Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 review

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Innovative technology, high-level efficiency, great feature set, excellent support – all of these can be attributed to the new Kaspersky Internet Security 2015. The product incorporates several layers and techniques of protection, employing Kaspersky Lab’s sophisticated signature-based and heuristic detection additionally powered by the cloud. With the broad functionality standing sentinel over serene Internet browsing and trouble-free computer use on the whole, it delivers confidence in every aspect of your digital life and protects your identity. Since flexibility, proactivity and ultimate malware defense are what Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 is about, you will undoubtedly benefit from outsourcing your cyber protection to this splendid software.

New cutting-edge features and significantly improved old ones, as well as further reduced user interaction are some of the most prominent things making the product different from the 2014 build. As far as the cloud technology is concerned, installing this product makes you a part of the worldwide Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) ensuring immediate response to new threats and enforcing your web browsing safety owing to the most up-to-date URL sandboxing.

Consequently, you can safely shop online, enjoy social networking to its fullest, manage your banking activities via the Internet, and do many other things on the web without worrying about any sort of intrusion or privacy breach. Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 fulfills what’s promised, and does it pretty much flawlessly.

System Requirements


Operating System:

  • Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or higher) / Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8 / Windows 8.1

Hardware:

  • For Windows XP:
    • Processor 800 MHz or higher
    • 512 MB of available RAM
  • For Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8 / Windows 8.1:
    • Processor 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or higher
    • 1 GB of available RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB of available RAM (64-bit)

Other Requirements:

  • Internet Explorer 8 or higher
  • Microsoft Windows Installer 3.0 or higher
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4 or higher
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Usability


Installing Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 is a simple and perfectly comprehensive process. The software guides you step by step through this procedure, so all it takes to set it up is make literally a few clicks – there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Along with the not-so-flexible licensing scheme presupposing no “up to 3” devices offer, the vendor provides potential customers with an alternative 30-day free trial which is fully functional.

Some of the things to keep in mind before you proceed with the setup are as follows: you should close all running applications and check whether any incompatible third-party security software is installed on your PC – the list of such apps is available on Kaspersky’s website. It’s still okay if you don’t do the latter beforehand though, the utility will not fail to check for such conflicting software on its own during installation.

One more thing to note is the Setup Wizard offers you become part of the above-mentioned Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) to further get their lab notified if some new infections are spotted on your machine, and get those added to the database in real time.

Having completed the install, you should update the database – this might take some time and data volume, but do keep in mind these files are critical for the software to reliably protect you, so be sure this procedure goes all the way. This being done, run a full scan to determine the current security state of your machine and then get the detected infections eliminated (if any).

There has been some revamping done over the user interface of Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 as compared with the suite’s previous version. While we immediately recognized the product by the general color scheme and graphics which, by the way, are pretty eye-catching, the new build’s main pane has larger buttons (Scan, Update, Safe Money, Parental Control) that are now in the central part of the home screen. There’s also the same PC monitor icon reflecting your current protection level. Overall, the interface is not hard to get accustomed to and use at all.

System performance impact called forth by this product isn’t as heavy as it used to be. Our system didn’t have a hard time processing Kaspersky Internet Security’s tasks. During scans and updates, the CPU usage goes up of course, but we saw no lags opening and running applications. As thorough as it is, the scanning and cleanup take a while, so be prepared for some extra coffee time. To sum it up, Kaspersky Lab’s experts have obviously worked hard on the performance facet to deliver a lighter 2015 suite that doesn’t slow down the system a lot anymore.

Features


There is hardly any Internet security feature that isn’t integrated into the software being reviewed here. The product helps you confidently face a broad range of the present-day malware challenges, providing tremendous functionality and making it easy for the user to control, manage and customize it.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 goes well beyond the online protection alone as its feature set also includes the antivirus, parental control, file advisor, vulnerability scan, safe run, system rollback options and application control. Enhanced by these capabilities, the program appears to be an all-in-one kit suiting virtually anyone regardless of the extent of defense required. Let’s now focus on some essential web safety features the product delivers.

