Customer Reviews

Norton Internet Security 2008 up to 3 Users [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(78)

 

 

I do not typically write rejoinders from previous reviews, but on this occasion I feel it necessary. As a longtime user and tester of antivirus/antispyware/security suite software, I have been terribly disappointed over the years by what has (or had) become of Norton products. Starting around 2004 they transformed into bloatware, slowing down computers, overhauling the CPU, and basically were a nuisance. NIS 2006 was probably the worst of the lot, although McAfee's security suite software this last year gives it competition in the department of ineptitude.

To give some credit where it is due, Symantec apparently listened, read, and paid attention to the complaints, and they revamped their product. NIS 2008 won over this critic, and I must admit that it was a pleasant surprise when I installed the trial version on my work and home computers (200 GB hard drive, 1.8 GHz Duo Processor, Windows Vista Home Premium on the home laptop). Since I like to test software on my computers to empirically observe the chaos that ensues, I was not expecting much. If anything, my experiences with Norton products instilled in me a sense of foreboding futility. I cannot stress enough how unexpectedly satisfying it was to witness a security software company finally comprehending the concept of listening to its customers.

What impressed me most about NIS 2008 was the ease of use, the simplification of the interface, although its graphics still leave much to be desired (as with the 2007 version), and even featured a more user friendly program with help and assistance options that seem to actually assist a computer user. Best of all, it is not as cumbersome on my computer usage as previous versions, and it is barely noticeable on my CPU. It also has a much better browser defender, which includes one for Mozilla Firefox (after numerous complaints over its past omissions to provide security for non-Explorer web browsers). The browser defender also doubles as a password protector on web pages that you frequent.

Another departure from older versions is that it is easy to install (installs quickly, actually), does not interfere with the booting and re-booting of my computer, and does not slow down my employment of other programs (like Microsoft Office). All of these are areas of progress for NIS.

There are a couple of cautions, however. One, if you do want to use this program, try the trial download first, to see for yourself (it is good for two weeks). Also, if you purchase the product, make sure to download the add-ons for NIS 2008, which contains vital elements like anti-spam and parental controls. You need this add-on (it is located on the Symantec site) for email protection at the very least, so it is highly recommended that you use it.

Compared to other security suite software currently on the market, NIS 2008 is certainly as good, if not better, than the competition. This is not saying much to the extent that much of what constitutes security suite software (like CA, Zone Alarm, McAfee) has over time become gradually worse, less efficient, and slower. NIS 2008 is an advance over its previous versions and the competition. Among the other security suite software, Kaspersky Internet Security is the only program I have tried that is nearly as non-intrusive and maintains the ability to at least detect viruses as efficiently as NIS (although the security tests I used on these programs were more easily detectable than those utilized in more rigorous tests). As long as you are willing to pay and want the protection of a quality antivirus with antispy/malware program, NIS 2008 is a good choice.

I have been a customer of Norton Internet Security products since 2002. I have had my share of problems with NIS including slowness, compatibility issues, blocked sites etc., but it has done an excellent job of protecting my computer. I recently purchased NIS 2008 and installed it on my laptop and computer. The laptop was an upgrade while desktop was a new install.

For those of you looking for quick review, here are the main points:

1. There was no noticeable difference in computer's speed. I did not notice increase or decrease in processor or memory usage (bit of a surprise).

2. The installation process was fast. It took less than 10 minutes and a reboots to install on a Pentium 4, 2.4GHz processor with 2.5 GB of memory.

3. The computer started normally (no extra time) after hibernation.

4. The boot process was considerably slow after NIS2008. It added at least 30 second to the boot process. I was expecting this from my experience with previous versions of Norton Internet Security. However, it was even slower than I expected.

5. Identity Safe does not work with many websites.

From a security point of view, this is a five star product. However, the boot process becomes so slow after installing NIS that I was not sure to give it a three or a four star. In the end I gave it a four star because it is a solid security product.

Now some details.

