[G4] disc warrior/norton utilities

[Alex]

On Thursday, Feb 5, 2004, at 11:36 Canada/Eastern, David Crandon wrote:

> There is a lot of controversy regarding Norton Utilities. I've been 
> using all six versions since 3.x and have never had a problem. 
> Including the OSX versions. While there are people that have had 
> problems, to put it simply, if it was that bad it wouldn't still be on 
> the market after 10 years.

Bad logic. That something was good 2 years ago is no guarantee it's 
good today -- especially in this industry. Moreover, much depends on 
the size of the owner. A major player like Symantec can afford to take 
a loss on a product to make sure they stay in a particular market; 
small companies like, say, SubRosa, can't.

As to disk utilities, by the very nature of the task they perform, it's 
likely that, whatever the utility, someone, somewhere, will get burned. 
But consider this. Say 20% of the users of NerdUtilities get burned, 
while only 1% of the users of GeekUtilities do. This means that it's 
likely that the average user won't get burned with either of them. Yet, 
if I had to trust my drive to one of them, I'd definitely go for the 
latter.

Norton Utilities had an excellent reputation for Mac OS 9 and earlier. 
Not because no-one ever got burned using it, but because those who did 
were few and far between. However, OS X, cosmetics aside, is a 
completely different operating system, and NU started on the wrong foot 
with it. It's not only that there are lots of reports of problems, but 
it's poorly programmed -- just read the instructions on what you have 
to do if you want to remove it from your drive, and you'll understand.

Does this mean that using NU will cause instant catastrophe? Of course 
not. For most users, NU will work just fine. But do you really want to 
run the risk of becoming one of the 20% or 30% minority who got burned?

f