|
Post by The Guy on Nov 28, 2008 13:19:03 GMT
hmm..?
- Lucas
|
|
|
Post by midgitgirl on Nov 28, 2008 13:36:30 GMT
i have norton 360 wooo
|
|
|
Post by The Guy on Nov 30, 2008 14:46:31 GMT
Two years ago, when Symantec first presented us with their idea to create a complete security and performance solution, the company said it wanted to start from scratch, to build the thing right; we're happy to say that Symantec Norton 360 delivers on that early promise. That's not to say Norton 360 is perfect, nor is it designed for everyone. There are features in the all-in-one suite that we wish had been added (such as wireless security tools), but overall Norton 360 provides a much better user experience and security protection than either Windows Live OneCare or McAfee Total Protection. In fact, Norton 360 is better than Norton Internet Security 2007 in some respects, namely that it's lighter on system resources, the tools are better integrated, and it presents a much better design model than the current Norton product line. But more advanced users should stay with the Internet security suites for now.
Setup Our setup of the final shipping version was surprisingly fast and easy. Norton 360 requires 300MB of hard drive space, considerably less than Windows Live OneCare, but about double that of McAfee Total Protection. Like the others, Norton 360 requires 256MB of RAM. Like Windows Live OneCare, Norton 360 works on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Only McAfee works on Windows 2000 through Vista. Like the other super suites, the price includes installation on up to three different PCs (for example, two desktops and a laptop).
The new Norton 360 interface is clean and intuitive.
We really like the Norton 360 interface; it's unlike the interface used on the rest of the Norton 2007 product line. The UI for Norton 360 is clean, intuitive, and no-nonsense. A toolbar across the top allows quick access to scans, configuration for tasks, access to your Norton online account, in-program Help, and technical support. Below that, there's a line that displays any current system alerts, such as configuring your backup and recovery options. The main section includes modules for PC Security, Transaction Security, Backup and Recovery, and PC Tuneup. Each of these modules displays a color-coded status and a brief explanation, with an option for more details.
Within each module is a clean list of various diagnostics and tools and their status. You can't, however, tweak your firewall settings here, or exclude a second drive from your virus and spyware scan; for that you need to use the main screen's toolbar for Tasks and Settings. It's a minor inconvenience; casual users will appreciate the clean reporting style, but advanced users (for whom the product was not intended) will want to tweak right away and become frustrated at the extra step. Also within each module are access to Help and technical support, along with selected extra steps that include access to glossaries and tutorials on the Symantec Web site. Gone are the blatant links to Symantec shopping that encourage you to purchase additional products, which we've seen in the past. We also like the fact that Norton 360 appears on the taskbar as an indiscrete icon, not the loud and flamboyant, yellow pill design used in Norton Internet Security 2007.
Should you want to remove Norton 360, we didn't find an uninstall icon and had to use the Add or Remove Programs tool within the Windows Control Panel. Although there is a separate listing for Symantec's LiveUpdate program, we were able to remove both programs by uninstalling Norton 360 alone. Upon reboot we found no registry entries and no system folders for Symantec or Norton 360.
Features Rather than simply bundle all of the features from Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security, Norton SystemWorks, and Norton Confidential, Symantec went back to the drawing board and designed Norton 360 from the ground up. The result is a much more fluid experience. Even Symantec LiveUpdate, which sometimes feels like a clunky add-on to the other Norton products, is better integrated within Norton 360. Our initial update of the product was quick, with both LiveUpdate and Norton 360 downloading and installing within seconds.
Symantec pulled only the tools deemed most beneficial to the general user from all its product lines. Norton 360 includes antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing, antirootkit protection, a firewall, Symantec's new SONAR (Symantec Online Network for Advance Response) behavioral monitoring software, and a vulnerability assessment tool to see what Windows updates your computer might be missing. An add-on pack of online tools includes Parental Control, Antispam, and other optional features such as blocking private data from leaking onto the Internet.
