eXPerience ,
thanks for kind words. maybe i will try to say something reasonable when i will prepare ;D
They may listen as you are one of many who “vote with their feet” as we say in Dutch. When enough people don’t like a product a good shop keeper will have to change strategy…
Both Fortunate and unfortunate, I am in High School now (freshman), and even though I have Intermed Computer class, I don’t want to be heavied on way too technical stuffs and errors on my computer, so I bought a NIS 1 year subscription. So much irony to this topic name, but I don’t want to be burdened with CIS and CSC possible problem (I had experienced the CIS Vista x64 freezing problem, and CSC kinda messed up my machine, as my memory on my task manager keeps progressively ballooned up to like 7.50 G and then my computer freezes.), and I hope by next summer or when my subscription ends, CIS and CSC will truly come out on top. I will be watching and promoting Comodo’s success from the sidelines. Farewell for now. :comodo110: :ilovecomodo: :comodorocks:
So how is your experience with symantec ?
I understand what Ryan is saying and I don’t blame him. I used Symantec for years and was totally satisfied. I did not have the money to renew my subscription the last time it came up so I decided to try Comodo. I have gotten used to it and know now how it works, but I don’t like having to change modes to install or uninstall or even update some things. To this point, I have also let CIS create all my rules and have not manually modified or created any of them. If it ever comes to the point where I have to do that, I will consider another suite or go back to Symantec. You should not have to know how to configure ports (or even know what a port is) or manually create block/allow rules to use a security suite. The program should do all that for you if it is striving to be accepted by the general public.
My parents had used McAfee, and the simplicity was so good. The biggest complaint was…McAfee being reliable. The reliability issues were just sick. Symantec hung around the same issue from time to time. Both of these have always had complaints about renewing subscriptions, to issues with the realtime protection, etc. It was like they were purposely over-marketing something that should not have been marketed.
Most of the subscription problems for both McAfee and Norton/Symantec were based on them not canceling the subscription at all, charging you every year. Real companies have real customer support, and it shows. McAfee and Symantec have both failed.
Now, Comodo is much better than them. Even if you have to configure anything special, this forum is open to anyone to ask questions. That’s what makes it all the better.
I feel good about symantec. I stopped using Norton for like 2 or 3 years, from around 2006/2007, to now. I had orginally hated Norton because back then, I didnt know what makes the computer tick slowly, and I came up with the conclusion and accused Norton. Now I am no longer a Norton basher. But in my heart, I am still a Comodo fan. 
Found A Great Comodo Fan Like me ;D. I am using comodo for the past three years. i.e from the V2. i had many Debates reg. Comodo is the best with my friends… ;D.
I’m observing comodo products for the past three years, there are lots and lots of improvements between V2 and V3 [ Current one ] and they are improving still. I wish all the best to the comodo team to bring the best security suite even more than now [ expecting that in V4 ].
Regards
Muthusrinivasan
Hi Muthusrinivasan,
Yes im expecting to use cis 4 bugfree and increased detection rate.
-virumandi.
Security products are rarely to never bug free. There is always a criminal out there that will infiltrate a software, and the manufacturer will have to put out a patch.
Well–Symantec also has forums and company reps visit them and post in them frequently. the level of help through that venue is equivalent to what we have here. I have never known anyone who had a subscription problem either and I always found the level of customer support more than acceptable. McAfee, on the other hand is a different story. I upgraded to a new version with them and by downloading and paying for the new software. The program never functioned correctly. After more than a month of constant contact back and forth trying to resolve the issue, I gave up hope and asked for a refund. I was told that downloaded software only had a refund period of 30 days and it was now past that date even though I had been in daily contact with them , trying different “solutions” the whole time. They refused to refund my money so I switched to Symantec at that point and never looked back. Since that time friends and family members have purchased machines with various McAfee products pre-installed. They were always the first thing to go because of poor performance and bloat that signicantly slowed down the computers , something I have never experienced with any of Symantec’s products since 2000. Symantec turns out fine products but they are wrong when they say that paid solutions are automatically better than free ones. Comodo and other providers have proven that. Comodo just needs to get more user friendly before it can really siphon off the user base of the paid products like Symantec.
Symantec actually makes a few good points in their article, if we avoid the obviously self-serving nature of their claim that free products don’t provide adequate security protections.
Symantec is right that most malware infections do not originate from the browser itself anymore. Browsers have been hardened considerably in recent years, so while there is still a raft of holes in IE and Firefox, the greater risks are from media players, PDF readers, and other plug-ins. The Symantec report (and a similar report by Secunia) state that over 80 percent of Home Users have at least one out of date plug in, such as Flash, Java, or QuickTime, on their computers. This is a major source of security vulnerabilities, and the most frequent avenue for infections (other than direct user actions such as socially engineered attacks). The best solution to this problem is not a paid security suite and lots of blacklists/whitelists or Community and Reputation Services. The best solution here is to update those old versions of your plug-ins. And how do we know what needs an update? Try Secunia PSI. Download and run it weekly, and if anything is updated, run PSI again. Any remaining insecure items should have Windows paths for you to follow and find out where on your computer the older components are still present. Unless your software absolutely will not work with the updated versions, remove any traces PSI directs you to remove. You will be more secure.
