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Installation 8.0
Ease of use 7.8
Usefulness 8.8
Value 8.5
Distributor: Symantec
Reviewer:
Andrew B

8.5


Norton Internet Security 2005

Once again Symantec provides one of the most thorough security packages that not only protects the user from viruses, hackers and privacy threats but also eliminates spam and now comes with a much needed Parental Control interface for parents.

Norton Internet Security 2005 is available as either a paid download from www.symantec.com or it can be purchased at any good computer store. The installation of Norton Internet Security 2005 was a breeze and simple auto-installed when the CD was detected by the computer. It should also be noted that the installation of NIS2005 takes around 5 minutes and once the installation has been completed, it will prompt the user to download the latest updates from the internet.

After the installation was completed, we were greeted to the extremely familiar Symantec interface that is neatly divided into four categories that includes Norton Internet Security, Norton AntiVirus, Norton AntiSpam with the inclusion of Norton Parental Control at the bottom of the interface. All these tabs allow the user to specify the level of protection that suits their need and by default, all the programs are set to a rather aggressive level that ensures the best possible protection.

Unfortunately all this protection comes at a price and even on our test machine (an Athlon 64, 1GB Ram and dual SATA Hard Drives) running Windows XP, the system considerably slowed down. Although I would recommend that the majority of users, especially novice ones keep the default settings of NIS2005, gamers and PC professionals should tweak the settings of the program in order to ensure that their system remains running at the best possible speeds with adequate protection.

The security aspect of NIS2005 targets a variety of different internet threats that ranges from harmful Java applets (such as viruses) to mischievous ActiveX programs (information retrievals) which is all performed by a powerful firewall that is the central core of this software package. The firewall offers a variety of different levels with the minimal level of security, blocking only the most common attacks, with the highest setting targeting just about all unathorised communication attempts to your computer.

Although NIS2005 is quite similar to its predecessors, it does offer a variety of new features to the suite that include the Outbreak Alert which informs users of potential deadly viruses that have just been discovered and also the Norton PopUp blocker that helps in removing those annoying popups that some websites are plagued with. As with all PopUp blockers, Norton PopUp blocker does suffer from stopping legitimate popups but unfortunately in this day and age, this has yet to mastered by any software company.

The Parental Control of NIS2005 allows the user to prevent their children from accessing a variety of different and unsuitable websites that I'm sure all parents will breathe a sigh of relief with this feature. This Parental Control feature also accesses an online database that contains thousands of online websites to assist in the prevention of access to unauthorised sites. Although rather simplistic, it does do a rather good job at preventing unauthorised access to certain sites. Probably the most welcomed features of NIS2005 is the inclusion of Norton AntiSpam that targets junk e-mails by using a smart filtering engine that also allows for user input, so you can be rather safe in ensuring that you are only receiving e-mails from authorised people.

The Norton AntiVirus aspect of NIS2005 is similar to the previous version but this time, Norton AntiVirus also targets spyware which is probably one of the most annoying aspects of surfing the internet because it targets the user with specific advertising and also sends back personal information to spyware databases. The auto update feature of NIS2005 also ensures that the user is protected from the latest known viruses and spyware and match that with a state of the art firewall and Norton Internet Security 2005 is easily one of the most comprehensive security software packages around.

As mentioned earlier in this review, Norton Internet Security 2005 does come at a high price that even affect high-end machines by slowing the system down because of the high level of protection that this security suite offers. Fortunately, a lot of this slowdown can be avoided by configuring the program and turning off certain defaults. Norton Internet Security 2005 is an extremely thorough security program that I would recommend to all high-end computer users with state-of-the-art systems.






 
 



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