avast/norton safety minder issue

[rjrizzuto]

I have 3 XP Pro SP3 w/IE7 computers that have the Norton Safety Monitor on them (onlinefamily.norton.com), and that had Kaspersky on them.  I uninstalled kaspersky, and installed Avast, but on 2 of the three I would get an error message when I tried to access any web site.  I had no issues with ping, ftp, etc.

From another message on the forum, I saw a mention of issues with incomplete uninstalls of Norton products. Since I had Norton back a few years, I decided to use the Norton removal tool on one of the problem computers.  That required that Norton Safety Monitor (NSM) be uninstalled first.

After that completed, I was able to access the internet.   I reinstalled Norton Safety Monitor, and after rebooting, I had the same problem back.

I did determine that terminating Web Shield, but leaving everything else in Avast enabled fixed the issue as well.  So it seems that Avast without NSM works, and Avast without Web Shield plus NSM works.  Any idea why NSM+Web shield would be a problem?

BTW, I have Avast and NSM on 2 Vista boxes (one w/IE8, one with IE7) as well without issues.  And I am not sure why the one XP Pro computer has no issues.

[Lisandro]

Does Norton Safety Monitor act like a firewall filter?
ashWebSv.exe should be allowed to connect the Internet (so it can scan the http traffic and works).
Does Norton Safety Monitor have a whitelist for applications?

Sorry, no experience at all with Norton Safety Monitor.

[rjrizzuto]

Norton Safety Monitor isn't exactly a firewall, however it may be hooking in the same way.  NSM is part of onlinefamily.norton.com's parental control offering.  It keeps my kids from accessing inappropriate content.

There are some notes in the on the Norton site listing that NSM is not compatible with Avast's if Web Shield is on.  I can hope that one or the other company fixes this.

[Lisandro]

There are some notes in the on the Norton site listing that NSM is not compatible with Avast's if Web Shield is on.  I can hope that one or the other company fixes this.

Can you post a link to these notes?

[Pondus]

Compatibility of Norton Safety Minder with avast! security products
http://www.symantec.com/norton/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&selected_nav=&pvid=&docurl=20090918125711EN


Using Norton Safety Minder with other security products
http://www.symantec.com/norton/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&ssfromlink=true&docurl=20090508145137EN


OnlineFamily.Norton plugs you into your child's online life
https://onlinefamily.norton.com/familysafety/loginStart.fs

[YoKenny]

Norton is not friendly with any other anti virus application.

There are several good parental control applications that work wiith avast! like CYBERsitter and Net Nanny.

Read some reviews:
http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com

[SpeedyPC]

OR! You can used Hostman and add the website to block the nasty site your kids don't want to see and it does work very easy to set it up I've set this for a friend mind easy as a piece of cake.

OR another smart way used OpenDNS you can setup your own filter out nasty site out for free I think you may have to register yourself for free on OpenDNS, better check with someone who knows more about OpenDNS and it very safe.

http://www.opendns.com/solutions/overview/

[rjrizzuto]

I'm using Norton Safety Monitor (NSM) because it has the features I desire (content filtering, time limits, and activity reports) and it is free.   

The odd thing is that I have 5 computers (2 Vista Home Premium SP2, 3 XP Pro SP3) running Avast (4.8.1368) and NSM (1.2.0.39), and all but 1 are working fine with Web Shield enabled.  The 1 holdout I am running with Web Shield disabled.  I'm not sure what is different about the one that is not working.

[rjrizzuto]

I forgot to add that I am also using OpenDNS as a second line of defense for inappropriate content, but it doesn't give me per-child reports or time limits.  Activity reports are especially important to me because neither OpenDNS nor Norton Safety Monitor are 100% effective, and I do review the activity of my kids to see if they have found a site that SHOULD be blocked.

Minor plug - I am using the Netgear WNR2000 that has OpenDNS support integrated, and am very happy with it. 

I'm hoping the incompatibility will be fixed.

[Lisandro]

I forgot to add that I am also using OpenDNS as a second line of defense for inappropriate content, but it doesn't give me per-child reports or time limits.  Activity reports are especially important to me because neither OpenDNS nor Norton Safety Monitor are 100% effective, and I do review the activity of my kids to see if they have found a site that SHOULD be blocked.

Use www.k9webprotection.com for free parental control (and time limit).

[rjrizzuto]

K9 looks like a nice product, but it doesn't meet my needs.  I have 5 computers and 2 children.  I prefer Norton Safety Monitor since I can manage it centrally, and specify per-login restrictions.  So regardless of which computer my son is on, he gets the same restrictions.  My daughter, who is younger, gets a tighter set of restriction, regardless of which computer she logs into.

I like the fact that I can logon to the onlinefamily.notron.com site from any computer, including from work, to see what they are up to.

Hopefully Norton and Avast can determine what the issue is with Web Shield and why it seems to work on some computers but not others.  For now, I have web shield disabled on 1 computer, and enabled on the other 4, and the setup works, albeit with some degredation of protection on the one computer.

[DavidR]

The problem is that we don't know how NSM works, but I suspect it may use some form of proxy since you said they mention the web shield.

There are some notes in the on the Norton site listing that NSM is not compatible with Avast's if Web Shield is on.

Now if we knew the proxy port NSM used then it may be possible to integrate that with the web shield. What is your firewall and does that not list the applications and ports used when connecting ?

[rjrizzuto]

Norton Safety Monitor (NSM) is not a firewall, it is a parental control package.  I do also have the Windows firewall enabled.

I would be glad to provide any information I can glean, but I do not have knowledge about the internal workings of NSM (or Avast  for that matter), so what I can provide is limited.

[DavidR]

We know it isn't a firewall and neither is the web shield, but if they both use proxies for their monitoring/scanning

The web shield redirects HTTP calls on port 80 (your browser requesting pages) to localhost port 12080, so that it may scan the content to ensure it isn't infected before it is saved in your browser cache and displayed in your browser.

I suspect NSM does something similar otherwise I can't see what any conflict is about. It would be nice if you could come up with this page that mentions incompatibility with the web shield, then perhaps we might see what from this incompatibility takes. If NSM are playing their cards this close to their chests then there is no way anyone can even attempt to resolve it.

You have to check your firewall logs for the NSM process as that should indicate if it is using a localhost and what port it is using. Either that or something like TCPView, see image.

[rjrizzuto]

I tried netstat -b and did not see any connections to NSM.  I'll try tcpview tonight.  I've used that in the past.

I'll also see if I can find any logs from NSM. 

I'll also see if I can get a Norton employee to provide you information, but they may not want such posted on a public forum.