Symantec Norton Internet Security 2010
There is no doubt in the fact that the Norton Internet Security is one of the big and very well known names in the online protection. Last year Symantec had set out to make the suite one of the most lightweight suites in the market, and of course, it did a very commendable job; and this year, the focus is back on the features. While the 2009 version was designed to deliver reduced footprint on system performance along with a faster installation, this year’s model is more about improvising the user experience and also raising the overall protection. This dramatic improvement in Norton’s Internet Suite over the last couple of years is a clear proof that Symantec is all ears for the feedbacks and complaints of users.
The 2010 Internet Suite from Symantec has maintained the good’s of its predecessor and has employed a new behavioural detection engine called as Quorum, showing that Symantec can juggle performance and protection. This suite has been recognised for what it has under system than what you can actually visualise, boasting reputation based protection as an additional layer. The suite comes with three licenses.
What is new?
Have a quick peek through the Symantec Norton Internet Security 2010; you would find that it is not much different from its earlier manifestations. The interface and the features set are very similar and it seems as though the changes are very minor. But have a closer look at what is under the hood, you will find a latest status based protection technology that Symantec claims to possess a better resistance against the quick developing threats than that of the conventional signature-based and behaviour based detection.
The protection list of the Norton Internet Security Suite 2010 includes most from the previous versions and they are, Torjans, viruses, spyware, rootkits and malware of all types. It also includes a firewall, email protection, web protection and intrusion protection. By integrating with your web surfer and search engines, it straight away warns you from visiting the malicious websites. The most advantageous part about the suite is that, despite having a hefty set of features, it does not gallop a chunk of the RAM or any of the system resources for that matter. It is unlikely that you would even notice that it is at work; this is certainly a very welcome change when compared to the suite that Norton had several version ago, that completely bogged down your system.
The Quorum Reputation based Technology:
Traditionally, the security suites detect the threats by either searching for the distinct code patters, signatures that identify the malware or even by probing the performance of the software kit. Symantec claims that these solutions will not be able to keep up with the enormous amounts of latest malware that is released each year. A research shows that there are over 200 million attacks on PCs each month, many of them being not seen before ones and the ones that may slip by the signature based security software. We can imagine you all nodding your head and this is the reason why the company has introduces a new reputation based technology called as Quorum. This is designed to detect the malware threats that evolve very quickly that may be constructed to last only for a day as the malware writers may be aware of the fact that these signatures can be unconfined to sense the threats in just 24 hours. It is these kinds of threats that intend to do their spoil rapidly even before they are wedged that are the chief hazards of today.
The technology behind Quorum:
The Quorum generates a “Reputation” for every software that it comes across and this reputation is formed based on a range of factors that includes the download source, age, digital signature and prevalence. For instance, a new file that is downloaded from a not well known site, used by very little people will be considered as a suspect by the Quorum, even though it is not known as malware or even it does not exhibit any suspicious behaviour. A file that has been around for months is considered safer than the one that is brand new. A file download from somewhere well known is safer than one from a fly-by-night kind of a site. This reputation based technology is a direct counter to the modern trend of threats that constantly mutate in order to avoid the signature based detection. As a consequence, the malware writer’s one of the greatest weapons, that is, the ability to rapidly turn out the new malware, makes it possible that the fresh malware will be considered to be mistrustful by Quorum.
Symantec global product reach:
By now you must be wondering where Quorum gets its data from; Quorum relies heavily on the data that the company has been catching and maintaining for years from zillions of consumers who make use of the products and register in to the Norton community, sending info anonymously about the programs running in their respective systems. This service is known as the Symantec global product reach and Norton shares this information with its users. Thus, Quorum makes use of this information to calculate the reputation score for its applications. But Symantec stresses on the fact that it has not abandoned the other ways of detecting malware. For the query if the Quorum reputation based system does a better job than the traditional means of detecting malware, we can get the result only when the labs come their grades.
The Norton Internet Security Suite 2010 is not the first product to employ reputation based technology by the anti-malware vendors. The Cloudmark Desktop has been using it for years; however, the Cloudmark is a far smaller company than the Symantec, which has a smaller user base and not as comprehensive as a security suite.
