Norton Internet Security
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Norton Internet Security is a computer utility suite made by Symantec Corporation, with a focus on providing comprehensive Internet protection. It is available for both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The most recent version of Internet Security is 2007 for Windows and 3.0 for Mac.
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[edit] Awards
Won PC Magazine's editor's choice award for best anti-virus product for 2007.
[edit] Included software
Norton Internet Security is a combination of Norton AntiVirus and Norton Personal Firewall on both platforms, in addition to ad-blocking and parental control tools not available from buying the individual products separately. The Windows version also adds Norton AntiSpam, which has spyware and malicious program detection to the suite, while the Mac OS version also adds Allume Systems' iClean, providing much of the same features.
It is to be noted that none of the suite is compatible with Mac OS X v10.4, and thus none are universal binaries. However, Allume's Internet Cleanup, which is a universal program, is seen as a successor to iClean. It is widely expected that if a new version is to be released, Norton Confidential will also be included in the Internet Security suite.
[edit] Criticisms
Many of the criticisms leveled at Norton AntiVirus, including being slow, inefficient and difficult to uninstall, can also be leveled at Norton Internet Security due to its inclusion of Norton AntiVirus. In September 2006 ThePCSpy.com did two studies covering several thorough tests to find out what programs slowed down Microsoft Windows most. Norton Internet Security 2006 was the number one cause of a slow PC in both tests, with Norton Internet Security 2007 being the number three cause in the second test.[1][2]
Further, Norton Internet Security is known to "dig deeper" into the Microsoft Windows operating system than Norton AntiVirus, causing further uninstallation problems. Symantec has released several tools to aid in the uninstallation process but you need to use all of them to complete the process.
Much of the same criticisms of the Windows version also applies to the Mac OS version. Furthermore, it has been said that the Mac OS version lacks features that are found in the Windows version.
[edit] Versions 2006 and previous and IE7 incompatibilites
Along with the release of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, the main GUI of Norton Internet Security 2006 and previous versions have encountered several scripting errors. The current NIS 2007 however, fully supports IE7.
Because the GUI is built using Internet Explorer's web interface (instead of using the standard GUI libraries), any changes to it will result in failure in Norton Software. How this affects the AntiVirus & Firewall so far is unknown however there are several resolutions available. One is to upgrade to NIS2007 supplied for free by Norton Support. The impact of forcing users to install this newer version on older computers will most likely result in system slowdown, something Norton has once again been criticized on. Microsoft MSDN are having a discussion thread on how to resolve this issue here.
[edit] Product Activation
Norton Internet Security 2004 and subsequent versions includes an anti-piracy feature called product activation, which allows software companies to attempt to limit the number of installations to prevent large scale piracy.