The very first installation screen gives user an option to join Norton Community Watch. Norton Community Watch is a program that collects security and application data and submits the data to Symantec for analysis to identify new threats. It is a good concept and I would love to help in improving the overall security for Symantec users. However, after reading Norton Community Watch privacy policy, I decided to disable the feature. Here are some excerpts from the policy:

"The collected data could contain personally identifiable information...... "

"The collected data may be transferred to the Symantec group in the United States or other countries that may have less protective data protection laws than the region in which you are situated......"

"Symantec may disclose the collected information if asked to do so by a law enforcement official...."

I have no interest in sending personal information to Symantec which may be shared by others. I would strongly recommend disabling this feature.

The installation was a breeze: both on the laptop and the desktop. Online activation is required after installation.

After activation, Norton prompts to create "My Norton Account". This is a password protected site where the license key is stored. This has really helped me in the past when my computer crashed and I couldn't locate the media. I was able to retrieve the key from "My Norton Account". I would highly recommend creating an account and registering the product.

The user interface in NIS 2008 is different than NIS 2007. There are two tabs: `Home' and `Norton Internet Security'. `Home' is the default that comes up when Norton icon is clicked. The first thing that caught my attention was `Network Map' icon on the left. Clicking it brought a screen with details on my network: other computers on my network, their name, physical address and IP address. This is a cool place to check for uninvited neighbors when the network is slow. The `Home' tab shows the status of various NIS 2008 components (virus protection, intrusion prevention etc.). Just know that secure is good.

There is not much improvement in the reporting features. To lookup something you still have to go through activity log, line by line.

One cool new feature of NIS 2008 is Identity Safe. When you visit a password protected site and login, Identity Safe can store your credentials. At subsequent logins, it will log you in by filling the user name and password on your behalf. It can also fill information in we based forms. This feature will save me a time and the hassle of remembering many of my passwords. It works well with Yahoo mail, Gmail and similar sites. I have not been able to configure it for some of the sites like Hotmail and InviteShare.

I also like the Security Inspector feature. This feature checks for common configuration issues with browsers, Instant Messenger, IP Address and Windows passwords. It will be a good idea to run Security Inspector at least once a month.

All in all, I think it that Norton Internet Security is a good security product. I would recommend it.

I've been a user of the Norton product suite since the DOS days when Peter Norton was the actual author. There have been some good years and some bad years, but, in general, my system has remained virus free with no break ins. Since I have been an early adopter, it seems that every year I am forced to upgrade a week or two earlier than the previous year. It would be great if the subscription, at least for the initial purchase, were 13 months and not 12.

So, my subscription to NIS 2007 ran out last week and I had to either renew or upgrade. Since, with rebates, it isn't much more expensive to upgrade, I, as usual, went that route.

I have had it installed for a week and my first impressions are that it is much improved. My system seems to boot faster and also seems a little more responsive. MS Word, that used to have a noticeable delay when starting, now pops open. I don't have any empirical evidence, just anecdotal impressions, but so far I am very happy. (I just hope I haven't jinxed myself with the review.)

...unless you have some super-duper computer system (Quad or Dual Core Processor, at least 2.0GHz processor speed, at least 1GB of high quality DDR or if you are so unfortunate as to be running Windows Vista instead of XP then 2-3GB of DDR and at least 128MB vid card, have all your settings optimized for best performance, etc.) in which case it will not be nearly as catastrophic.

I speak from my recent experience of being called by a client to "fix" two of his computers: a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 with 256MB DDR and an older 900Mhz Pentium 3 with 384MB. So I came and did all the usual tweaks with the registry, eliminating needless apps and files, updating all drivers, adjusting system settings for best performance, defragmented the HDDs, etc. Very minute difference, as I expected.

Then I uninstalled Norton Security 2008, installed AVG Free Antivirus, free Lavasoft Ad-Aware anti-spyware, free Spybot SD anti-spyware, and turned Windows XP Firewall on.

