Comment Articles

Norton AntiVirus: The readers strike back

Charles McLellan ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 15 Mar 2004 15:55 GMT

When we revamped ZDNet UK's Reviews channel last year, one of the key bits of new functionality was the reader rating system. After reading a review and using the product yourself, you can now give it a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, add a one-line summary of your opinion, or -- if you feel like it -- write a detailed comment hundreds of words long. You haven't been slow in coming forward with your opinions: to date, we have received over 1,500 comments worth publishing since October 2003.

There's a great deal of variety in what people say and the way that they say it: feedback ranges from a simple thumbs-up or down plus a one-liner, to a carefully crafted 400-word critique. But as the weeks go by, and readers get their hands on products, it's interesting to see trends emerge from the chatter. Often the reviewer's judgement is confirmed, occasionally it's disputed; and sometimes a problem will come to light that wasn't picked up during the review period -- we get review products for a couple of weeks, but you live with the products you buy. The malfunctioning camera on early examples of Sony's VAIO PCG-TR1MP notebook was a notable example. More recently, we're getting a lot of comment on the buggy nature of Pinnacle's Studio 9 video editing application.

However, when it comes to reader feedback in bulk, one company's recent products take the biscuit (in fact, they take the whole packet of cookies and the tin too): step forward Symantec and its 2004 versions of Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security. Unfortunately (for Symantec), the overwhelming majority of this comment is negative: at the time of writing, 94 percent of reader ratings for NAV 2004 give it the thumbs-down, while 87 percent of voters on NIS 2004 are similarly minded. What on earth is going on?