Symantec Endpoint Security Reviews

We used Symantec End-User Endpoint Security for a thin client for our servers and the full package for the user's systems.

Some of the most valuable features were antivirus, malware, and spyware. They were really good.

We had trouble with the advanced features, such as the firewall builder and all the network protection modules. We were having a lot of issues because it would sometimes block users or the printing, or it would create issues with the network access resources.

We were using the on-premise version of Symantec End-User Endpoint Security and one of the reasons to use the on-premise versions was to save the network traffic from the cloud. However, because we deployed the full package, the client's computers were really slow most of the time. End-user used to complain that their computers are running slow. It was not only the antivirus because the user had to run other applications as well, in parallel. As soon as we removed Symantec End-User Endpoint Security, the user did see a lot of improvement in their hardware performance, such as the CPU usage being lower and memory resources going down. 

The background scanning performance should be improved because it makes the computers run slow and we had the latest hardware, but it was still having issues. Their engine needs to be improved for the scanning.

I have been using Symantec End-User Endpoint Security for 10 years.

The solution is stable.

We had more than 10 users using this solution in my organization.

The installation is straightforward. The full deployment took approximately two weeks.

We did the implementation of Symantec End-User Endpoint Security ourselves.

We have one person that supports this solution.

We are phasing out the use of Symantec End-User Endpoint Security in my company and we only have a small number of systems using it at this time.

We plan to switch to Cisco Secure Endpoint.

I rate Symantec End-User Endpoint Security a seven out of ten.

We're a large company with half of our business in the UK and half throughout the rest of Europe. We deal with about 13 countries and I work from Serbia. Our business focuses on train and bus transport, and sometimes ferry services. We're using the solution to mitigate security risks. We were considering solutions for endpoint protection and decided to go with Symantec for our work stations and servers. It offers anti-malware plus a firewall and some other functionalities. I'm an IT manager. 

I like the antivirus and the local firewall that the solution provides. It's user friendly with a good dashboard. 

I'd like to see a full anti-ransomware solution because there are some anti-ransomware functionalities that would assist us if they were included in the solution. 

I've been using Symantec End-User Endpoint Security for about six years.

The solution is very stable. 

We're not a big business in Serbia but scalability is easy. We have around 160 workstations and about 130 users. 

We have a contract with the local Symantec partner in Serbia so we can speak to them in our language. The support is very good. 

The initial setup is rather simple. 

The license for this solution is purchased on an annual bases. The price could be cheaper but it's not too bad. We also pay for technical support which we get locally here in Serbia.

Symantec is not the only endpoint security solution that we actually have experience with but I would recommend it. I think it's one of the best solutions currently on the market.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The main use case is to scan vulnerabilities on our endpoints. We need to make sure that our antivirus software is up to date. We need to ensure that patches on our workstations are up to date and that we can scan through folders and files to detect malware.

It's very good. Most of the clients are using this solution. It's able to protect workstations from threats, malicious files, and malicious USB drives. It's able to protect business-related files on the workstations. If you have an environment where you need to protect critical files from threats, it's a good solution.

It also defends us against the latest sophisticated attacks, such as key-finding attacks and spyware. It provides protection against threats, spyware, ransomware, malware, etc. It's pretty good at that.

It provides a single pane of glass. You can see everything through the dashboard. It's pretty good.

It has improved our security posture. It protects us from attacks outside, and it protects our files. It also prevents the corruption of files and secures our critical business-related files.

Symantec Endpoint Security is easy to use, fast, and good for small and medium-sized businesses.

Unlike other AV products, such as Norton, Symantec Endpoint Security doesn't use many system resources.

Its GUI needs improvement. It's good, but it needs to be improved in terms of management and reporting. Its reporting features aren't straightforward.

We've been using the solution for around five years. 

It's stable.

It's scalable. One of the clients has 50 users and another one has 10 users. It's good and pretty fast. It's being used at multiple locations.

It's very easy to increase the number of endpoints. You just need to purchase more licenses. If you have more users, you need more licenses.

We have plans to increase its usage.

I'd rate them an eight out of ten. We had to raise an issue only once, and it was resolved within hours.

