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Comment by jeanpierre2 | Hacker News Reader

Is this just me as a non-native speaker, or does "Norton LifeLock" sound... kind of sinister? Like something out of a dystopian novel?

I'm actually not quite sure what the name is supposed to mean. Are they locking my life to protect me from evil hackers?

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It sounds like they're trying to sacrifice the remaining scraps of Peter Norton's reputation in order to make a horcrux.

*The antivirus that shall not be named

If I didn't know anything about Norton, I'd expect NortonLifeLock to be a company that sells electronic tagging ankle bracelets and such.

I thought this name is a joke. But it's not April 1st. So I googled it, and it's not a joke. Broadcom bought Symantec's enterprise arm, and this is the consuner remnant. The name is for real.

> Broadcom bought Symantec's enterprise arm, and this is the consuner remnant

Oof. That's going to be a gem of a product, with the enterprise team gone.

In the AV industry, the enterprise versions usually lag the consumer versions by a couple years. Their sales are driven by awards and independent ratings, so all resources go towards making sure that year’s consumer versions are optimized for the tests in time for the release. Once it’s done, they start backporting.

My experience has been that the enterprise versions at least include some semblance of stability and performance enhancement, vs the consumer releases.

But it's been awhile since I've dealt with consumer AV.

Is this false now? Maybe the consumer market has gotten more capable? More competition?

I have a very cynical view, but I think the consumer AV field has gotten less competitive and more scammy. With Defender/Windows AV/Windows Anti-Malware bundled into Windows since 7 (thanks to one of the dumber parts of the anti-trust litigation expiring, second perhaps only to Office not being able to directly bundle PDF export for several versions, which expired at the same time), consumer AV has work very hard to convince users to install it, and even harder to convince users to keep paying for it. Some of them are just scarier dialogs repeating what Windows Security Center shows (like they aren't even pretending to bundle their own engines anymore) and twelve ads for other security products in their "family".

Consumer AV is nothing but a mafia protection racket shaking down poor people that don't really have the money to pay for it, but think they have to because of that one time their Windows XP computer got a virus when Microsoft wasn't legally allowed to have their AV product in the box and on by default because a couple of companies convinced US judges that somehow AV was a value add and not a critical platform need for an operating system.

I feel sorry for someone every time I see they have consumer AV installed.

Kind of like Allied Universal, super descriptive name for a giant private security company (e.g. security guards).

It kind of has the same cadence as like a Weyland Yutani, like its vaguely descriptive implied conglomeration portends a nebulous overlord.

Reading through the page, I thought it was a parody set up to comment on some ‘vendor lock-in’ quality of theirs. Then searched the name, learned it's real but not a company that I would want to associate with.

Yep. Sounds like a weird name to me, too.

I can’t imagine them taking off.

Whoever came up and settled on that name needs to be fired. But that’s just my 2c.

Symantec acquired LifeLock [1] in Feb 2017. That company had been around for more than a decade before.

So I guess they figured LifeLock has the most brand value and "meaning" (well other than Norton)?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeLock

To me it sounds like a WWE finishing move.

Yes - it's the opposite of "Deathlok" a fictional character, a hero, of a dead person able to remain "alive" with the aid of cybernetics.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathlok

LifeLock seems to imply "locking" live people into the cybernetic structure, if one bases ones thinking on that prior art.

I have a hard time imagining the conversation with directors.

"So I am currently evaluating the NortonLifeLock solution", "the what?"

The name has me imagining a Honeymooners fantasy horror spin-off where a bearded Art Carney begins dabbling in the occult during the pilot, quickly learning to supernaturally send some unfortunate to a tragic, yet deserved, life fate for each episode.

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