Review: Norton Internet Security 2011

Norton's 2011 Internet Security suite. Photo / Supplied

Back in the good old days, computer security was pretty simple. Viruses came from dodgy floppy disks and the interweb hadn't yet reared its virus and Trojan-laden head. What a difference two decades can make.

The good news is that the massive growth in security threats to PCs has seen anti-virus software become much more effective. The not-so-great news however is that the creators of cybernasties have also evolved their game and are now turning to increasingly sophisticated and devious ways of hijacking computers, identities and making a buck out of computer crime.

The folks at Symantec haven't taken these new threats lying down and have bundled a bunch of new security features into Norton Internet Security 2011 that are intended to stop you from become a computer crime statistic.

Where traditional ant-virus software inspected files and compared them to a database of "fingerprints" of known viruses, malware from Facebook, legit-sounding but ultimately dodgy websites tend to be either too new or unique for the signature method to work.

NIS 2011 tracks the browser, instant messenger and peer to peer activities of their global customer base to check which files, links and website URLs have been safely used, logging safe files as well as those containing cyber nasties.

Tapping into this mass of online intelligence provides a hugely powerful, near real-time pool of security data that allows NIS to prevent you from clicking any dodgy links or visit any malware containing websites. Improving on an already robust model has seen Norton bolster the range of browsers, instant messaging and peer to peer applications supported in NIS 2011.

Another particularly nifty addition that social media junkies will appreciate is the Facebook Scan app, which checks links on Facebook to determine if they connect to any sites containing malware. Add to this the Norton Power Eraser utility (which can also be downloaded for free), that'll hunt down and kill malware that is otherwise undetectable using traditional antivirus software and you're really beginning to cook with gas.

Another area where Norton Internet Security shows improvements is in its speed. Before the 2010 version, NIS had the unfortunate reputation of being bloatware that slowed up PCs as it did its security thing.

NIS 2010 was a massive improvement in terms of it's overall zippiness and system resource usage, and the 2011 version feels faster still. According to the Symantec promo blurb NIS 2011 has a 25 per cent improvement in browsing speed and a 66 per cent improvement in copying files. In real world terms, Norton Internet Security 2011 didn't appear to slow my system down at all. Aside from rare warnings about tracking cookies or updates, I was hard pressed to notice it was even installed.

Speaking of performance, NIS 2011's System Insight monitor (which tracks system performance) now watches applications as they're being used, issuing an alert if an app is slowing your PC down.

Whilst not an earth-shattering addition, these alerts were an invaluable way of culling off seldom used apps and helped make my PC feel significantly more responsive once I'd uninstalled a half dozen pieces of kludgeware.

Symatec has also improved the Norton Bootable Recovery Tool which is a last resort option to nuke a nasty infection. Last years implementation was fiddly and required you burn a boot disc. This has thankfully been replaced with a user friendly wizard that can create boot CDs as well as bootable USB drives, the latter being a godsend to netbook users without an optical drive.

Last (but by no means least) Symantec has also bundled Norton Safe Web, which is a browser toolbar that can alert you to any potential dangerous links to help you avoid any malware laden websites. Norton is also making a free version available for download.

The Verdict

Whilst Norton Internet Security 2010 was a quantum leap in usability over it's predecessors, the 2011 iteration is more of an incremental improvement on what is already a best of breed security suite. Thanks to some genuinely useful additions such as Facebook scan links and a much improved bootable recovery tool as well as numerous usability tweaks, Norton internet Security 2011 remains the gold standard for PC security.

Norton Internet Security 2011
$99.99 for three PC licence, including one-year service subscription.