User Interface:
Fast Installation:
Getting a security software installed on an infested PC is really agonizing. We had spent days tackling various issues with the F-Secure Internet Security 2010 and BitDefender Total Security 2010. However, the Trend Micro Internet Security Pro version 3 had fewer issues. One of the very first things that we noticed about the suite is that, how quickly the new suite got installed, as the suite was up and running in just five minutes. The one click install had the suite updated and running on most of the systems. In a couple of cases, the suite ran a preinstall scan and had completed the installation just after the reboot. One malware that was proxy-based sample bollixed few of the installers; nevertheless Norton along with detecting it also offered disabling the same. Just when a LiveUpdate failed in one of the systems, there was a fix recommended automatically by the help system. The most impressive part was that, when we had not responded right away, the LiveUpdate offered technical help via live chat. The interface had the standard controls below, in the left hand side and the details in the central pane.
Familiar Interface:
As we had mentioned earlier the Norton 2010 Internet security suite is very similar to the 2009 version, hence, there will be very little to learn about the suite for those who have already used the suite. Users of the Symantec Norton IS 2009 Suite 2009 will feel at ease since the essential interface and all other traits are pretty much identical with the existing version. The main screen has been divided into three main sections of Computer, Network and Web. At a glance the suite gives you information on the state of your security and notes if it requires any kind of action to be taken and it also allows you the turn on and off the features. And as in the case of its predecessor, you will find monitors towards the left of the screen showing the current usage of your CPU along with the amount of usage by Norton’s security suite. Actually, this info isn’t really necessary, but it is simply to nail the point that Norton is not the thing of the past anymore. If you are just looking for a glimpse of your state of security, just the main screen will do the job for you; but if you are kind of person who would like to dig deep, you will find that there are ample links that will quench your thirst for additional information. However, the general layout is still a little confusing, with too many links and sub-panes.
Yet another link on the main menu gives you access to some detailed information from the Suite’s System Insight Features. In this display, you will be able to obtain information on any of the events related to the security of your PC, such as virus scans, their results and also about the latest software that you had installed. With the help of this information, you will be able to track down the PC problems on your own. This means, if you notice that there is some kind of unusual behaviour, you will be able to know if the issue rose after you had installed a particular piece of software.
The Features in Main menu:
A very handy feature that can be accessed for the main menu is the Network Security Map. This link will give you the list of all the devices that are attached to your network and it also includes information such as IP addresses, MAC addresses, if they are online and lots more. This feature is especially handy if office environments. You are also allowed to scrutinize the idle-time tasks’ chart and launch one of them manually. The Vulnerability Protection Link is less than a useful link as it just lists down the programs that Norton has found to have vulnerabilities, which is not necessarily the ones you have in your PC. The list is generic and just lists all software against which the Norton presents guard. You would never ever want to ensure it. It feels like a bit of marketing thrown into the middle of the program.
The File Insight Data is very handy, especially when it blocks a download you thought was safe. Speaking of downloads, the Download Insight begins to analyze files, the moment the download begins and immediately stops the download if the file is a bad one. The Site Safety Monitor warns you when you attempt to visit a site that is known to host the dangerous files.
Features:
The other major changes:
The Symantec Norton’s biggest change to the Internet Suite 2010, so far has been the Quorum’s reputation based strategy, but you must know that there are a range of other changes as well. One of which Symantec prefers calling “Autopsy,” something which additional info on threats in your PC and better than the previous versions. The Anti-Spam element of the suite features a latest engine from the Brightmail enterprise anti-spam vendor, which the company claims to be 20% more effective than the previous anti-span protection of the suite. The Norton Safe Web is also a new feature to the Internet Security Suite, but the feature was previously introduced in the Norton 360 Version 3.0. This application works with search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo and displays if any of the sites that are listed in the search results are potentially dangerous or not trustworthy. In addition to these, the 2010 suite also offers you a free subscription to the OnlineFamily. Norton, which is a web based service that allows the parents to control what their kids do on the web.
Spam Filtering:
For years, spam filtering had been one of the weakest points of Norton. This time around, Symantec has infused the Brightmail enterprise level spam protection and the resulting spam protection shows a considerable amount of improvement. The suite filters all the POP3 e-mail for spam and viruses and integrates it with the Outlook and Outlook express. When we tested the suites anti-spam capabilities with over 5000 real world emails, Norton doesn’t really block any genuine personal messages or even genuine bulk messages, allowing just about 12% of the irrefutable spam to gain entry to the inbox. Downloading email with the filter on will consume very little extra time, which will mostly go unnoticeable. The BitDefender did an average job by showing no false positives, but missed about 13.1 percent of the spam. The community based stand-alone spam filters did a great job; the CloudMark Desktop, iHateSpam 5.0 and the SPAMFighter Standard, all managed to let free all the good mails and just allowed about 2 or 3% of unavoidable spam to creep in the inbox.
