This is rather sad. In an attempt to show good corporate citizenship Symantec has taken to providing affect users with free software. This, after releasing a virus signature update that damaged thousands of (50,000) Chinese computers.
Symantec says the offer is a “gesture of goodwill”.
We’re not sure it’ll be received as such. After all, when some software has killed your PC do you really want free copies of the software that caused the problem in the first place. Cockroach in your salad, sir? Have some free salad.
The update, released on May 18, wrongly categorised as malware two system files in the Simplified Chinese version of XP. It then quarantined the files, which rather spoiled the PCs concerned. Symantec has attributed the problem to “an automated process”.
The error kicked off a storm online, and even attracted a lawsuit or two.
Wow, free software…gee that’s mighty big of them. Wait free antivirus software? Here is a thought. It’s sort of like short sleeved lime green leisure suits. A two-for-one sale of said suits is a perfect example.
Two of crap, is still crap.
Free software. Yeah, that helps resurrect a dead hard drive or two. Doubt it will ward off the lawsuits however. Just a hunch.
Rant off…now that I got that out of my system I have to admit that I have been a long time user of Symantec antivirus. Recently however, I have been having my doubts as I have seen a rise in false positives as it captured benign files. It would tag them as virus one week, and clean the next.
[tags]Symantec, Chinese Symantec Lawsuits, Free Software[/tags]