Some customer are calling new software from Symantec Corp. "adware" for the reason that the security vendor covertly delivered it to their desktops. But the software is actually a new update notification service, a Symantec represenative said Thursday.
The new software, called "Norton LiveConnect," started reaching users earlier this week. After not finding any additional information about the software by searching Symantec's Web site, some users questioned if wasn't a poorly disguised promotion program that they hadn't agreed to accept.
"It downloaded and installed itself yesterday apparently from LiveUpdate," wrote a user identified as "codydog" on the DSLReports.com message forum Tuesday. "Did Symantec just force me to d/l [download] and install a marketing tool for them, that doesn't even ask if I want it? It just self-installs?"
Later the same day, codydog added "I'm going to assume that its [sic] some sort of adware Symantec is pushing out to users [and] that Symantec's policy is to install adware on users pcs/workstations without even asking for permission."
That couldn't be farther from the truth, said Rowan Trollope, Symantec's vice president of consumer engineering. "It's not adware. We're not trying to sell anyone anything," he said. LiveConnect is slightly a notification system that alerts users when a major upgrade is available for their Symantec software.
Last year, Trollope said, when Symantec moved to a subscription-style model for its Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security products, it promised customers that the annual fees entitled them to not only anti-virus signature updates, but also all software upgrades. LiveConnect, he said, is what Symantec came up with to alert users that a major upgrade -- to the 2007 versions of AntiVirus and Internet Security -- are available for downloading and installing.
"It's our mechanism for giving users major updates," said Trollope. The more well-known LiveUpdate software -- which is used to deliver anti-virus signatures -- couldn't handle the large upgrades to AntiVirus 2007 and Internet Security 2007.
While other software, such as Apple Corp.'s iTunes, notifies users of available upgrades when users open the application, Trollope said that wouldn't work for Symantec. "We found that most of our users don't actually run our applications." Instead, the security software, though active, works invisibly in the background.
"We're in a bit of a Catch-22 situation here," said Trollope. On the one hand, if some users object that LiveConnect downloads and installs without much of a by-your-leave, others would be upset if they weren't told they were owed an upgrade. "Most people don't even know they're entitled [to these major upgrades]," Trollope said. "I would argue that customers would be angry if we didn't tell them."
Before LiveConnect downloads and installs, users could see a standard LiveUpdate dialog that shows the module in a list. The dialog, however, doesn't divulge any additional information about LiveConnect or its purpose. Users who have set LiveUpdate to download and install updates without user interaction wouldn't see any notification at all, Trollope acknowledged.
Users can uninstall the LiveConnect component via Windows "Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet. They can also download major upgrades to the 2007 line of customer security software directly from the Symantec Web site, even though Internet Explorer is the process's only supported browser.
|
