internet and was of course blaming our service and equipment. When I got there, she had a brand new PC with Norton Internet Security 2010. Up to date and with a subscription valid until 2011. I checked our stuff and everything was fine. Then I opened her Norton and scanned her PC and Norton said there was nothing. That her PC was clean. So I went ahead and installed Malwarebytes and scanned her PC with it. Guess what?

Malwarebytes found 247 infected objects, some from Rogue Software (they make that fake antivirus called Antivirus 2009) and a lot of backdoor and other trojans. So what does this tell you? Very simple: Norton sucks. The little green lights that tell you "you are now safe" mean nothing, like you said.

I was able to remove the infected objects with Malwarebytes and guess what? Her computer was back to normal. I told her to get a real antivirus such as NOD32.

lol whatever

[Growled Member]

I find Norton just a wee bit better than McAfee myself.

[+chorpeac MVC]

hahahaha....Love it. I really enjoy Norton. It has been really quick and not noticeable in terms of system resources.

[x-byte]

So many ignorant Norton bashers. Not surprising that they switched Norton is a really good product now.? ?

[I am Reid]

from what ive seen norton is a much better product now

[rawr_boy81]

So many ignorant Norton bashers. Not surprising that they switched Norton is a really good product now.? ?

it took long enough to fix up their damn product. Mind you, why waste your time when you can get the Microsoft antivirus for free?

[neo158]

it took long enough to fix up their damn product. Mind you, why waste your time when you can get the Microsoft antivirus for free?

So you trust Microsoft for your Anti Virus, you're braver than I thought!!!!

[iamwhoiam]

from what ive seen norton is a much better product now

You can polish a turn only so much, and in the end it's still a turd.

[rawr_boy81]

So you trust Microsoft for your Anti Virus, you're braver than I thought!!!!

what evidence fo you have that symantec or mcafee would be better? The illusion that because you've paid an arm and a leg it magically makes it better?

10 years of crap, CPU hogging, instability cause garbage products gives them a better reputation when compared to a couple of years bad luck experienced microsoft? Lord help is from your wisdom!

[Lathanielt]

what evidence fo you have that symantec or mcafee would be better? The illusion that because you've paid an arm and a leg it magically makes it better?

10 years of crap, CPU hogging, instability cause garbage products gives them a better reputation when compared to a couple of years bad luck experienced microsoft? Lord help is from your wisdom!

Well, you could take a look at this report which gives the 2009 summary of A/V products. Symantec does have the product of the year 2009. Not to say that it is perfect, but they have improved quite a lot. However, having mentioned that, MSE is in its own right a brilliant product, and I am confident it will keep getting better.

AV Comparatives

[wellofsouls]

From my experience, the Home versions of both Norton and McAfee are quite bloated and crappy, but the business versions (Symantec AV and McAfee Enterprise) are quite solid, slim and fast, offering good protection and management capabilities.

[AltecXP]

At work we run Symantec Enterprise. We still have to run AntiMalwareBytes and SUPERantispyware to clean machines. Symantec seems to only catch (some times) Virii, never catches any spyware.

Also we called it the "Wednesday slowdown" when the AV kicks off at noon and runs the PC:s so hard they are damn near unusable. These are XP SP3 machines with ONLY office 2007, and Symantec with 3.4GHz and 2GB of RAM being brought to a halt by Symantec ever Wed at noon. Sadly this is the new Endpoint version too.

[wellofsouls]

At work we run Symantec Enterprise. We still have to run AntiMalwareBytes and SUPERantispyware to clean machines. Symantec seems to only catch (some times) Virii, never catches any spyware.

Also we called it the "Wednesday slowdown" when the AV kicks off at noon and runs the PC:s so hard they are damn near unusable. These are XP SP3 machines with ONLY office 2007, and Symantec with 3.4GHz and 2GB of RAM being brought to a halt by Symantec ever Wed at noon. Sadly this is the new Endpoint version too.

well, all Anti-Virus software will slow down the system when it's doing on-demand scanning. That's why on-demand scans are usually set at lunch time when people don't need to use the PCs.

The problem about the Home versions is that they slow down the system even when it's not doing on-demand scanning. :shiftyninja:

Last company I worked for used McAfee Enterprise with Antispyware module. And it seems it catches all kind of stuffs, and may be even a bit too much in removing "potentially unwanted programs". I have to set a special exlusion folder to store my security analysis tools. We didn't have any virus/spyware problem, but for the normal employees, they can't do much besides surfing the web and working with MS Office, anything remotely suspicious will be promptly deleted, which may be what the boss wanted anyway. :shiftyninja:

[x-byte]

it took long enough to fix up their damn product. Mind you, why waste your time when you can get the Microsoft antivirus for free?

Norton is more than a antivirus.

You can polish a turn only so much, and in the end it's still a turd.

If you look at the antivirus product of 2009 as a turd then the problem might be you.

[I am Reid]

At work we run Symantec Enterprise. We still have to run AntiMalwareBytes and SUPERantispyware to clean machines. Symantec seems to only catch (some times) Virii, never catches any spyware.

Also we called it the "Wednesday slowdown" when the AV kicks off at noon and runs the PC:s so hard they are damn near unusable. These are XP SP3 machines with ONLY office 2007, and Symantec with 3.4GHz and 2GB of RAM being brought to a halt by Symantec ever Wed at noon. Sadly this is the new Endpoint version too.

why wednesday at noon and not say a friday at 5pm, or pretty much anytime in the middle of the night or weekend?

[x-byte]

why wednesday at noon and not say a friday at 5pm, or pretty much anytime in the middle of the night or weekend?

Because 95% of the users have gone home at that time on Friday ... And shut down the computer.

[master2k27]

lots of Norton bashers here,

[iamwhoiam]

If you look at the antivirus product of 2009 as a turd then the problem might be you.

No, the problem is with people discounting the opinions of others simply because they don't agree with what's been posted. It seems to be the norm here on Neowin.

[x-byte]

That's not an opinion, it's a fact.

[Vice]

So you trust Microsoft for your Anti Virus, you're braver than I thought!!!!

They did after-all.. ya know.. DESIGN WINDOWS. If anyone is going to be familiar with virus situation on the windows platform I think it'd be them.