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The vast multitude of online activity facets, along with being fun and engaging, has an inalienable dark side which you might not necessarily be able to take note of when surfing the web. It’s namely the Internet environment that cybercrime is largely concentrated in, the intricate malign techniques focusing on black hat search engine optimization, social networks exploiting, phishing scams, websites compromising, stealing one’s credentials and financial details, ‘conventional’ hacking deployment, and lots of other areas.
Symantec Corporation has got a riposte of its own to these dangers and challenges – the award-winning Norton Internet Security software which goes beyond regular antivirus protection, covering the entirety of online realms that pose potential risk to users. This product has proven to deliver all-around defense against web based infections, contagious links, identity theft attempts, network intrusion, 0-day malware attacks, email threats – hence providing a safe background for both work and entertainment. The integrated parental controls (Norton Online Family feature) will keep an eye on kids’ activities to prevent them from going to the wrong places and clicking on the wrong things online. Furthermore, the bootable recovery tool enables creating a CD, DVD or USB that will help cope with emergencies in case of severe system damage impaired by malware. Now with the five layers of smart protection, the two-way firewall embedded, and full Windows 8 compatibility, Norton Internet Security leaves no room for shortage of defense.
At first sight, this application appears to be neat-looking, effective, and feature-rich. To get down-to-earth and specific facts about the software, we have thoroughly tested and evaluated it in terms of standalone criteria. Let’s start with system specifications and usability scores.
Although we tend to start this section with product installation and setup process description, we dare pretty much skip this one here – for a reason: Norton Internet Security installs flawlessly and fast. The free evaluation copy is available for a 30-day period. Speaking about commercial aspect, there is currently a substantial discount for 1-year subscription (up to 3 PCs): the cost went from $79.99 down to $49.99.
Norton Internet Security is a pleasure to use. We couldn’t help remarking the innovative GUI design ideas that were put into practice here. The dark color scheme combined with green and yellow elements invokes some sort of subconsciously perceived sense of confidence and the app’s serene aggression towards malicious stuff out there. The fresh look of 2013 version’s interface is somewhat different from what the previous build was like: now it integrates large Windows 8 style graphical elements and is optimized for use on touch screens. Some of the product’s essentials, such as Online Family, Safe Web, Mobile, Performance, Settings etc. are smoothly lined up for quick access in the upper and right-hand part of the GUI, and the clearly highlighted current system status is in sight on the main pane for the user to be fully informed at all times. Whereas the interface does seem a little complex from the start, it turns out handy after a while of exploring its contents.
About four extra seconds’ burden on system boot-up and shutdown time is pretty much the biggest performance impact we noticed. When operating on our lab machine and processing data within its competence, Norton Internet Security did not call forth notable slowdown issues – as a matter of fact, it performed better than the industry average in terms of this criterion. The CPU usage does actually go up during scan tasks, which is natural – that hardly gives grounds for discomfort though. In regards to scanning speed, the utility processes a 10GB bulk of data in 3-4 minutes. Overall, influence on system resources is definitely not on this program’s weak points list.
False positives which were an issue with 2011 and 2012 versions of this software are now pretty much gone. The Germany-based AV-TEST’s scores testify to a substantial progress in terms of handling false detections of legit software as malware: the latest tests returned ‘0’ value for this criterion, which is a perfect result as the industry average is 6. So, this has been obviously worked on, which is nice to know.
Feature set is all about functionality extrapolated from a concept to specific actions and capabilities. Before we carry on here, it’s fair to mention that Norton Internet Security has got a large number of smart features enabling rigid proactive protection and convenience of use. Here is the list and explanations on the crucial ones:
It appears all the major Internet security areas (and even more) are foreseen in this product, which is commendable. With the above features in its arsenal, the software does a lot to keep you safe online and make it easy to stay protected.
With Norton Internet Security running on your PC, proper malware detection and protection from online threats are the things you can be confident about. According to the latest stats by AV-TEST, the product scored the stunning 100 points in protection against 0-day malware attacks (including web and email threats), detection of relatively new malware, as well as interception of prevalent infections.
The software is not quite so perfect at repair though, scoring 95% at detection and removal of widespread threats, including rootkits and other stealth malware (industry average 95%); 88% at removal of further malicious components and system recovery from virus-originated modifications (industry average 71%). So, not impeccable – but good enough to trust.
Overall, the protection you get is versatile, so you are guarded from different angles. The product won’t have a problem detecting and taking care of viruses, phishing frauds, trojans, keyloggers, spyware, spam, hacker attacks, adware, unsafe downloads, bad files, rogue software and potentially harmful websites. Now, that’s obviously quite an extensive list of dangers to get swept away by Norton Internet Security.
Having become Symantec’s customer, you get diversified support options at your service. Whether it’s a product usage question, license related inquiry or security issue that you may have, there are a number of opportunities to get some answers and resolve your problem. The self-help instruments include the comprehensive product manual and FAQs provided on the vendor’s website (Support section). Additionally, Norton forum users can consult you all the way up to full fix. Free live expert help is available via phone, live chat and email. Please note that support channels may vary depending on your region, so be sure to check this information at us.norton.com/support.
Another alternative is the NortonLive Service which is an option to get immediate help, encompassing Deluxe, Premier and Ultimate support packages. Do keep in mind this one is a subscription-based model, though might well be worth it if you encounter an urgent issue.
The reviewed product is not perfect altogether, having both virtues and drawbacks – just like pretty much any application out there. And still, it actually does a heck of a job protecting users against privacy breaches and malware threats distributed over the Internet, and contains probably the most complete feature set we’ve seen across the board. We consider the somewhat fluctuating repair scores and false positives issue to be incommensurably less impacting than the benefits you get from using this tool. Overall, Norton Internet Security is a smart-looking, effective and trustworthy suite delivering decent cyber protection.
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