Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Norton Internet Security 2009
Key Specs
300Mhz or faster CPU256MB (512MB for Recovery Tool)
200MB
None
Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
Review
Review Date: October 2008Security programs can be a bitter pill to swallow. They protect our systems, but they also slow down other applications, interrupt us with confusing alerts, and hide their inner workings behind a cloak of secrecy. Norton Internet Security 2009 tries to minimize these side effects without sacrificing the cure.
Symantec has rewritten or redesigned almost every aspect of the program. A full installation now takes less than a minute, and it occupies nearly half as much memory as Norton Internet Security 2008. The clearest indication that it’s a whole new ball game: the two CPU gauges on the opening screen. One shows the percentage of CPU cycles devoted to the system as a whole, and the other shows the percentage used strictly by the Norton software. On both a 3.3GHz quad-core desktop and a 1.8GHz dual-core notebook, the Norton gauge rarely accounted for more than one or two percentage points. Compared with previous versions, that’s a remarkable achievement. The opening screen also does a better job of showing which features are switched on. And just one level below is a comprehensive settings screen with a broad range of adjustments.
The new update and scan engines are significantly improved. A new Pulse micro-update feature checks for minor updates every 5 to 15 minutes, similar to an RSS feed. If a new virus or malware attack is discovered, you could be protected almost immediately. If your laptop is on battery power, the micro-updates and other background tasks will be delayed until you return to AC power. Similarly, if your computer is set to full screen for a presentation, movie, or game, any alerts will be delayed until you leave the full-screen mode.
Scans are sped up by distinguishing between trusted and unknown files. By tracking the status of every file, Norton Internet Security can limit scans to the files that need to be inspected. How much faster are the scans? With last year’s version, a full scan of a 1.8GHz Lenovo X61s notebook took 24 minutes and 51 seconds. With this year’s, the first scan took 26 minutes and 2 seconds, while subsequent scans took only 2 minutes and 36 seconds. The quick scan option took just 22 seconds with the 2009 version, compared with 1 minute and 16 seconds on last year’s.
Other improvements include extended browser support for Firefox. Browser protection has become protocol-aware to deal with plug-in and multimedia-based attacks. Norton Identity Safe can now import your saved browser logins, and anti-phishing look-ups are performed in real time (as opposed to a static list) to counter drive-by sites that automatically dispense malware.
What’s missing? The Anti Spam component still needs work. It missed far too much spam and mistakenly blocked some valid e-mails in our tests. (Wisely, Anti Spam is turned off by default.) The Parental Controls can’t limit the number of hours a child can use a computer, a staple feature on dedicated parental-control applications. There’s no provision, either through the Parental Controls or Home Network component, to block a teenager from setting up a potentially illegal P2P file-sharing connection. And NIS 2009 doesn’t include the system tune-up features of Norton 360 or Norton SystemWorks, and it doesn’t have the backup features of Norton 360; those suites won’t have the new update and scan engines until their next versions.
All things considered, Norton Internet Security 2009’s smaller footprint, micro-updates, and selective scans represent a major overhaul. Among traditional security suites, it is currently unsurpassed.
Price (at time of review): $69.99
