Norton messing with UAC

Just when you thought that Norton couldn’t be more annoying, Norton has proved you wrong again. They are planning to launch a tool that replaces the UAC in Windows Vista. Norton already has a very bad reputation for making bulky security suites which are resource intensive hogs. They seldom block viruses and trojans and only manage to slow down your system and display annoying popups, status messages and subscription expiry messages. I could continue bashing Norton for a few more pages but my hatred is towards anti virus software in general and it would be unfair to blame Norton only.

Read more about Norton’s tool here.

http://blogs.itecn.net/blogs/asuka/archive/2008/09/14/norton-uac-tool.aspx

Norton’s Official UAC link

http://www.nortonlabs.com/inthelab/uac.php

According to Norton

User Account Control (UAC) is a new security feature in Microsoft Windows Vista that changes the architecture of the access token creation process and prevents users from logging on with full administrative rights.

 

While the intent of this feature may have been enhanced security, all too often users need administrative rights for tasks like installing/updating programs, and many software applications need access to run properly.

 

The User Account Control tool has been designed to replace the Vista UAC, to simultaneously make your system more secure while significantly improving user-friendliness.

By default, any application launched by an administrator is running with a filtered, standard user access token. When the administrator attempts to perform a task, the UAC prompts the user to approve the action. This can lead to poor user experiences because the prompts can be slow to display, and appear frequently and without warning. What’s more, because the UAC may give a false sense of security since other processes can still access the desktop, it actually raises security concerns.

 

The net effect is that many users find the UAC security clearance and prompting process annoying, especially those who are a computer’s only user and have all the latest Norton Internet Security software installed and updated.

The User Account Control tool will collect user input as well as information on applications causing prompts. The data will be processed to improve the comprehensiveness and robustness of the white list, which will be updatable while running the tool online.

Since Microsoft is already allowing you to customize UAC in Windows 7 (read previous blog entry) , it is advisable that one takes no notice of this software other than for purely platonic interests. Besides it is blatant lie that UAC gives a false sense of security. Other processes continue to run with low privileges whereas only the program  which asks for consent will be granted administrative privileges. Norton should be sued as a potential scareware vendor for gross misrepresentation of features of windows. I wonder what Norton will cook up next.. Its own bluescreens of death (BSOD)??

(Update 16-10-08 : A part of this article has been published in MSN Contribute Beta Norton messing with UAC)