Norton update knocks out Internet Explorer
Norton Security update causes Internet Explorer to crash every time
An update to Norton’s security software issued over the weekend caused Internet Explorer to crash every time the browser was opened, according to reports on the Norton forums. Users started complaining of problems with Internet Explorer on Friday evening, just after Norton had pushed out an update.
“Running NIS on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit with IE11 (latest updated),” read the initial post on the Norton forums reporting the bug. “Sometime this evening, IE11 started crashing. In fact, it crashed an already-open browsing session, and now trying to start it up just instantly causes a ‘Internet Explorer Has Stopped Working’ error.”
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Many other users complained of similar problems, although the issue was limited to Internet Explorer, with other browsers reportedly untroubled. The bug affected users of Norton Internet Security, Norton Secuity and Norton 360.
Symantec, the company behind the Norton brand, had reacted by Saturday evening, issuing a patch which it urged customers to install by forcing their antivirus software to check for updates. The company subsequently issued an offical support notice showing how to fix the bug here.
Symantec hasn’t revealed why the update caused Internet Explorer to fall over, although the flaw was believed to be limited to the 32-bit version of Microsoft’s browser.
The bug was a rare fly in the ointment for Norton, which has done much to dispel its reputation as an ineffective resource hog in recent years. Norton Security recently won a Best Buy award in our round-up of the best security suites of 2015, offering the highest protection score of any of the free or paid-for suites on test.