Positive

We have other endpoint security solutions. We bid for many companies. We check what the client wants to achieve, and we also take the price into consideration

Generally, Symantec can provide all the features that our clients commonly require. Its price is also good compared to other solutions such as Cisco AMP. Cisco AMP is very expensive. We only deploy it at the airports.

We have different test cases to show how effective it's against different types of malware, corrupt files, malicious files, etc. It works pretty well. We are happy with it. It's able to detect and stop all types of malware. We also tested it to see how it treats benign files, and it works pretty well.

It's simple to install. Its deployment is easy. It takes two to five hours. You need an antivirus server. You can directly download the antivirus client on your PC from there and then you just click next, next, and next to install it. 

We have seen an ROI. Based on the service that you get in return, it's definitely worth the money. 

It's pretty awesome price-wise. That's why we give it to most of our clients. It isn't very expensive.

Compared to Cisco AMP, which is very expensive, its price is okay. It's also cheaper than Malwarebytes.

The license that you purchase lasts a period of time. After that, you again need to purchase another license. Otherwise, you will not be able to get support from Symantec every time you have issues.

I've not used it on mobile devices, but on workstations, it's awesome. You don't require any other antivirus solution. It's simple to install. It works very well in the Windows environment. You don't need to install anything else. It provides any type of endpoint security, including USB protection.

If you have a critical network environment and security is very important to you, you can consider this solution. It can offer you the level of security that you need. It can provide what you are looking for in terms of endpoint protection.

It's very good for a small or medium organization. If you have a very large environment, you can consider other alternatives, but for small environments with 50 users, it works very well. For bigger environments, such as airports, we use Cisco AMP.

It hasn't as such saved time when responding to issues. Sometimes we have issues where the user isn't able to use the system until we resolve the issue. We have had cases where the issue got resolved immediately, but sometimes, we have had issues that required opening a case with them or intervention from the administrator.

Overall, I'd rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

The primary use cases of this solution are for antivirus protection, anti-malware protection, and personal firewall protection.

The most valuable feature is the automated updating. They send out updates on a regular basis. All that we have to do is to set it up on our server to download it, then it is distributed to the individual endpoints. 

Individual machines could do the same thing but it would only be on that one machine.

It seems to block things fairly well.

This solution is resource-heavy. It uses up a lot of memory and a lot of disk space. It demands a lot of resources. There have been improvements with Windows 10 and it's not as problematic.

The firewall capabilities did not seem to do what the documentation claimed it should do.

Port control is one of the things that this solution does do, but it does it on a higher level. When I say port control, it's things like USB ports that can be used to plug things in. For example, if you plug in a wired mouse or a wireless mouse then you want the flexibility to be able to do that. It should be able to identify that it is a mouse and let you use it. 

By the same token, if you plug in a 1 TB external hard drive, that should be shut down unless it is one of your hard drives. The only way to detect that would be to have units with their own serial number and the system programmed in such a way that it would recognize it.

Seagate for example has many external drives. They have serial numbers on those drives, and we don't want to just set it up for use by any Seagate drive. We want our external drives to be used, only. We don't want to have to go purchase Seagate drives to have it work. We want them to get it from us, that we know works, and have them return it to us.

I would like to see a check-in system where you can log which specific drives your staff can access and what they cannot access.

I have been using this solution for approximately six to eight years.

With Windows 7 there were some stability issues. The environment handled resources differently. You could have a fairly resource-heavy solution that would make the system unusable.

Windows 10 improved stability quite a bit.

Technical support is good, but when they sold to Broadcom, even though people were paying for the support they were not getting it.

This product is more reasonably priced than some competing solutions.

We spoke with some vendors who recommended Sophos and Crowdstrike. While Crowdstrike has some incredible features, it's four times the cost.

Sophos is supposed to handle our needs.

Crowdstrike could handle our needs and then some, but we couldn't justify the cost.

Within the last three or four months, we decided to drop Symantec on its own because of some issues we have with the company. We will be using Sophos.

Symantec sold off their enterprise solutions, which this product falls into. When they sold it. they sold it to a company that has purchased software packages in the past and not done very well with it. They are a hardware company trying to expand into the software realm. This is another example of a hardware company that thinks that they can do software and they can't.

