"I've subscribed to Norton AntiVirus for at least 3 years and never had a problem, but then I purchased Norton's Internet Security 2006 and have had nothing but problems since," wrote one reader. "Trying to contact Symantec has proved to be futile. When I log on to their website, I'm directed to their automated support where I get no help. After numerous tries at that, I went to their customer service page and found, finally, a way to send them an e-mail message. I received no reply. I tried again a number of times in past months with no results. I fail to understand how they can pull this and expect people to lay down and forget that a product they sold does not work and they refuse to address it."

Indeed, many Norton customers seem to find it virtually impossible to communicate with Symantec at all. "Is there any way at all to complain to Symantec, on line or by phone?" a reader wondered. "I recently tried to upgrade to the tune of $60 on my credit card -- and the damned program wouldn't install. Now I have no one to ask about how to do this -- extremely frustrating."

Those who did succeed in getting through to Symantec will often find -- as we've just been discussing concerning software publishers in general - that their only answer is to pay for the support. "We have used Norton Internet Security for the last six years on five computers," another reader wrote. "Last week when the Live Update box popped up on the screen and I clicked to order the update, the first bar froze about one-quarter of the way through. It did that twice more that day, so I was never able to install the update. The next morning I called their customer service number and, after instructing me how to uninstall the Live Update feature, the tech support person sent me an email about how to re-install it using their website. I could not re-install it. I called customer service again and another tech support person told me that I would have to pay $69.95 to remove about seven adware and spyware files before I could re-install Live Update. Since this was not a problem of my making, I've cancelled the service on all the computers in our office. I have loyally stayed with Symantec and Norton through the years and ignored all the free download offers, but their greediness ended that."

As we see every time we hold one of these little Symantec bashes, the problems for Norton AntiVirus customers often seem to revolve around the product's bug-prone product activation. "Not only did NAV keep asking me to activate, after some fixed number of time it decided I had activated too many times and I had to call tech support to fix the problem," wrote one reader. "But here's the kicker: when NAV decides I need to activate again, it shuts itself down! Now not only am I being hassled after paying for a product, but it's not protecting me as well. After two years of this runaround service, I switched vendors and haven't looked back. In a small victory, I convinced our internal systems support at work to switch away from NAV as well. With over 15,000 licensed desktops, their sales guys made a pretty big push. I provided our IT guys with the e-mails and web information I had received over the years and they decided to trust an actual user experience instead of the sales guy's pitch."

Of course, those who can't get answers from Symantec do have another alternative: choose from one of the many anti-virus products Gripe Line readers have recommended. "This last weekend my lady friend and I wasted a couple of hours 'upgrading' her Symantec Internet Security after she'd purchase a renewal," another reader wrote. "Pardon me if you've heard this before: Download, try to install ... oops, you have a previous version you must install first ... OK, uninstall ... oops, must use the Symantec uninstaller ... OK, install new software ... oops, virus definitions out of date, 'needs attention' ... OK, virus scan finally compete ... oops, attempts to update virus definitions failed. Now, in a normal world, one would contact the manufacturer and try to get information about how to solve the problem. Unfortunately, unless you have photographs of a Symantec board member having sex with a prune, you have no chance of getting their attention. I went through this crap a few months ago myself, so I no longer use Symantec for my Internet security. I've found a better product -- NOD32, which I went for after reading the reader responses to your survey from last August. It's unfortunate that so many people out there are still having their time wasted by Symantec. I would be very naive if I were to presume that this missive would result in any changes in the methodology within Symantec, but there will be no tear in my eye as their stock drops."