Parental Controls:
As in the case of the spam filter, parental controls have also been a very weak point of the Norton Internet Security. We accept the fact that not everybody is going to need it, but those who want to use the parental controls, surely deserve something better than the pathetic, outdated too that was seen in the Norton Internet Security 2009. In the latest suite, you have been provided with the OnlineFamily.Norton for free as its parental control. Fortunately, it has got all the expected features and more. Since the tool is web-based, it can work on all of your computers and you will be able to manage it from any internet equipped system. We liked the sites emphasis on working with kids, rather than controlling them.
Malware:
When it comes to detecting all types of malware ranging from the mouldy old viruses to the never seen before polymorphs, Norton uses a blend of reputation-based technology of Quorum, SONAR2’s behaviour-based detection and standard signatures. All these features do a great job together: if the quorum reports a good reputation, then SONAR2 seems to be more forgiving and if Quorum finds the file to be suspicious, then SONAR2 turns up the heat on it. Throughout the process of testing the combined effort seemed to show off. Symantec Norton starts protecting a clean system at the browser level. The site safety warns you away from the known malware hosting sites. In case the malware escapes that and you download it anyway, the Download Insight will catch it. The Auto Protect will pickup the other samples the moment the system accesses them. After all these, if a file starts acting in a suspicious way, SONAR will keep it from doing any harm. Norton proves to the current anti-malware champ by providing compound protection layers procuring a top score in both malware blocking and removal.
Anti-Phishing:
Norton is one of the best in the industry when it comes to anti-phishing. Only the BitDefender has managed to outperform it recently. The technology seems to be mostly same in the 2010 version as on the 2009 version, but Symantec has reported that the page analysis has been speeded up. The Anti-Phishing protection in most suites is less effective than the Internet Explorers Built-in tools. The toolbar that Norton installs in the IE and FireFox marks up the results at popular search sites with icons to show if the URL is safe, suspicious or even dangerous. By clicking on the icon, you can get more details and by clicking over the detail window takes you to a full page about the rated URL. The optional Norton Safe Search does an even better job by highlighting the search results in yellow or red and if appropriate, adding some explanatory texts. The suite checks the shopping sites to make sure that they protect your privacy and transactions; just click over the shopping cart icon to view these ratings. And for the shopping sites established by Norton Safe Search, the transaction protection ratings together with the privacy ratings are included in the search results itself.
Identity Safe Feature:
This feature safeguards your privacy and stores and manages all your Web Passwords. The feature is also capable of storing one or more “Identity Cards” and uses the data to fill in web forms for you. Naturally, you must protect the password and autofill information using an ultra-strong password. However, the Identity Safe does not have all the features of a standalone password manager. The LastPass 1.5 stores all of your encrypted data online which can be used in the forms of any PC. In this latest edition, you will be able to choose to create your own Identity Safe profile on a removable drive, so that you can take it with you. You are also offered the facility to export an existing file to a removable device and use it on another computer.
Network Map:
After a very simple setup installation and setting a password, you will have access to Norton’s network map to view all the computers on the network and remotely track the status of those with the installed Norton. The network map also reports on the security of your wired or wireless network and you will also be able to view all kinds of detail about recent history/status of other systems in the same network. Then again, with any of them encountering a problem, you might have to fix it personally and remember that there is no cushion like the ones provided by Trend Micro Suites or BitDefender.
Performance:
Efficiency:
When we first performed a test on our underpowered clean test system, the suite took about an hour, which is twice the average. The subsequent scan got that time to just eight minutes. The Norton Internet Security Suite 2010 speeds its scan time by skipping the files that have not been altered since the last signature update. Once the files get processed by Norton Insight, the scan is also capable of skipping any files that is identified as Norton Trusted.
Lags in tradition:
Unfortunately, in terms of traditional malware detection, Norton was way behind the Avira suite. Upon setting to scan the current month’s malware collection, it managed a 90% creditable detection rate, but way off Avira’s impressive 98%. The story seemed to be the same with Firewall too. The Firewall seemed to be totally tamper proof. It actively blocked all out attempts to kill processes, disabled services, the changed essential entries and lots more. Malware is certainly not going to switch off this kind of a firewall protection. The module had made some sensible decisions and deflected the attacks without demanding any user input. The suite did permit the attacking PC to at least confirm the existence of the test machine, which leaves it slightly at higher risk than the F-Secure which made the system totally undetectable.