Norton 360 also includes tools to defragment your hard drive and clean up temporary files and other clutter than could slow your PC down. These tools are fine, but are nowhere near as complete as Symantec's own Norton SystemWorks. Norton 360 does include a backup and recovery tool, and provides up to 2GB of free online storage. Online storage is great if your home or office was somehow destroyed and you need access to your backup files from a remote location (think of Hurricane Katrina). For additional fees, you can increase your online storage volumes, up to 25GB at $69.99 per year. Microsoft Windows Live OneCare and McAfee do not offer online storage. All three products allow you to back up onto your hard drive, CD, DVD, or USB drive.
What's missing within Norton 360 are a few surprises. There are no tools specifically targeted for wireless home networks, a rapidly emerging area. Aside from help setting up such networks, we'd also like to see tools that help encrypt the signals with WEP, WPA, or WPA2, or at least monitor whether someone uninvited joins your home wireless network. Of the three super suites, only McAfee Total Protection includes wireless security.
For Internet privacy, though Norton 360 will authenticate a site via Symantec's own servers, it won't store your passwords or credit cards in an encrypted vault unless you download the optional add-on pack. Of the three super suites, only McAfee Total Protection provides an ID vault with the program itself. Total Protection also provides a data file shredder, a must if you have personal files that you don't want hanging around your hard drive after the fact.
We also found that Norton 360 is optimized for Internet Explorer only, and not Firefox and Opera browsers. It could be said that Symantec realizes that Internet Explorer users need more protection, but it would be nice to use the antiphishing feature in Norton 360 on Firefox or Opera. Of the three super suites, only McAfee supports Firefox; none support Opera.
Performance If you've ever used a Symantec Norton product and then removed it because it was too heavy on your system resources, you'll be delighted to learn that Norton 360 feels light compared to the legacy of the past. We counted only three processes running on our task manager, compared with several from McAfee and Microsoft. This is a huge improvement over previous editions of Norton Internet Security, which tended to be very large.
Norton 360 uses the Norton Antivirus 2007 engine, an application that improves on last year's pheonix999 Labs' performance test scores, although Norton turns in a mixed bag of results overall. On our iTunes test, Norton lost ground compared with last year, taking 208 seconds as opposed to 184 seconds last year. On our Sorensen Squeeze test, Norton improved, taking 317 seconds compared to 326 seconds last year. Overall, Norton showed the most improvement with individual file scans; it took only 117 seconds versus 320 seconds last year. But in terms of boot speed, Norton lost ground by taking 4 seconds longer, 66 seconds as opposed to last year's 62 seconds. Visit pheonix999 Labs to find out how we test antivirus software.
To determine how well a product will protect your PC, we refer to test results from two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, Norton AntiVirus 2006 earned an Advanced + rating (the highest), catching 98 percent of all malware tested, and from Checkvir.com, Norton AntiVirus 2006 was one of eight products to earn its Standard rating (also the highest).
For firewall tests, we used Nmap on a closed system with a router connection; however, we were unable to scan the Norton Internet Security 2007 PC. All other vendors tested produced at least some results in the various tests performed. Norton hides or "stealths" a PC from criminal hackers, which is good, though we're suspicious of what we can't see.
Support Within Norton 360 there's in-program Help and then there's Support. Help consists of in-program FAQs, which are very detailed for Symantec. Either search a term or scroll through the index to find the topics you need. Support is Symantec's technical support for Norton 360. In the final release version, we were surprised at how little is offered. The knowledge base is cool, first diagnosing your version of Norton 360 for any known problems. If you still want help, the program asks you what help you need and provides a a menu of FAQs. There's also an envelop icon that leads you to e-mail and chat support (which are free) or telephone (which is paid; the telephone support service was not yet available at the time of this review). The user guide is a mere 30 pages and only includes the bare minimum of details; use the in-program Help instead. There is no tutorial offered.
Conclusion Norton 360 is a good example of the "out of the box" thinking needed by traditional security vendors today. By starting from scratch and building an entirely new security product, Symantec has made long overdue improvements to its existing product line. Hopefully next year's release of Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security suite will benefit as well. But Norton 360 is not for everyone. Designed for home and student users, advanced users will want more online-transaction security tools and wireless protection. That said, for home and student use, we think Norton 360 represents the best value of ease, tools, and performance, and we recommend it over McAfee Total Protection or Microsoft Windows Live OneCare.