  • The Two-Way Firewall is meant to prevent hacker attacks in an ultimately reliable way, not only blocking intrusion from the outside but as well impeding malicious applications that may run inside your machine from connecting to remote servers. This specific type of firewall therefore controls the outgoing information along with ceasing any infiltration attempts, thus breaking the cycle of potential malware activity with high efficiency.
  • Anti-Phishing and Anti-Spam features guard you from the consequences of accidental or careless clicks on tricky links in deceptive emails or elsewhere on the web. With these options in store, Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 simply won’t allow any of such traffic to go through and hence helps you avoid private data disclosure and noxious spam.
  • The Anti-Rootkit module copes with persistent malware that obfuscates its presence in the compromised system and prevents removal. The TDSSKiller tool by Kaspersky Lab can both detect and eliminate such entities.
  • If activated, the Anti-Banner tool blocks advertising components on the web pages you go to. This can reduce site loading times and keep you from having to close obnoxious ads that pop up.
  • Behavior of the processes running on your PC is monitored by the improved System Watcher and Application Control components. The former keeps an eye on suspicious apps, predicts / determines if they might call forth any potential harm and allows undoing or rolling back any unauthorized changes, and the latter moderates programs’ access to private data and critical OS files.
  • Internet surfing gets completely safe if Kaspersky URL Advisor is running on the background, constantly watching the websites you go to. This is indeed a powerful feature as the URL blacklist is permanently updated and amended.
  • Secure Keyboard is intended to eliminate the probability of third parties intercepting your personal credentials as you type them in while accessing secured online resources. Potentially devastating privacy violation is almost inevitable if your keystrokes get recorded by malicious keyloggers and transmitted over to cyber criminals, because what they mainly target is credit card data, passwords and other ‘fingerprintable’ things of the kind. Secure Keyboard allows avoiding the use of your physical keyboard when you enter your sensitive details.
  • Safe Money is a feature that adds security value to all of your online transactions related to the financial aspect of web browsing. So anytime you log on to a payment processing website or online banking interface, Kaspersky’s Safe Money will implement several measures to secure the process: it makes sure the targeted URL is correct and listed in the corresponding database; checks the site’s certificate for validity; and monitors your OS for known e-commerce related exploits.
  • Unpatched software is generally known to be favored by malware writers as a source of a system’s weak spots, so this is a caveat to keep in mind for secure computing. The exploits these applications have might be taken advantage of for virus infestation purposes. Automatic Exploit Prevention feature is not meant for patching your outdated software, but it helps avoid the consequences of these vulnerabilities being used by virus distributors. It carefully monitors executable files which are in one way or another associated with applications that have vulnerabilities, and blocks them if they turn our malicious.
  • As self-explanatory as it is, the Parental Controls feature lets you efficiently supervise your kids’ activity on the Internet. The improved engine delivers a yet better sites filtering capability.
  • Cloud Protection is another virtue of Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 constituting its unique ‘hybrid’ protection against hackers and malware. All in all, being able to use this entire cutting-edge feature set gives you a unique advantage and guarantees security mixed with great experience.

Efficiency


With all the above features built-in, Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 covers all the different facets of cyber protection. The compound security principle (innovative cloud approach and regular defense) helps the suite stay on top of the bad stuff. It secures your web browsing, social networking, email, online banking, shopping and effectively blocks spam, spyware, rootkits, hijackers, trojans, worms, keyloggers and adware.

As long as KIS 2015 is running on your computer, you’ve got nothing to worry about in terms of your data safety and your PC’s health. According to the latest study by AV-TEST, the Germany-based independent IT Security Institute, Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 shows amazing results both by protection and repair, scoring 6.0 out of 6.0, which is a pretty rare case with this type of utilities. Recently, this suite has also won AV-TEST’s Best Repair 2014 award. In the latest Real-World Protection Test conducted by AV-Comparatives, Kaspersky reached an Advanced+ level, with 99.6% protection rate. These unbiased statistics are an additional reason to choose this particular product as your online security suite.

Help & Support


Kaspersky support is consistently user-focused. There’s no lack for product documentation, FAQs and knowledgebase – these are freely available to all customers through the main interface. The interactive help is really comprehensive and easy to retrieve data from. Should you run into a non-standard issue using the software or dealing with viruses, you can contact support agents directly via phone, email and chat, or ask your question on their forum (all contact details are provided on the official website). Additionally, you can follow Kaspersky on social networks and subscribe to their YouTube channel to keep up with their news and get some helpful advice, including tutorials and some instructive interviews on relevant security matters.

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    +/- (Pros/Cons)


    • Light-weight and fast
    • Perfect protection scores
    • Effective detection of zero-day threats due to hybrid defense
    • Anti-rootkit with TDSSKiller
    • Secure Keyboard
    • Automatic Exploit Prevention
    • URL sandboxing
    • Great interface design, hence easy to use
    • Initial database update and first scan may take a while
    • Might slow down computers with poor hardware configuration

    Bottom line


    Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 means confidence and security whatever you do and wherever you go online. It performs impressively, protecting you from the outside menaces and monitoring the processes running inside your computer. The robust defense structure, splendid feature set and user friendliness contribute to the perception of this product as a superior security suite.

    REVIEW OVERVIEW
    Usability
    Features
    Efficiency
    Support
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    kaspersky-internet-security-review Innovative technology, high-level efficiency, great feature set, excellent support – all of these can be attributed to the new Kaspersky Internet Security 2015. The product incorporates several layers and techniques of protection, employing Kaspersky Lab’s sophisticated signature-based and heuristic detection additionally powered by the...

    2 COMMENTS

    1. Since “upgrading” to the Pure 3.0 I have had much difficulty in processing online purchases and getting signed in on some sites that I expect is due to the Security Keyboard. Is anyone else having this problem and if so what is the solution? I have shut it off but that is not a good solution. Before figuring out I had the problem I emailed two large vendors and told them that that had a problem with their online data handling. Oops.

    2. This program appears to be the “greatest thing since sliced bread”, (which I still love, but are no longer allowed to eat since I adopted a grain-free Paleo diet :)).

      I can’t wait to have “safe software” using this awesome product.

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