Malware detection:
In a test conducted by a renowned lab, the Norton Security 2010 was able to catch about 99.4% of Malware from a collection of more than half a million samples with no false positives. In a test of behaviour based detection, the suite caught about 80% of the samples, which is a very good score considering no signature, heuristics or even the “in the cloud” features were used. The product was able to remove all the active malware components and was especially effective against the rootkits and it was able to do all these jobs in a pretty quick time span.
Very small footprint:
Surprisingly the addition of all the new features have not ruined Norton’s footprint. With the installation of the software, it just added two seconds to the boot time plus twelve seconds of the subsequent CPU activity. And a Vita footprint of just 613MB is not hard to swallow at all. The big antivirus labs seem to love the Norton’s technology. The browsing test also looked pretty impressive and seemed to take no longer for Norton to be installed, slowing the file Move/Copy test by a bare 5% lagging behind the K7 Version 10.0 TotalSecurity by 2% and the Panda IS 2010 by 3%. Similarly in the Zip/Unzip test operations, it added a 5% while adding an average 27% to the time taken for automatic install and uninstall of larger packages of windows installer.
Support:
There are links on top of the main window of the security suite that make leaving a feedback, accessing the Norton account online and even checking the help menu very easy to see and use. However, we feel that the help menu could have used a better layout. It is not clear if clicking on help link will open up the localised help or if hitting on the Get Support will be launching the one click support options. The tutorials are self explanatory, but there are no easy ways to get to the Norton knowledge base or even to the Norton forums. The telephone support is free, but it is easier discovering that on the Symantec’s web than via Norton.
Conclusion:
The three PC licence costs about £10 more than Avira’s and as witnessed the scanning engine of Norton 2010 doesn’t match up to its rivals. At the same time, Norton Internet Suite is loaded with authentic handy features, and between SafeWeb and Quorum, it looks to be a better mode of intercepting online threats, inclusive of the brand new ones even before they manage to creep into your PC. It offers everything you need from an Internet Security Suite, so you will find a fast and efficient anti-virus engine, a two way firewall to block the hackers and also a set of parental controls. It is a complete comprehensive package, but what you will not be finding are the PC Tune-up tools.
Its support could do with an overhaul focussed on accessibility and until the independent testers develop a new method for evaluating the behavioural detection engines. It is hard to determine how much safer does the Quorum truly makes your system. Nevertheless, the suite is certainly worth given a try for its impressive speed and emphasis on small footprint. Additionally, we like the transparency with its performance and data detection that prove to be great confidence building tools. Combined with its multicomputer licence the Norton Internet Security is a worthwhile security suite.
If you ask us if it is worth upgrading to the Norton Internet Security 2010 if you already own the 2009 version, our answer is yes. This is because; your system is certainly going to be safer with the Quorum and the other note worthy additions. Despite its innovative multi-layered security protection, the suite does not slow down your system. We strongly recommend the Norton Internet Security 2010 for system protection.
Check 2010 Anti-Virus Reviews, Norton Internet Security 2009 Review in our website.
Norton Internet Security 2010 – Technical Specification Details
| Lab | Symantec |
| Software name | Symantec Internet Security Suite 2010 |
| Suite type | Internet Security |
| License Type | Complete package |
| License validation period | One year |
| License quantity | Three users |
| System requirements | Microsoft Windows 7 Starter – RAM 256 MB – HD 300 MB, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate, Microsoft Windows Vista Starter, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium, Microsoft Windows Vista Business, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate, Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2, Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 and Microsoft Windows XP Media Center SP2 |
| Minimum Processor Type | 300 MHz or higher |
| Core protection | Blocks viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, worms, bots, and rootkits Defends against hackers with two-way firewall |
| Advanced Protection | Guards against Web attacks Stops threats unrecognized by traditional antivirus techniques Filters unwanted email Parental controls |
| Networking | Helps secure and monitor your home network Automatically secures your PC when connecting to public wireless networks |
| Identity Protection | Blocks phishing websites and authenticates trusted sites Secures, stores, and manages login and personal information Prevents hackers from eavesdropping and stealing information as you type Identifies unsafe Web sites in your search results |
| Backup and Restore | No |
| PC Tuneup | Clear insight into recent PC activities to help prevent slowdowns Optimizes application performance with one-click |
| Other Key features | Web, File, Email protection Proactive Defense Anti-Spam Network Monitor Anti-Phishing Anti-Banner |
| Support | Free email, chat, or phone support Automatically finds and fixes common PC problems |
Leave a Reply