- Norton refused to recognize the Sony Rootkit application as Malware. Under intense pressure, Norton finally provided a means to uncloak the rootkit, but not remove it. Norton is definitely kowtowing to corporate entities.
- I purchased Norton Anti-Virus in March of 2005. In November, they informed me that my subscription was about to expire. I did not purchase an 8 month subscription, I purchased a twelve month subscription. I felt totally jerked around.
So, based on a bit of research, I decided to switch to F-Secure. Very highly thought of, good reviews, and they were all over Sony. Yesterday, I went ahead with the big switch. And that's when my problems started.
I downloaded F-Secure and then started the installation. First issue was that I had ad-aware installed and F-secure doesn't like ad-aware. So I removed it. F-Secure also asked me to disconnect from the Internet. Well that was easier said than done - I was a on a wireless VPN connection and I didn't want to go through all the hassle so I foolishly went ahead with the connection intact. And that's when the wheels fell completely off. The F-Secure install actually completed even though it shouldn't have - and Ping was in bad shape - he would no longer completely boot - he'd hang at various points along the way. Of if he did appear to finally boot - after 20 minutes- he was completely unresponsive - I ended up doing a ton of hard resets.
Today, after sleeping on the problem, I decided to approach the the situation methodically. I booted Ping in safe mode. I then removed F-Secure and then rebooted in normal mode. Voila - Ping came right back up! One problem down.
I then removed all of the Norton Anti-Virus stuff. That took several passes to get it all. At this point, Windows started flashing alerts that I was running without any virus protection. I ignored the flashing lights and continued on.
The next step was to hunt down a good registry cleanup program, TweakNow RegCleaner. It was my theory that the registry had become buggered up during the F-Secure installation. And sure enough, that was the case - there were three invalid F-secure entries in the register - which RegCleaner spruced right up.
Finally, I reinstalled F-Secure. And the resintallation went without a hitch. I configured the application and scanned my system for viruses, spyware, and rootkits. Ping came up completely clean with the exception of one spyware application. Which F-Secure immediately squashed.
So - life is good. Ping is well inoculated and I'm no longer supporting Symantec (the company that owns Norton)!
5:03:23 PM 