WHOA!!! It was truly a night-and-day difference, in every clearly visible, measurable way: both machines booted up much faster, opened and closed applications much faster, performed simple file tasks much faster...my client's jaws were on the floor for the next half hour! Even the Pentium 4 machine, which really needs at least 512MB of memory, was transformed. But it was the Pentium 3 which showed the most dramatic improvement...the guy thought it had a virus or something because it was so deadly slow in performing even the simplest tasks, like refreshing a browser window.

To bad for him, he had just forked out big bucks for a one-year subscription, but he quickly agreed that losing that money was still a lot cheaper than buying two new computers.

I've had similar experiences uninstalling McAfee's security software, which is another notorious and overpriced system hog and which, like Norton, often does not even stop all of the stuff that AVG, Ad-aware and Spybot do.

Both of these big-name jokes are completely unneeded in light of the exceptionally good, clean freeware that I've mentioned above. It really makes you wonder if both McAfee and Norton (along with Microsoft with its new and equally bloated Vista OS) are in cahoots with computer manufacturers to force people to upgrade their PCs in order to run this useless bloatware.

About 20-25 years ago, when Norton first got big, it used to be a pretty decent. Now it's just another shameless, Bose-like scam upon the naive and uninformed masses, corporate and individual. Really too bad...

Proud of that brand new computer of yours with super high-speed CPU, memory, hard drives and video adapter? Want to slow it down to a crawl so you can relive the early days of computing, of waiting and waiting and waiting for a process to complete?

Well, just add Norton Internet Security 2008!

System boot-up times will be extended by a factor of two or three. Just the thing you want when starting up your computer - a nice long wait. A really long wait.

And if that wasn't enough fun, wait until you launch your web browser. All those hours programmers spent trying to build fast response into their browser creations? Wasted effor. Norton Internet Security 2008 helps your browser pass away minute after minute after minute. You had no better use for your time anyway, did you? Norton Internet Security 2008 will slow your browser to a crawl.

Norton Internet Security 2008 will interrrupt you at least twice a day (and generally more) with an intrusive pop-up that new updates have been downloaded and that you need to restart your computer. Oh, how nice: they five you an option of being reminded in 1, 12 or 24 hours - but apparently no option to set the update schedule or turn off the annoying pop-ups. Symanytec's program architects certainly think that the user is not only clueless, but their slave as well.

Symantec has included a "feature" they call "Identity Safe". Every time you type in a password to a site it launches an annoying pop-up asking if you want to use "Identity Safe". You can click on the convenient "Do not show this window again" option a thousand times - and it will ignore you a thousand times. Norton Internet Security 2008 also grabs web browser tool bar space, but fortunately you can turn it off.

Does the product work for its intended purpose? That I don't know yet. I didn't have any viruses on my machine before I installed Norton Internet Security 2008 and it hasn't reported any.

Overall, Norton Internet Security 2008 slows down my computer to such an extent that I think it is unsuitable for its purpose. I'll be looking for a replacement.

Jerry

I am a long time, very sophisticated computer user (PCs). I've used all the major internet security, anti virus programs, etc. over the years. I'm very technical and know a lot about Windows, etc. I say that as a backdrop so you don't think I'm some newbie that made some elementary mistake. I have a IBM Thinkpad T 61 vintage late fall 2007. Very fast processor, 3GBs of RAM, all the bells and whistles. Despite the many frutrating things about Vista, the machine itself has performed flawlessly. (I still only trust using an XP machine for real work, and this computer is my backup if my main laptop goes down (It's a T60)).

