Norton Data Protector does not like Positron

[RGV250]

Hi,
I have been using Positron/PDS for ages on 2 PC's and a laptop. Yesterday I had a bit of a scare when Norton Data Protector proudly popped up and said it had detected suspicious activity from ProtonIDE.exe. No action needed to be taked as it has done it for me. I was infuriated as surely it should have asked me if I trusted the program and if so create an exception but no, it just stopped it from working.

I spent quite a lot of time searching and have found that you can add the program to an exception list, why it could not allow me to do that when it popped up the message is beyond me, perhaps they have hired Apple or Microsoft programmers who always know better than us what we should need.

So far it has been working fine again, what is strange is that it is only on the laptop so far that it has thrown a wobbly.

Bob 

[top204]

This has happened many, many, many, times with the compilers over the years, and other programs I have created, and it is something that promotes the "so called" anti virus companies to encourage updates and upgrades... For more money of course!

They have a tendensy to second-guess at detection and look for patterns of bytes in a program, and if the pattern "nearly" matches, it gives the error and removes the file. But, of course, some byte patterns exist in a program without them being anything to do with a virus or a trojan, but that does not make them money! Some do it without any warnings and very few of them actually give an option to keep the file, because the people who write or modify the scanners are, generally, people who are "always right", and I have worked with, and for, quite a few of that type of person. :-) . Eventually, when enough complaints have been sent to them, they remove the sequence of bytes detection for a particular sequence, but that does not stop the scare that most people have when it first appears, and can sometimes take months for them to alter the scanner profile.

I have had programs destroyed on my machines that I have not used for a while, then when I go to them, files are missing!

Now, I run a virtual machine and the anti-virus programs sit in there and "not" on my main machine. So whenever I download or freshly install to test, I do it in the virtual machine first, then on my main machine. Also, when scanning for any anomalies in the compiler's files, I do it on a seperate virtual machine that has nothing on it except the O/S and a few anti-virus programs, and scan the files in there.

It is a right pain in the backside, but these days, "nothing", can be trusted for integrity, and not just "ripping people off" with false information. :-)

So please remember.... The compilers and all of their files that are installed are scanned for both trojans and virus' with a few scanner types.

[John Lawton]

I'm still on Windows 7 and use the built-in Windows Defender which still gets updates. I won't touch Norton etc, IME all the others ruin my experience using Windows. It's enough to turn you over to Linux

[TimB]

Virus scanners have their tentacles really deep into the OS. So much so they are a liability themselves.

I leave it to windows defender to worry about that stuff. For better or worse.

[flosigud]

Windows Defender is free and trouble free.

[top204]

I totally agree Tim. Virus scanners are sometimes worse than a virus and operate the same as virus' when destroying programs on your machine and sending information about the programs and your machine operations back to the company's servers, and some scanners are really difficult to remove when not wanted anymore.

In fact there are seperate programs written by pissed off users that need to be run to totally remove the virus scanners from your machine, because they have embedded themselves inside it so deeply, with hidden files and modified O/S database files etc...

Then when the boss of one of the virus companies was prosecuted for so many frauds and cons and money laundering etc, I knew 100% they could never be trusted again. I think he eventally topped himself?

[John Lawton]

John McAfee who 'allegedly' killed himself

[HAL]

Hello everyone,

I believe that I tried Norton back with w 2000.   It was a complete piece of junk. Install a new driver, it gets detected as a virus!

Haven't bothered with anything since and have been happier without those (useless) programs.    And W7....

I don't like Norton so we're even......

[TimB]

Just a clarification

John McAfee sold out to Intel 12 years back. His crazy antics since have nothing to do with the Anti virus software company

[John Lawton]

For that matter Peter Norton Computing was sold to Symantec in 1990 but AV packages still bear his name...

[HAL]

Could it be that the software is so flawed that Symantec doesn't dare put their name on it?

Norton's the name and Norton gets the blame...   

[John Drew]

Could it be that the software is so flawed that Symantec doesn't dare put their name on it?

Norton's the name and Norton gets the blame...   

I doubt it Hal, names are worth big money and many ill informed people think Norton provides good virus protection. It was one of the first AV, developed a reputation so people buy it.
It doesn't work well as we know.
Defender is a better product and it is free.
John