Norton Internet Security 2010 (beta)

Last year Norton Internet Security 2009 made quite an impression. Symantec rewrote the suite from the ground up for improved performance and gave the UI a substantial overhaul, too. Judging by the free public beta, Norton Internet Security 2010 (downloadable from norton.com/nis2010beta) focuses on keeping the product's impact small while enhancing malware detection and giving the user better access to useful information. And, wonder of wonders, Symantec finally replaced its lame spam filter with something that really works. I spent a day with the beta, and it already looks very, very good. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the final version when it's released this fall.

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The installation process is quick and simple. A tiny downloader utility collects the program installer and the latest anti-malware definitions and launches the install process. As before, you agree to the EULA and launch the install with a single click. That's it—the next thing you know, the product is completely installed and actively protecting your system.

Flipping User Interface

Symantec has long been working to keep unnecessary minutiae out of the user's face. The 2010 beta goes a step further and moves much of its detailed reporting to a new location on the back of the main window. Yes, the back. Click "Flip Screen" and the main window visibly turns over. Well, most of the time—Netbooks and other systems with low-powered graphics can't render the 3D flip effect. On those systems Norton just displays the "back" of the screen as a separate dialog. Perhaps Symantec should check out Panda Cloud Antivirus, which flips its main window even on my underpowered virtual machine test systems.

On back of the screen is a chart of CPU or memory usage and a visual timeline of events like scans and detections. Clicking a point on the CPU chart lists the three applications taxing the CPU most at that moment. Clicking an event in the history displays more detailed information.

A link from the back of the main screen takes you to the list of Norton's background tasks with another graph of CPU and memory usage. By default, the suite does all its work in the background, so as not to get in the user's way. On this background tasks page, you can see which tasks have managed to run in the background and manually launch any that seem to be overdue.

There's another new interface element right on the main screen: Vulnerability Protection. This link brings up a list of applications with known vulnerabilities for which Norton offers protection. Clicking on an app displays a list of its specific vulnerabilities, and clicking one of those takes you to a Web page with details. You can't do anything with this information, but it's nice to know you're protected.

Deeper Insight

Norton Insight, introduced in the 2009 edition, checks all the programs on your system against Symantec's database and identifies trusted programs. Skipping trusted programs speeds up malware scanning tremendously, but the database's usefulness extends beyond that. The new Norton Insight screen lists the trust level for each application. Insight's display now also includes columns indicating how many Norton users have each program installed, how big an impact each has on system resources, and how long each has been installed on your system. You can dig in for more information about any given program, including its origin and a graph of its resource usage.

You invoke this same feature when you click for more information about a threat that Norton found or blocked. If the file has been identified as malicious, however, the resource usage page is replaced with a list of malware actions and Norton's resolution of each. Symantec has had this information all along, but is just sharing it with us now.

Spam Protection That Works

For some years, planners at Symantec believed that the vast majority of users had moved or would move to Web-based e-mail, making local antispam irrelevant. Naturally they put little or no energy into the suite's spam filter, and naturally it stank. That wholesale migration to Web-based e-mail never quite materialized, so the 2010 suite includes a brand new (and highly accurate) spam filter.

Powered by BrightMail, the antispam technology works on two levels. A set of local filters identifies and marks spam in the e-mail stream. If a message gets past this first stage, Norton checks it against Symantec's servers to see if it's known spam. It doesn't pass along the message, just a unique hash-code fingerprint.

This approach definitely works. In testing, the spam filter didn't mark as spam a single valid personal message, nor did it block any of the newsletters and valid bulk mail. Eleven percent of the undeniable spam made its way into the Inbox, which is not too bad. Overall it turned in a 4-star performance, vastly better than last year's suite.

Prize-Winning Malware Removal

With the 2010 edition, Symantec cranked up the power of its reputation-based malware detection system. Wildly mutating polymorphic malware threats are hard to catch using traditional signature-based detection, because every instance is unique. That very uniqueness can, however, be a clue for security software. If a file has never been seen by any of the millions of other Norton installations, it's immediately considered suspect and subject to further investigation. This SONAR 2 reputation-based technology plus standard signature-based detection gives the product supercharged malware detection. Or so Symantec says.

I initially planned to test the Norton beta against just a few of my malware-infested test systems, but it was so successful that I wound up completing a full anti-malware test. Norton's performance was absolutely stellar. It scored 8.0 of 10 points for malware removal, beating previous top scorer Panda Internet Security 2010. It also set a new record on the malware blocking test: 9.6 points, trumping Prevx 3.0, the previous champion and our Editors' Choice for standalone anti-malware.

At 6.8 of 10 points, Norton 2010 tied with Webroot AntiVirus with AntiSpyware 6.1 for the best score in removing commercial keyloggers. The only main scoring area where it didn't take the top spot was blocking commercial keyloggers. At 7.3 points, it was well above average, but it didn't approach the 9.0 score from Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 6.

This is an extremely impressive performance. It clearly shows that Symantec wasn't just blowing smoke with claims of the software's advanced malware detection technology.

Compare Norton Internet Security 2010 beta to similar security suites.

Easy on Resources

A shortened round of performance testing suggests that the beta remains light on resource usage—mostly. The browsing test took no longer than the baseline. The file moving and copying test took 2 percent longer, and the zipping and unzipping test took 4 percent longer. Norton did add 35 percent to the time required for the automated installation and uninstallation test, about the same as Norton 360 Version 3.0.

The one unpleasant surprise came from my boot-time test: The beta added 31 percent to the boot time. That's significantly more than Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security 2009, and they were scored under a slightly stricter test. Naturally I'll run this test again on the final released version of the suite. This is, after all only the beta—I hope there's still some optimization to be done for the final version.

And The Rest

Besides antispam, Norton's other weak link has been parental controls. Norton 360 Version 3.0 offered to install OnlineFamily.Norton (then in beta) rather than the standard parental controls. The current suite beta puts the impressive OnlineFamily.Norton right on the main screen. Symantec assures me that even when OnlineFamily.Norton switches from free to a subscription-based model, users of the Norton suites will get a free license.

I didn't try to test every element of the beta. I'm assuming, for now, that the firewall is still outstanding, that the phishing protection still beats that of the competition, and that Identity Safe still manages your passwords and personal information. Of course, I'll retest all those areas when the final version of the product is released this fall.

As it is, however, the beta version of Norton Internet Security 2010 is very impressive. It brings the previously weak antispam and parental control elements in line with everything else. It offers more information to users who want it and hides more from those who don't. And it turned in record-breaking scores in my anti-malware tests. I can hardly wait to put the final released product through its paces.

source : pcmag