Symantec... why?

I use Macs at home, and have done since 1996 when I got fed up of Windows and all the messing about to keep the system optimised that I used to have to do. It was fun when I was a teenager, but I reached a point where I was fed up and just wanted to focus on using the machine rather than making it work.

Anyway, I'm just about to upgrade our iMac G4 (with a gorgeous 20" screen) from OS X 10.3 Panther to OS X 10.4 Tiger and decided to check that absolutely everything was compatible. As usual, it turned out that most software had patches on line (which would work with the older Panther) with the exception of Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus 9, which needed an upgrade to the new version 10.

Now, I expected this. It'd happened with AV8 when Panther came out, so I went and followed the links to the Symantec site, and selected the upgrade, which would then only give me an option to upgrade to the version I was already on!! After two emails to their support (based in India by the looks of the email) I'd found the correct links. These showed that you could only buy a physical package rather than a download. I was annoyed (I wanted it now!) but ordered it anyway. Three days later I get an email saying it's on backorder. Their *own* software.

It's times like this that I wonder why I bother. So far, in 4 years, there hasn't been a virus on OS X (and I've used all the releases from OS 10.0!) – I mainly have the anti-virus to make sure I don't send on viruses to my PC friends. I know that Norton has a bad reputation now with the Windows world, but it's the most commonly updated and supported version for the Mac. If there was an F-Prot I'd use it as quickly as I could!

So, by my reckoning, there are four reasons to be annoyed with Symantec;

1) Poor website link software for upgrades.
2) Lack of a downloadable version.
3) Poor stock control.
4) Lack of a simple patch to move between versions.

But I guess I'll carry on using them until I can find anything better.