- Lucas
|
|
|
Post by The Guy on Nov 30, 2008 14:48:25 GMT
The biggest news with AVG Anti-Virus 8 is that it includes Linkscanner, a technology that actively blocks malicious content from Web sites that may have been hijacked or otherwise compromised. Also, antivirus, antispyware, and antirootkit preventions have been combined into one product. The new drive-by download protection combined with AVG's award winning effectiveness in blocking and removing antivirus and antispyware code is tempered only by its somewhat slow performance in pheonix Labs benchmark tests. While individual applications loaded fast, scan and boot times trended toward the slow end.
Installation We were able to download and install AVG Anti-Virus 8 on a Dell XPS machine running Windows XP SP2 with no difficulty and without rebooting. If you are upgrading from a previous version of AVG, you must uninstall that version first before installing version 8.0. AVG provides a fully functional 30-day trial. While installing, AVG asks one critical question: do you want to install the security toolbar? Since it's hard to say whether you want that, we recommend saying no. Although AVG recommends installation, we found that it installs a prominent search box with Yahoo as the default search engine, and little else. Even without the toolbar, we were still able to use the Linkscanner technology.
After installation, AVG walks you through seven steps:
1. Screen one merely describes the wizard 2. Screen two asks how often AVG should update itself 3. Screen three asks if you want to report compromised Web sites to AVG 4. Screen four asks if you want to use the Yahoo search as your Internet browser default (this is the second time you asked to adopt the Yahoo search engine; if you installed the security toolbar, you'll already have Yahoo on your browser via the toolbar) 5. Screens five and six lets you to download updates 6. The seventh step tells you that the seven-step process you've completed is just the first part.
We do not like the interface in AVG Anti-Virus 8. Although it is an improvement over the previous design, the right windowpane is too crowded with large icons. There are nine icons in all. Below each is a statement telling you if that feature is active. Clicking an icon will run either access additional information about that tool or run that specific scan.
The left windowpane includes only three options, Overview (the icon view in the right hand window), Computer Scanner, and Update Now. Computer Scanner has but one option, scan all. Update Now is equally opaque, mysteriously searching and downing something onto your PC.
A toolbar above these windows contains the advanced feature options.
Should you wish to remove AVG Anti-Virus 8, there is a removal option under All Programs. After a reboot, we found a handful of registry entries related to the free trial, and some empty directories in our system directory.
Features The biggest addition to AVG Anti-Virus 8 is the inclusion of the Linkscanner technology, but the integration is less than optimal. Linkscanner, formerly from Exploit Prevention Labs, is known for its ability to block malicious content from Web sites.
For threat testing, we directed our browser to a site known to host malicious content. AVG Anti-Virus 8 did flag the site, however, our request for additional information about the threat produced a generic AVG virus encyclopedia page. With the standalone Linkscanner Pro package, it would tell us which exploit it found and it would produce a rich log archive so you can see which sites it said had malicious software. We couldn't find any of that within AVG Anti-virus 8.
We also tested the Linkscanner integration within AVG Anti-Virus 8 by visiting five current phishing Web sites listed on Phish Track. AVG reported none to be suspicious, although the default antiphishing protection in Firefox 2.0 did flag several sites.
Performance AVG Anti-Virus 8 scored well in pheonix Labs' performance tests and in third-party, independent antivirus testing using live viruses, although not always the top position. On the pheonix iTunes test, AVG Anti-Virus 8 came in just 4 seconds above the test system at 272 seconds. On the pheonix Microsoft Office test, AVG Anti-Virus 8 finished in 1,413 seconds. In a test scanning a single folder with compressed and media files, AVG Anti-Virus 8 completed it in 550 seconds. And in boot speed, AVG Anti-Virus 8 came in toward the slower end, with a fast 37.95 seconds. Click here to find out more about how we test Antivirus software.