Okay, all you need to know about MY experience is that sometime during the installation of this product, something hung up and Norton started to collect A LOT of information about my computer to send in an error report. I'm telling you, it collected a lot. I'm not a privacy freak--that's not my point. It sent a load of info on to Norton about the "event" and very politely told me (asked me) what it was doing. Okay, well and good, but I find the event caused a major corruption in the Vista system. This led to me needing to COMPLETELY reinstall everything on the computer, starting with the back up CDs that came with it (Actually, the stuff is on the hidden partition on the T 61.) So, now I'm looking at needing to spend approximately a day or more to get my machine back to where it was running fine before I tried to install Norton Internet Security 2008. I left Norton in the 90s because I kept finding their software led to the most confusing, hardest to fix problems with PCs. (They try to do too much.) Came back to them about 3 years ago when they started trouncing McAffee's suite for smartness and efficiency. Have been happy with them to this day, but that phrase "to this day" has some special meaning now. I'm done with Norton. This was such a collossal mistake/problem with their software. I will not give them more of my business.

One of the worst products I've ever had.

(1) It killed performance on my XP machine (500mb ram) even after I had seemingly turned everything except off except the virus checking. Doing anything on the PC was painfully slow after installation, and booting up in the first place was interminable.

(2) The user interface is terrible and totally unintuitive, making it very difficult to figure out how to change settings. I'm a professional programmer with lots of experience and I can't tell you how much time I wasted trying to figure out how to configure this thing.

(3) Adding insult to injury, you can't even uninstall it using the Control Panel's Add/Remove programs, instead you have to download the Norton Removal Tool to get rid of it.

I recommend that you trial any security software before you buy, all of them offer trials

Recent advertisements from Symmentec states that Norton Internet Security 2008 runs faster and uses less memory than 9 different competitors. But please check out the actual test study by PassMark software: Boot time for NIS 2008 is at 87% that of Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 (100%), and scan time is at 91% that of Panda Internet Security 2008 (100%). Also, the study DOES NOT measure CPU and memory usage during local file scanning, which explains why so many people complain about the speed of this software. All this data points against Symmentec's recent advertisement claims in terms of practicality.

A software can claim it runs the fastest and uses the least memory...when the computer is off. What do you think of that?

I have the same problem as other people who install and use this product. SLOW!!! My computer is a 3.0 GHz with 3 GB of memory and 200GB of hard drive space, running Windows XP Professional. After spending nearly 10 minutes installing NIS 2008 and rebooted my PC, I saw a tremendously difference on my PC performance...that is, TREMENDOUSLY SLOWER. It took nearly twice as long to boot up my computer now.

I do a lot of Word and Excel editing for work. When I was typing and Norton's antivirus scanning started, sometimes I had a hard time moving my mouse cursor. This alone can tell you how much memory the scanning program uses.

Pro: In my 9 days' experience with it, it didn't slow down my computer.
Con: 9 days after installation it failed to update itself and pointed me to its web with directions to manually update the product. So I followed its instructions and updated the product. The update appeared to be successful. But when the computer rebooted, Windows XP complained that it couldn't load the user profile. Then I had to back up my computer and profiles, system restore, ... many many fun things that I like more than drinking beer. Finally I got my profile back and guess what, NIS asked me to update it again and failed, and pointed to its web for manual updates. There must be a conspiracy between MS and Symantec to get users into this endless loop. I promptly uninstalled NIS2008 at the end of the 9th day.

Installs fine.

Uninstalls fine, after 3 hrs, due to phishing toolbar not working properly and chat room Norton Tech advising me to do so.

Does not reinstall, but gives off error popups.

Talk with Norton Techs on Chat line for 4 separate times, with no luck, besides frustration.

Norton Tech Chat Line is manned by uncourteous, non-mannered, non prepared and unknowledgeable people. I was transfered 5 times from different tech's on 1 chat call and then hung up on. Another tech kept asking if this was the first time I contacted the chat room, even after I said no and sent him my prior 3 chat authorization numbers for his verification. Poor Service on assistance.

I used the normal uninstall procedure and then the Norton Total Uninstall icon, both with negative results. The registry is now splattered with Norton Reminants.

Software is now unable to be reinstalled (due to error popups), used only 3 hrs, the first night.

This Junk Software has not changed since the last time I swore I would not use it again (2004).

I hope their refund system works right!

P.S. This is a new Dell Computer I tried to install this software on. I have no other Norton software installed or ever installed.