One of my clients has Norton 360 installed on his puter, and it's interfering with the javascript in my web pages. Not all JS, just some.

Simple things like

<a href="page.html" onclick="somefunc(); return false;">

don't work. Also using jQuery to attach on onclick event to an a tag doesn't work either:

// doesn't work
$(document).ready(function() {
  $("#old_trans_link").click(viewOldTrans);
});

What should I tell my client? What should I tell our users? Is there any way around this madness?

Everyone doing JS heavy pages must run into this. How do they deal with it?

Edit: He also has McAfee installed at the same time.

One of my clients has Norton 360 installed on his puter, and it's interfering with the javascript in my web pages. Not all JS, just some.

Simple things like

<a href="page.html" onclick="somefunc(); return false;">

don't work. Also using jQuery to attach on onclick event to an a tag doesn't work either:

// doesn't work
$(document).ready(function() {
  $("#old_trans_link").click(viewOldTrans);
});

What should I tell my client? What should I tell our users? Is there any way around this madness?

Everyone doing JS heavy pages must run into this. How do they deal with it?

Edit: He also has McAfee installed at the same time.

• javascript
• html
• ajax
• antivirus

Share Improve this question Follow edited Dec 14, 2009 at 1:01 rf_circ asked Dec 13, 2009 at 19:12 rf_circrf_circ 1,92522 gold badges1919 silver badges3939 bronze badges 5

• 1 Uninstall Norton 360. They didn't make good products anymore since the Norton Commander. – BalusC Commented Dec 13, 2009 at 19:22
• 2 Well duh. But you can't just tell your users to uninstall their antivirus. Millions of people have this installed. – rf_circ Commented Dec 13, 2009 at 19:27
• What Javascript does it allow? Maybe it (or something else's) blocking an external required JS file. – Pool Commented Dec 13, 2009 at 19:37
• I wish I knew what it would allow. All external JS files are hosted on my site so that shouldn't be a problem. Still going back and forth with the client about what does and doesn't work on the site. – rf_circ Commented Dec 13, 2009 at 19:44
• 1 @NXT: why dont you remote into your client browser(using teamviewer/ crossloop/vnc etc) and see exactly what is happening – ram Commented Dec 13, 2009 at 19:53

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2 Answers 2

Sorted by: Reset to default 3

I've never heard of anti-virus interfering with in-browser JavaScript in that way. My best guess would be that they have their virus scanner running at a very aggressive security level.

The easiest options, in terms of amount of work required to address this issue would be:

• Remend your users lower their security settings
• See if they can whitelist your site so the application will work correctly
• Remend a browser other than Internet Explorer, or suggest they install Chrome Frame

Of course, if these are not feasible options, you may have to go with a more simplistic approach to using JavaScript on your page. Instead of requiring JavaScript on the site, use it to enhance the site and make features easier to use.

To do this, you would have to make everything on your site work with JavaScript disabled. Have everything perform POSTs to the server for processing. JavaScript would sit on top of all of this to enhance the experience for users who have JavaScript working. In this scenario, things like anti-virus blocking click events on anchor links would end up with a submission to the server.

Of course, this is a lot more work on your part because it almost requires writing 2 versions of the site. This is an argument that is brought up all the time online, even when developing StackOverflow, as was discussed on their blog.

You're better off telling them to add an exception for your site.

They probably are using some sort of web shield I assume. Try asking them to add an exception to your site

Edit:Adding Link

http://www.symantec./norton/360

Under "Advanced Protection"

"Blocks browser, OS, and application threats; protects against infected Web sites"

So I assume there should be a way to add an exception