We were told that Broadcom was ignoring all of their customers that were below a certain level of license purchases. Some of the customers were calling wanting to renew their product and they were having to wait a month or six weeks just to get a quote.

We did our own research and confirmed that what we were told was true and decided that we were not going to renew and went to Sophos.

If you are going with Symantec, definitely purchase the 24/7 tech support. They will help you with just about everything, or at least they used to. I am not sure if that still applies to Broadcom.

They now offer the option to put it into the cloud for the management capabilities. That way the endpoints, the individual laptops, and desktop computers are actually going to a website to get the management, the new definitions, and new configurations. This option should seriously be considered. 

I am not recommending that they do that but they should at least seriously consider it, because, while having that one server to do that one thing is fairly important, it would be nice to not have to deal with it.

For what we were using this product for it was pretty good, but there were some things that we didn't like, and some things that we would have like to take advantage of.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

My primary use case is endpoint antivirus/antimalware security on Windows computers, on and off my office network.

Initially, it provided easy centralized management of policies and devices. Threat protection has always worked well.

I originally posted the most valuable feature is centralized management - after consideration, I realized this is not accurate. I've used the on-premise and cloud versions of SEP.  I prefer cloud versions as it is centralized and easy to manage, but every cloud-managed solution does this. I have many cloud managed solutions I use, but I've found SEP to be quirky and inefficient at best. My personal experience is the protection works well. I haven't had an infected computer in years (managing 300 devices now, more over the years). The problem with the protection is I've encountered far too many computers where the licensing fails at some point after installation without warning or notice. You have to check each computer routinely to verify the license is good and the agent is updating. This directly impacts the core reliability of the product since license "expiration" (failure) prevents the agent from updating.

This latest version upgrade/migration over the last year has been atrocious.

There have been numerous support issues and calls with Sr. VPs at Symantec, who were always understanding about the problems, but the product has proven unreliable to install and manage. The protection itself seems as solid, but if devices are losing their licensing without notice for no reason, it's only a matter of time before they become compromised.

The bottom line is that when it comes to management, reliability of management, reporting, alerting, installation, and licensing, if these don't work reliably you can't trust the product's security capability.

I've seen way too many outages and "maintenance" events in the last year on the new platform to consider it stable.

This latest version has proven unreliable for management and installation.

I would no longer recommend this product as a viable security solution.

Our primary use case of this product is endpoint security. We use it to secure our environment and endpoints—the basic purpose of antivirus products. 

This solution is deployed on-premises. 

One of the most valuable features is its antivirus database, which is current and updated daily. Another valuable feature is its capacity to be managed by a single server. The solution is managed by a secure server, so all the endpoints are managed from a central point. 

For me, Symantec has been working fine. I'm not dealing with security inside the company, I'm just in the network part, so I can't think of any suggestions for improvement. 

As for some features I would like to see, I'd like a retrospective action feature similar to Cisco Secure Endpoint's. Some antiviruses don't allow you to re-scan a product that was in the former scan—for example, if a file was classified as proper, but then for some reason the file was changed, we need an antivirus with retrospective capability. We need EPP and EDR products in a secured environment. 

We have been using this product for more than 10 years. 

This product is stable. We've been using it for 10 years, and I can say that it has been stable. 

Basically, once the product is installed on the server, there is no maintenance to do. Maybe there are some updates, moving from a lower to a higher version, but this is the main maintenance that people do. 

This product is easy to scale. Normally, such a product isn't easy to scale nor to manage, but this solution is user-friendly and isn't complicated to manage. In my company, this product is deployed on all the workstations—more than 1,700 PCs.

I'm not dealing with this product on the front line—it's managed by my colleagues on the security team—but I think Symantec's technical support is fine. If we ever have an issue, I think we raise a ticket to Symantec's support center, and they take care of us. 

Deploying Symantec is easy—when you install it, you click "next," "next," "next," and then you update the antivirus. When you start, it's already directly in production. For me, the initial setup was not a big deal. We deployed this solution internally. 

We implemented this solution through an in-house team. 

