Norton Internet Security 2010 is a not very pleasant surprise for us when we tested the software for this review. We tested in the past the old versions of Norton IS 2009 and we found this product just a little bit improved. Symantec decided to change the policies and they try to hear the clients about the old versions of Norton Internet Security (called Norton 360 too).
This year, Symantec changes the detection engine and replaced the old version of detection module with Quorum, a better heuristic detection engine which is improved comparing with Norton 360 engine. Behavioral detection was introduced first time in Norton Internet Security 2009 with Norton Insight module.
The latest version of Norton Internet Security can be downloaded for free from Symantec site in trial version or can be downloaded for free directly from this page. The trial version on NIS 2010 is available 30 day for free. After trial period you must purchase your full version of Norton Internet Security from Symantec website.
This year the old engine is replaced with Quorum. This improvement makes from Norton Internet Security 2010 a better competitor in our top ten best ranking Internet Security. Symantec said that new engine is much faster and act immediately when a threat or infection is detected. Symantec laboratories decided to dissociate in four sections the old Norton Insight module.
The results are called:
- Download Insight – used to verify the files from active download;
- System Insight – used to verify system freezing and another virtual problems;
- File Insight – module which verify potential problems or already infected files;
- Threat Insight – this section is used to identify with precision which is the origin of threat because these dangerous files can be easily suffer mutations and can transform to other dangerous forms.
Another new feature of Norton Internet Security 2010 is the antispam module. This was improved in comparison with previous version. Symantec decides to include in Norton IS 2010 a new parental control engine. This is a compilation from the old Online Family and Safe Web, which protects you against the web phishing too.
Installation of Norton Internet Security 2010 is not very difficult for a medium computer user. The installation speed is very fast if you compare this installation process with old versions. You may allow sending anonymous data to Norton’s cloud, a system used to collect data about web threats. If you want to uninstall Norton Internet Security 2010 you must left undeleted few computer registry which cannot be removed automatically by unistaller.
The interface of Norton Internet Security is designed to be easy to use and this purpose was touched. The files are categorized in good files and bad files and marked with green and red. You can see in NIS 2010 interface a CPU figuration which shows you the percent from processor used for scanning activities.
You can see in the menu interface which are the latest threats detected. You can setup the scheduler to scan the hard disk at a scheduled time.
Under the computer heading in the main window is where you can force a virus definition update.
We tested Norton Internet Security and we found that this software speed was low comparing with top ranking Internet Security Suites. This version of NIS was projected to cover all potential security problems but Symantec don’t integrate very well these modules.
This is the reason because Norton Internet Security is still slow and it blocks frequent in the tests. In comparison with KIS 2010 and BitDefender Internet Security 2010, this software looks very promising but is still a lot of work to make from Norton Internet Security a real competitor.
