I was torn between writing an article about doom's day prophets and screaming and yelling about Norton, the software branch of Symantec. I decided to blow off some steam. The reason I am so mad at Norton, is that they are supposed to be an anti-spyware and anti-virus company and they claim that their software is there to protect you. So far so good. Here is the bad part. If you happen to get some of their software on your computer, there is no uninstall program with it. Not only that, but if you try using the uninstall program that comes with Windows, some of the software returns, I can't say every program because I haven't tried everyone. Yes that is right, it comes back because automatic installer programs have been spread out all over your computer, in so many spots that Einstein would not be able to find them all. As far as I am concerned this is just as bad as having a virus. The Internet is riddled with people asking the question, “how do I uninstall a Norton product?” Somehow I got Norton Security Scan downloaded on to my computer. I never asked for it and it must have come with something else I downloaded. At first I uninstalled it with the Windows XP uninstaller and it just came back. Here was an unwanted program that I couldn't get rid of. What type of company would do that? None that I would ever use. Next I searched for every instance of Norton and deleted it and then used my registry editor to delete every registry entry for it. Guess what happened? It came back. There it was sitting there again on my desktop, staring me right in the face. It was making a statement and that statement was that it would come back anytime it wanted to and there was nothing I could do about it.

By this time I was really getting disgusted. I had wasted a couple of hours trying to get rid of this thing. I remember thinking to myself, why would a company do this? Surely this must give them a very bad image? The next thing I did was get on the Internet and Google my problem. I found an answer in a forum. The answer was that it could be uninstalled by trying to find the uninstall software on the Symantec website, but it wasn't that easy to find and the uninstall program was said to be a pain. I went to the website and found the program after searching around for awhile. There were about ten or twelve different ones to choose from. I downloaded the one that was said to uninstall all 2008 Norton products, and it is running now. You know how you can usually uninstall a program in under a minute? Well you can't with the one I downloaded. It has been running for over 15 minutes already. Will it eventually work? I have no idea, the green progress bar went to about 3/4ths completed almost right away and hasn't moved since. I checked to see if it was running and it is. Is this punishment for trying to uninstall something that the company doesn't really want uninstalled? I would like to think not, since that would be so incredible and mean spirited that I would rather not think about it.

I have had programs install themselves before, programs that I did not ask for or want. I am not talking about virus programs here, but legitimate software from so called “respected companies.” I was annoyed, but usually they had some way to uninstall them downloaded with the software, so I can forgive them to some extent, but not entirely. The practice of sending unwanted software on to one's computer should be a crime. I am not saying that anyone should go to jail, but what I am saying is that a hefty fine is in order and maybe damages under certain circumstances. Look at it this way, some poor person sees something on his computer and tries to uninstall it. In so doing he screws up his operating system and has to reinstall Windows and has wasted at least one or more days repairing the damage caused by the unwanted software. Is this fair? What if the shoe was on the other foot and you caused the company to have to waste a day or two? I bet their lawyers would be knocking on your door.

I have no idea exactly where or how Norton Security Scan installed itself on my computer. I don't know if some of the files attached themselves to other files or not. It is sort of like a cancer that spreads out throughout your body. Let's get one important thing straight. I am not saying anything about the quality of the product, all I am saying is that the company has some nerve to send out software without an uninstall package. Further I am saying that any company that sends a product out that spreads itself throughout your computer system and keeps reinstalling itself, isn't worth much in my book and is not deserving of any of my business. Sometimes when you download something you might get a toolbar installed on your browser or such. This happened to me with a Google toolbar, but there was also a way to uninstall it, and at the time I wanted it anyway. It has happened to me over the years with several products, but the companies were more responsible and they also provided an uninstaller package.

Having talked about unwanted products that are hard to uninstall, I had a similar situation a few years ago with another famous anti-virus company. Their software was preinstalled on a new computer I bought and try as I did, I couldn't remove it either and kept getting a message that it was being used by another application, but eventually I found out the secret. You had to go into safe mode on the computer to remove it all. That didn't work with Norton Security Scan. That was a pain too, but at least I was able to find a solution. By the way the Norton uninstall program is still running and hasn't moved at all from ¾ finished but the performance panel in the Windows Task Manager shows a lot of activity from it, so it hasn't froze. I wonder what it could possibly be doing all this time? I am going out to lunch soon and I can only hope for some progress on the bar when I get back.

Sometime if you have nothing to do, just take a look on the Internet at all the complaints about this problem, you will be shocked. You have to wonder where are the government regulators? How can this be allowed to happen? An analogy would be if your boss decided to take ten dollars a week from your paycheck for a so called charity and you couldn't figure out how to stop the withdrawal and when you finally decided to go to the payroll office, they handed you over 100 pages of forms that you didn't understand and they had to be filled out exactly in some way that you were unfamiliar with, to stop the deduction. Wrong is wrong. We need some better rules for business on the net. One more word on the subject, I would be very curious to see exactly how this program can keep reinstalling itself. Is the company using the same method that virus creators use? This would be bizarre since they are supposedly an anti-virus and anti-spyware company.

I am back from lunch and I have checked the Norton Uninstall program and it has finished, but I still see the Norton Security Scan software. Why am I not surprised? I am hoping that the uninstaller has taken out some of the hidden bits and I am uninstalling the program with the Windows XP uninstall program again and then cleaning out the registry again. It seems to have worked, but I can't be sure for a few days.