We are currently testing Cisco Secure Endpoint for endpoint protection, and we have been using it for one year. I prefer it because Cisco is one of the big network and security vendors, so when they sell a product, they're sure about the whole performance of the product. The product must have a good reputation because the brand itself says something. 

I rate Symantec End User Endpoint Security an eight out of ten, and would recommend it to others. 

We primarily use the solution to protect our endpoints. There are growing attacks worldwide, and we need to be protected against any eventuality - including malicious attacks or ransomware. We also use the solution to protect endpoints for users that work from home. 

The product is good at alerting users to anomalies.

The detection is pretty good.

The system has been working fine and is quite stable.

The device control has been working impeccably. 

The solution can scale.

We'd like to have a solution that offers a single pane of glass that would allow us to integrate all of our traffic and solutions under one umbrella so that we can look at all the incidents in one place. 

The product needs to be well versed in the security landscape to best protect us from malicious attacks, as we've seen a rise in activity.

The agent shouldn't use up so many resoures at the endpoint when scanning and protecting.

There needs to be better communication, back and forth, between on-site teams and off-site users. If something is happening off-site there should be some sort of logging or details that can be shared with the main office.

The solution needs to do a better job at scanning video links. 

There have been instances where we haven't been able to find the root causes of alerts.

The size of the footprint of the software is too high. It's quite heavy.

Network and cloud scanning coverage needs to be expanded and improved upon.

The functionality could be much better.

There also needs to be more training offers to companies to help understand the technology and its capabilities a bit better. 

Technical support is not great. They are not responsive. 

I've been using the solution for a long time. It's been more than ten years.

For the most part, the stability is okay. 

You can scale the solution very well. It's not an issue as well. However, the support is lacking, and it might deter users from wanting to scale. Even the resellers are warning clients that the support isn't there, and the company is not responding well to queries. 

We have found Symantec's technical support to be very sluggish. They are very slow to respond and alert us to changes. It's quite a problem. Trend Micro, for example, has much better service. Even if you look at Palo Alto, they really work with you and give you complete training. Symantec really doesn't offer its clients much.

We are using Trend Micro. Many customers seem to be moving over to them as they are losing faith in Symantec's support capabilities. 

The initial setup has given us some trouble in the past. We use a Windows server and have had downtime in terms of setting things up. 

They have increased the products of these products recently without any notice. This hasn't gone over well with small clients.

We are customers and end-users.

We use various versions of the solution, according to which Windows versions we are using.

What we would really like is a solution that could really put all of our security under one pane of glass, which Symantec doesn't really do at this time. 

Our concern is having a solution that can keep up with the shifting landscape, as malicious activity is on the rise. We need a solution that is holistic in nature and can help us work with our other in-house solutions and other products writ large.

Also, the company seems to not be very responsive to queries. The resellers are becoming more vocal on these concerns as well. For this reason, we are considering just switching it out altogether.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. It's a good solution for endpoint protection, however, we worry about the lack of support and response from the company.

We are using Symantec End-User Endpoint Security for our network security solution to protect us against threats, such as malicious software and websites.

The solution is easy to manage.

The solution already has support for Windows, Mac, and Linux but it could improve by having better support for Linux. We have run into some problems when there are upgrades. If they can improve this point, Symantec would be good for endpoint protection as well as for a critical server.

I have been using Symantec End-User Endpoint Security for approximately three years.

When we were not able to find a solution to issues we are having we have contacted technical support. There are times we created a support ticket in the morning and they respond in the evening when we are not available. However, they have been helpful and eventually provide us with a solution, it can take a bit of time.

The installation is not difficult for Windows and Mac OS it will autonomically install, based on the schedule we plan. However, for Linux, we could not do the installation from the Symantec manager and needed to install it one by one on the servers. 

One great benefit is we do not need to activate a license for every endpoint. The price is fair.

I have evaluated McAfee and Kaspersky.

Symantec was bought recently by Broadcom and this could be a reason some might not want to purchase the solution because of their background. However, this solution is popular and competitive with other solutions, such as McAfee or Kaspersky.

I rate Symantec End-User Endpoint Security a seven out of ten.