Norton Internet Security 2011

Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2011 is a feature-packed umbrella of protection for your PC. In addition to antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing, and a firewall, Norton Internet Security Suite 2011 also provides file reputation analysis (including the Web address of any downloaded files), spam filtering, identity theft protection, and parental controls. Pulse updates push new malware signature detections every 5 to 15 minutes - ensuring the updates are not only as timely as possible, but also as small and unobtrusive as possible.

Norton Internet Security 2011 features multiple sensors that monitor the activity levels of various components to make smarter decisions about what actions NIS 2011 should take - and when. For example, gamers will appreciate sensors that detect full screen mode in conjunction with gaming - suppressing non-essential alerts while still offering full protection in the background. Mobile users won't have to worry about laptop batteries draining because they forgot to disable a scheduled scan: NIS 2011 detects when a battery-powered laptop is idle and delays the scan accordingly.

Norton Insight makes note of trustworthy applications found on the drive(s) and adds those applications to a whitelist so they aren't unnecessarily scanned in the future. This type of integrity checking got its start with behavior-based scanners and is well suited for streamlining the performance of signature-based scanners as well. The first time you scan it may take an hour or more while it checks out all the files, but subsequent scans should finish in well under that - in our tests, the longest scan time after the initial scan was a short ten minutes.

Clean on reboot marks stubborn infectors and cleans them the next time the system is booted up - saving much unnecessary aggravation for users.

In addition to the standard signature detection, Norton Internet Security 2011 includes SONAR 3, behavioral rules-based protection resulting from their 2005 acquisition of WholeSecurity. An added perk, Norton System Insight also helps optimize your PC's performance by allowing you to track and monitor all of your PCs activities — including downloads, threats detected, scans performed, installations, CPU and memory usage.

The Norton Internet Security 2011 firewall provides inbound and outbound monitoring plus controls to beef up the security of your wireless router. Other features include spam and phishing filters, parental controls, and a privacy guard to protect personal details and passwords used online. The phishing filter included with NIS 2011 is considerably more capable than the phishing filters typically included with Internet security suites.

Norton Internet Security 2011 runs on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Pro and Home, and Windows XP Media Center. At approximately $70 USD retail, Norton Internet Security 2011 is a competitively priced, fully capable Internet security suite that distinguishes itself by being lighter and faster than most standalone antivirus scanners. The license is good for use on up to three home computers and includes free tech support for the first year. Don't let past reputation fool you. If you haven't tried Symantec's antivirus products in the past couple of years, now is a good time to give them a fresh try.