Symantec Corporate 9.0 -- spyware/adware?

[ianbnet]

I'm preparing to upgrade from v8 to 9, and am interested in the new anti-spyware features.

However, in a trial run on one of my machines, the client with the latest definitions failed to find _any_ of the spyware/adware I allowed to be loaded on the computer, which included GAIN.Gator, other GAIN crap, n-case, and a couple of smaller items.

Is this a special feature that has to be enabled, or does it just suck? I'd love to know if anyone else has experimented with the spyware/adware features of Symantec Antivirus 9.

 

[karmic]

I've used the spyware feature on 4 servers now and it seems the "spyware" feature sucks big time. Don't waste your money on the extra features.

Ad-aware and spybot are free, teach your employees to use it.

~ K.I.S.S - Don't make it any more complex than it has to be ~

 

[ianbnet]

teach your employees to use it."

Yeah that's cute . Cause we all trust them so much...

No, spybot and apm are my two best friends, but I definitely have to do that myself. I was really hoping 9.0 would take some of the burden off me; apparently not, however .

 

[compucook]

Have you tried opening the SAV client program, clicking Scan computer, then the options button, then checking 'scan for expanded threats'? I beleive this has to be checked before it will detect theats other than viruses.

 

[ianbnet]

wow... you're right! thanks

So now, is there a way to enable scanning for expanded threats in auto-protect? I can't seem to find it.

For the manual scan, it actually works, and seems to work well, which is great. But I can't go around manually scanning all these computers all the time.

 

[compucook]

After getting the expanded threats included in the scans, however, I was disapointed to learn that under 'configure' the only actions I can select for when an expanded threat is detected are 'delete file' and, if it can't, 'leave alone'.
On my test computer I downloaded Gator and Hotbar; it detected both but was unable to remove anything. So I guess it is nice that I will know it is there, but I will still have to visit the computer anyway. Were you able to actually remove any spy/adware?
I haven't seen anything about scanning in auto-protect. That would be an invaluable feature.

 

[ianbnet]

I should have mentioned that I can only remove files in safe mode. All in all, i'm quite disappointed with this; about the only thing it does for me is give me some heads up -- assuming i run or schedule manual scans all the time -- beating a users' complaint of too many popups by a couple of days.

Seems like a really great feature idea, but a useless implementation.