HomeNorton code insertion
Norton Internet Security (NIS)2003 might be great for security but it has to have one of the most annoying side effects I can think of.
NIS 2003 comes complete with ad blocking and spam notification which in itself is fine, where the problem lies is with the ad blocking. I have tried lots of ad blockers and to be honest most of them only work up to a point. I never used the ad blocker in NIS as I already use the freesurfer plugin for internet explorer.
All popup ad windows are generated with javascript. Popup killers look for certain things such as onload events, window.open events or for windows that open which do not share the same properties as the main window. They then try to close the open window before it opens or as soon as possible after it has opened.
The problems occur because the window doesn't exist so the script that opened the window starts to generate errors. Depending on your settings this could take the form of a script error icon in the browser status bar or a popup error dialog. What NIS does, seems at first to be a nice idea. Before the page is displayed in the browser, NIS adds some javascript which suppresses any javascript errors. This is fine for surfers as they are unaware of anything being wrong.
Here is the code thats inserted
<script language="JavaScript"><!--
function SymError()
{
return true;
}
window.onerror = SymError;
//-->
</script>
Not a lot of code but even so, I don't think they have a right to do that.
But what about code writers? how are they supposed to write code if they can't test for errors?
Now as I said I didn't have the ad blocking enabled so why is this code being inserted? More importantly is it really legal for someone to add code to someone else's work? I have tried to find out how to remove the code if I use NIS but to date I haven't found anything and to be honest I shouldn't really have to. As a developer, I have decided not to use NIS for this reason only. The only way I can test my scripts properly is to disable NIS which sort of defeats the point of a firewall.
NIS is a fine product but if you write javascript this is not for you.
Personally I don't look too kindly on NIS adding this code to my webpages, they have no right - I take pride in my work as do a lot of developers. There are a lot of cowboys out there who are hell bent on killing javascript off completely with their disregard for the end user with endless popups, popunders, resizing tricks etc but NIS still have no right to add that code to my webpages in order to sell their product.
There might be something in the small print of their EULA but I don't care, they haven't asked me if its ok to rewrite my pages. OK it might only be a small snippet of javascript code but thats not the point, they are assuming that my site contains pop up ads - they are assuming that I will be happy that they are adding code to my hard work - I am assuming they are wrong, I am assuming they can't legally do this but I'm not a lawyer. All I know is they are making changes to my work and that can't be right.
Maybe there is a way to disable the code from being written but that will only work for me and others that decide to look for the fix. However, as NIS is a very popular security tool developers now have to throw this into the equation as well. Developers have enough to contend with as it is with browser differences etc without worrying about software rewriting our work.
So I will say this to the NIS team, a nice idea but one that doesn't appear to be really well thought out though.
What do you think? Do you think this approach is acceptable? Do you like the idea of extra code being added to your work? Share your feelings on this subject in our forum - Registering is free and easy
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