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If you are a Comcast/Xfinity customer, are you still paying for anti-virus and security tools? If so, Comcast may be able to save you some money, assuming you value the services they bundle with your broadband subscription.
Some customers first become aware of Comcast’s Constant Guard security protection suite after receiving e-mails warning they may have been infected by a bot or other malware. Comcast has actually been providing some form of this service to customers since 2009, but many are completely unaware of the service, which includes free anti-virus software from Norton.
Comcast’s security alert e-mails usually don’t directly identify a misbehaving computer. Instead, the company obtains lists of compromised IP addresses from third party security vendors who track botnets and other illicit computer crime. When a Comcast IP address can be tracked back to a customer, Comcast can send an e-mail to that customer alerting them to the possibility they are running a compromised PC.
One major problem is that recipients of these e-mail messages often suspect they are phishing messages not actually sent by the cable company, and a number of them forwarded to Gmail e-mail accounts end up in the spam folder. But, in most cases, they are actually legitimate Comcast e-mails.
Comcast advises customers to download their Constant Guard security suite to identify and remove potential threats from their computers. The suite is free for Comcast customers and includes:
- Norton Security Suite: Provides protection that helps guard against identity theft, viruses, hackers, spam, phishing and more. It also includes parental controls to help keep your kids safe online.
- Secure Backup & Share: Securely backup and share your valuable files, like photos. (2 GB storage included at no additional charge. Remember the 250GB monthly usage cap!)
- Desktop Applications: The Comcast Toolbar includes anti-spyware, network-embedded anti-spam and anti-virus technologies brought to you through partnerships with Bizanga, Cloudmark®, Goodmail CertifiedEmail™, and Return Path. In addition, Comcast uses up-to-date blocklists from Spamhaus and TrendMicro to help reduce and guard against unwanted spam.
- Proactive Bot Notification: As a new feature of the Constant Guard service, Comcast may email a “Service Notice” to your Comcast email address if they believe one or more of your computers may be infected with a type of virus called a Bot. A Bot is a malicious form of software that could use your computer to send spam, host a phishing site, or steal your identity by monitoring your keystrokes.
Considering it’s free, it may be worth a try. Comcast customers can obtain the software and additional information from the Constant Guard website.
http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Comcast Constant Guard.flvComcast demonstrates Constant Guard’s password and credit card-saving features. (4 minutes)
Other stories of interest:
- Cable and Telco’s New Money-Maker: Security & Home Automation — Coming Soon to Your City
- New York City Deploys Anti-Terrorism Task Force to Monitor Striking Verizon Workers
- Comcast vs. Verizon FiOS: New Ads Slam Xfinity; Increased Comcast Broadband Speeds Rumored
- One Year After Imposing 250GB Cap, Comcast Customers Still In The Dark About Their Usage
- South Florida ‘Internet Blast!’ Customers Get Free Speed Upgrade from Comcast
Norton alone will slow down your machine enough to make you think you have a virus. Add to that the ‘toolbar’….
You’re better off using Microsoft Security Essentials and an e-mail provider with good spam blocking, like GMail.
I am a moderator on a Firefox forum, and have had complaints that it causes the latest Firefox browser to inexplicably crash every few minutes. Comcasts response to this problem is to use the Add or Remove Programs feature in the Control Panel to uninstall Constant Guard Protection System. But Norton will not be removed. And I agree with Andrew Madigan’s post above, Norton seems to try to control your whole system.
Firefox crashes for me inexplicably as well, but was happening before and after Norton entered the picture. I personally use Firefox as my primary browser and love the spell-checker and tabs, but it has never been very good with releasing memory used for long-closed web pages, and I suspect Flash is probably responsible for at least 70 percent of my Firefox problems.
I haven’t really had as much trouble with Norton as others have. I turn off the junk I don’t need though. While I use Microsoft SE on my secondary machines, I consider it inadequate on my main machine when it encounters hijacked web pages or malicious web ads.
These days, I rely on an anti-virus program -and- Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, which has a real-time monitoring option for around $25 I think. The latter is excellent at stopping web naughtiness before it becomes a nightmare.
I also personally despise screen real-estate stealing toolbars and refuse to run any of them, and agree with you that Gmail has been remarkably effective at cleaning out most of the spam in my e-mail. It’s why I forward every piece of mail I receive at any address through my Gmail account.
I think Comcast’s tools are nice for the free anti-virus software (Time Warner gives us Internet Security Suite from CA™, a dreary piece of software that misses way too much).
If you are not a hands-on computer kind of person, the relative simplicity of some of these tools means they will protect a lot of people from inadvertent infections. I’ve seen too many cases of people running no security software at all, or run something like McAfee which throws up warnings that go completely over their heads, until they figure out a way to turn it off completely, which is just as bad as running no protection at all.
I’ve encountered more than a few people that have ended up with five or six toolbars installed on their browser, crapware like Weatherbug, redirected home pages, and software they had no idea they even installed. These are the folks that end up with the zombie bots, malware galore, and who knows what else on their machines. If Constant Guard stops 50 percent of it, it would be worth it for the asking price: free.
You cant over look the feature of entering CC information and storing it along with saving secure web site logons. While a convenient solution….I see it as a double edged sword
Pros – One click authentication would prevent most phising and keylogger malware from picking up that information as you do online transactions. As well as not having to log into your bank accounts with keystrokes, etc..seems like a good safety measure.
Cons – Not sure how comfy I feel with any ISP or 3rd party having my info “stored” on their end for use. Plus what happens when you have to change the password to any of those sites? Does it easily update?