In terms of protecting your PC, we refer readers to two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, gave AVG Anti-Virus 7.5 an Advanced rating (highest) for On Demand protection and Advanced Plus (highest) for heuristic protection, blocking 97 percent of the malicious code used in the test. Our second source of independent antivirus testing, CheckVir.com, ranked AVG Anti-Virus 7.5--the previous version--as one of five products to earn their Standard rating (highest) for identifying malicious software (the products were not tested for removal).
Support AVG Technologies provides AVG Anti-Virus 8 customers with e-mail technical support within the program. Online, there are searchable FAQs with a handful of useful questions and answers, and there is a downloadable 124-page PDF users' manual that, unfortunately, lacks a comprehensive index. AVG doesn't provide telephone technical support , nor is there a free online user's forum for posting questions.
Conclusion AVG Anti-Virus 8 is solid at finding and removing viruses and spyware as well as blocking Web threats. As for antiphishing, the product could be better at detecting newly active phishing sites. Also, we look for further improvements in performance, as well as more technical support options in future releases.
- Lucas
|
|
|
Post by The Guy on Nov 30, 2008 14:56:39 GMT
At first glance, McAfee Internet Security 2008 appears not much different from last year's offering. But with a decisive change in the competitive landscape (i.e. Symantec's slip and stumble), McAfee's suite comes out looking much better this year. Whereas McAfee VirusScan 2008 looks and feels like warmed-over last year's product, the additional elements within the Internet suite and low price makes McAfee Internet Security 2008 a serious competitor. Unlike Norton, McAfee offers, in addition to antivirus, antiphishing, antispyware, and a personal firewall, a backup-and-restore feature (Norton still makes you buy a separate product for backups). We still have issues with McAfee's poor technical support, and we wish the security protection offered tested higher in third-party test results. But for a full protection suite, McAfee Internet Security 2008 is very good.
Setup McAfee Internet Security 2008 offers three-user licenses for $49.95, with additional licenses for a mere $10 each. By comparison, Norton Internet Security 2008 offers its three-user license for $59.95. McAfee VirusScan 2008 runs on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, while Norton Internet Security only runs on Windows XP and Vista. McAfee also includes its new mobile security product with each Internet Security purchase, but at the time of this review, that product was still unavailable.
McAfee continues to use a bootstrap method of downloading code to your machine, and then installing it module by module. This year the process was much faster in our informal tests. There's the security center, which you download first, then, depending on the product you purchased, the product itself is downloaded from McAfee to your computer. McAfee claims it can offer the latest build; the alternative is to install the product, then immediately update.
Should you want to remove McAfee Internet Security, there is no uninstall option for McAfee in the Windows>All Programs listing. Instead, you'll need to use the Windows Control Panel>Add/Remove Software option. Unlike last year--when McAfee left a mess--after our reboot, we were pleased to find no evidence left on our machine. In comparison, Norton Internet Security 2008 leaves behind registry files and some system files.
Interface Although it hasn't changed from last year, McAfee's interface is more intuitive and better designed than Norton's. The McAfee Protection Center still offers a left-hand navigation for all tools, with a right-hand window pane for system status. Unlike Norton, which uses individual tabs for products such as Norton AntiVirus, McAfee's has its products fully integrated into its Security Center. We like this better. There are two tables of contents; one lists basic features, while a second lists more advanced tools.
The McAfee Security Center provides one of the better examples of integrated security suite user interfaces on the market today.
We do like that McAfee has blended all of its tools--security, utility, and networking--together so that the overall product feels integrated and whole. Norton still feels like a collection of standalone applications repackaged. This year McAfee appears to have rewritten some of its code; it doesn't feel as heavy and clunky as last year's edition. That said, in our performance testing, McAfee's antivirus protection remains in the middle of this year's pack of products in terms of overall performance.
