I am constantly amazed at the number of respected magazines, technical authors, bloggers, etc that appear to be “in bed” with some of the better name security software vendors.

For example – a leading Windows email newsletter consistently names Symantec’s Norton Internet Security Suite 2009 as its best of breed. Prior to this they were “pushing” (for want of a better word) Zone Alarm as their best of breed firewall. Now let me clarify that I don’t believe for one minute that all of these people are being paid to promote Norton or ZA or whichever latest and greatest. I also believe they are acting in best faith when they do promote these apps.

But these people are respected professionals or perhaps at worst are well known and listened to people of influence in the technical world. So why do these professionsla get it wrong so frequently?

Lets take a step back and look at this slightly differently.

I’ve been in and around PCs for 25yrs now. I laugh when someone says to me “do you know anything about PCs?”. For almost the entirety of those 25yrs I have had a very keen interest in all things security and safety when related to computing. I’m not an expert but I’m not stupid either.

Taking Norton as an example – I can almost document this once great company’s demise. It’s sad really. Peter Norton started out writing utilities that saved the bacon of more than one client many moons ago. If I recall, my first experience of a Norton Utility was with its ncache and low level formatter – both vastly superior to MS’s own DOS variants of the day. If memory serves correctly Peter Norton was purchased by Symantec in the early 1990′s but his name still survives on the utilities and has since expanded into the all encompassing beast we see today.

I personally think Peter Norton is weeping at what was done to his brain child.

Who remembers Dr Solomons? You’d better know it today as McAfee today. Alan sold his company to McAfee whom were better known in the UK as Network Associates – independently the two companies made excellent standalone AV apps – unfortunately the same cannot be said of it today.

What am I saying? The small, individual security apps we had and that can still be found were and remain far superior to these all encompassing, all in one super products of today. It only needs a quick web search to see the myriads of people having problems with Symantec – with in my experience the most common being in how to trotally remove it from one’s computer. These companies have grown too big and are trying to do too many things with what appears to be one tool. It’s like trying to change a tyre on your car with a pair of pliers – you may eventually get there but it is not what the product was designed for.

Like I said, Im no expert but I’ve dealt with the aftermath of far too many PCs that these companies cause in the first place. Yes they may do the job, but do they do it well or fast or lean enough?

So coming full circle – why are these products seen as best of breed? I ask because I genuinely want to know. Have I deluded myself for 25yrs and read all the wrong people and trusted all the wrong products or is their some collusion or even just crass stupidity going on behind the scenes?

If you want to know my approach to security then look through this site or ask me – maybe I’ll even write another post about it. However, in principle I believe one product for one job – so use a firewall; an anti virus; an anti spyware; a defragger; etc … but please dear God just make them separates.

Long live the likes of Steve Gibson whom have remained small and fiercely independent – and the big boys don’t like it one bit.