The other thing Symantec misses (or omits) is that today’s free security software can be combined to make a better “roll your own suite”. Yes, there are probably gaps and conflicts may arise, but this approach may be enough for most of us Home Users. For example, use Firefox with NoScript and Better Privacy, and avoid using Internet Explorer. Do not rely on browser virtualization or browser sandboxing ploys (such as Zone Alarm Extreme Security or Shadow User) because the problems are not within the browsers, but within plug-ins which have Independently Stored Objects (Flash and Silverlight Cookies, for example). Proactive defenses such as Threatfire or Comodo Defense+ (or Avast’s Web Shields) can also help. And for anti-malware active protections, I see nothing wrong with CAV, but I prefer Avast. To each his or her own. But don’t stop there. Scan with a free second-opinion scanner, such as MalwareBytes Free or Super Antispyware Free. ( (:a*)Windows XP users only: Be aware that for our OS version, Threatfire and Super Antispyware are presently not compatible. 
(:a*)) And go deeper with a good rootkit scanner such as Sophos Anti-Rootkit or F-Secure Blacklight. Finally, clean up with CCleaner once in awhile, including the Windows Registry. I pay zero dollars and zero cents for all of these layers.
All of this layered security needs one additional layer – disaster recovery. If all else fails, a good Image Backup program can save you from a full Windows Reinstall. This can reduce recovery times from days to half an hour. And don’t forget to make Rescue CDs from your backup software. In the worst cases (and I have experienced this twice in four years) you will not even be able to get into Windows Safe Mode. Only a Rescue CD will save your bacon then. Be prepared. Back up your system before Microsoft Patch Tuesday each month, because you never know what may happen at the Witching Hour. I choose to pay for Acronis True Image Home, but there’s nothing wrong with DriveImage or any other free product which can make Image Backups and Rescue CDs.
All of this having been said, Windows 7 and 64-bit Windows XP and 64-bit Vista have not had rootkit attacks as of this posting. Neither have they had much malware. But play it safe – after all, we are still talking about Windows security :o, and this is always a moving target.
So, do we need to pay for the best protection for our Windows computers? IMHO, no we do not. Two infections in five years, and neither was unremovable, and my own experiences with free security products say no. Symantec is being self-serving, and they are running scared ahead of the Windows 7 and Microsoft Security Essentials twin releases in October. Once users can get their free security from Microsoft Updates, no one else will matter, except for the few free third-party products, such as CIS which keep themselves noticeably better than Microsoft’s proposed offerings. And don’t sell Grandma and Grandpa short – seniors are the fastest-growing group of social networkers, and they are catching on to more sophisticated security setups with every passing month.
If you want convenience, sure you can pay for that. Sometimes we want a computer to “just work”. Just be sure you know why you are choosing to pay for something you can get for free.
Well, Symantec should focus to the paid arena and reign supreme there, but a big no-no for comparing to free security solutions. (I found alot of helpful post from symantec employee and forum mods on Norton forum.) So Norton for paid and Comodo for free. Any comparison should be struck down by mobs.
someone said this on another site about a different subject though but what they said is true “people dont like the thought of something cheaper being equal to or better than what they paid more for”
I hate Symantec… Comodo is the best AV I have ever used… I tested all of them… They’r only gabbing…
How did you test them, Sporsal? What did you compare? Prevention or detection?
At the moment Norton AV is better than CAV because you won’t get as many false positives. Norton’s detection rate is as good or better as well. As an overall suite, CIS is just as good if not better than Norton. Comodo’s Firewall is stronger but less user friendly and Norton’s AV is a little better.
Both I Think…
Of course some AV programs are very good… (for example Kaspersky)
Let me explain a little about this subject…
avast! : program has got many languages and many users… If you are using avast! and if it found a virus, you are in danger why? because it’s very useless about cleaning… it says, you have a virus… ok, so clean it? … but failure… it’s very useless for cleaning some viruses… especially infected system volume information… I tested the same virus, avast found it, but never deleted it… COMODO found the same virus and deleted quickly… by the way, it’s got some crash problems wits some AVI files… (AVG too)
AVG : Good detection - good cleaning, but real time scanning is very very bad and slowed down the computer… you have to deactivate this option… so? you’r not protected… It missed so many infections… especially from USB drives…
Bitdefender : It WAS good… not now. At the present time, it’s useless… Missed so many infections…
Norton : I hate this program… It’s just a advertisement… Slow and useless… I don’t like it’s user interface, It’s so hard to uninstall this program… it’s a nightmare… Tested many times…
Fsecure and Panda : Very very Slowwww… We tested Panda Cloud and the result is failure… it slowed down our computers… no detection, (but we have 2 viruses) … so ? no need…
Kaspersky : Yea, it’s good… detection is good, cleaning is good, it’s ok for all computers… It has got many options for firewall, good protection… scanning is very slow…
ESET Smart Security: Well, good protection, but I don’t like firewall settings, it doesn’t give me a trust… missed some attacks and viruses, (comodo didn’t :))
COMODO : Good firewall… Comodo firewall rocks… Good user interface… Excellent detailed firewall and defence+ options… Scanning is very fast… AV has got Some false alarms (ex : babylon, taskmanager… ) Comodo did not missed any detections… no crashes about any programs… Comodo blocked some games, but I solve this problem 
… well good enough for me…
I Forgat avira… : It has got many false alarms… really boring… detection is good, but not enough… it’s something wrong with avira… some friend told me the same… useless user interface…
The user interface does leave something to be desired, but Avira is quite good.