Features McAfee calls its Internet security suite its 10-in-1 product, but we find there's much more offered. Like other security suites, McAfee Internet Security includes all the features within its McAfee VirusScan Plus, then adds additional protection for the Internet suite. Like McAfee VirusScan Plus, McAfee Internet Security 2008 includes McAfee SiteAdvisor, antiphishing protection.
New is the ability for McAfee to scan links within IM messages and rate them. We found that this feature works with latest versions of AOL IM and Yahoo Messenger, two of the most popular IMs today; Norton offers similar protection but only for older builds of Yahoo and AOL.
Also new is a feature McAfee calls "State Aware," in which movies, slide shows, and even games play uninterrupted by security alerts or scans whenever you're in full-screen mode. It's a feature we've seen in other antivirus products this year; Norton doesn't offer this.
Enhanced over last year is the integration of antivirus, antispyware, firewall, and antiphishing. The heuristics, or System Guards, have also been improved.
Missing are more frequent updates of signature files and programs. Kaspersky updates hourly, while McAfee promises only daily updates (although it might, in an emergency, deliver more frequently).
Performance For antivirus protection, McAfee Internet Security 2008 stays in the middle of the pack, sometimes trending toward the upper end of the middle. On our iTunes test, McAfee placed solidly in the middle of the pack at 271 seconds. In our Microsoft Office test, McAfee trended toward the high end, taking home the second-longest score at 1,519 seconds. In a test scanning a single folder with compressed and media files, McAfee scored 446 seconds, again, toward the high end of our middle group. And in terms of boot speed, McAfee was third-longest at 38 seconds. To find out how we test antivirus software, see Pheonix Labs' How we test: Antivirus software page.
In terms of whether McAfee Internet Security 2008 will protect your PC, we cite results from two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, for on-demand scans McAfee earned an Advanced (second-highest) rating, catching 93 percent of all malware tested and tying with Norton AntiVirus 2007. For the Retrospective/Proactive test, McAfee also earned an Advanced (second-highest) rating (PDF). From CheckVir.com, McAfee VirusScan Enterprise was earned an Advanced rating, which includes both search and antivirus removal.
For antispyware protection, McAfee remains solidly in the middle of the pack in our latest Pheonix antispyware tests. Pheonix labs conducts three separate tests using spyware found to be bundled within free applications rejected by Pheonix Download.com (as a policy, Download.com does not host any applications containing known spyware). In the first test, active detection, McAfee discovered about 60 percent of the spyware; in the second, on demand test, McAfee detected about 55 percent of the spyware; and in the final, removal test, McAfee removed about 60 percent of the spyware placed on our infected machine.
Support McAfee has improved its technical support over last year but still doesn't offer context-sensitive help like Kaspersky or Trend Micro, meaning you will have to search for specific help. New this year is a free McAfee Virtual Technician an optional plug-in which, when downloaded, will diagnose the state of your McAfee product and computer health and then make recommendations how to fix it--for free. It seems unnecessary, but then again you can't argue with the price. Symantec offers a Norton equivalent, but it'll cost you $69.95 per use.
McAfee Virtual Technician is the product's first line of defense. If it can't help, then you'll be directed toward the online FAQ, and, finally, chat or e-mail. If you try to jump ahead to chat or e-mail, you'll be directed back to the Virtual Technician first. It's as though McAfee doesn't want you to contact the company directly. Missing is telephone support. Or, rather, telephone support is listed under Fee-Based Support, with a variety of per-minute or per-incident plans starting at $2.95 a minute or $39 per incident, and user support forums are listed as "Community" off the main McAfee page, not from the tech support area where it is expected. There is no tutorial or online manual with McAfee. By comparison, Kaspersky offers a complete 321-page manual, a robust user forum, and toll-free telephone support.
Conclusion It's not perfect, but in a strictly Norton vs. McAfee universe, McAfee Internet Security 2008 is a much better deal than Norton Internet Security 2008. Not only does McAfee offer more security features than Norton, McAfee integrates them with an intuitive user interface, one that allows you to understand the specific feature as well as tweak its settings. While individual security test scores could be higher, none are deficit, meaning McAfee provides you with more than adequate protection.
- Lucas
|
|