The Utility Time of Year Has Come Again

Yes, you heard me. That time of year has arrived again. It's almost time to get a new subscription to my security software. Now many people say to use the free programs, like the personal editions of AVG and Zone Alarm. Now, I can't put them down, they are a great option to choose if you have no desire AT ALL to purchase security software. For me on the other hand, I don't mind paying for quality. I like security suites that do exactly what they are supposed to do, with the ease of use to match it. I also prefer it all to be integrated into one and with similar looks and menus. Enter Norton Internet Security from Symantec. Symantec has been in the security game for a long time. They've got "street cred" in the security business (as some people would say).

I know some people are going to disagree, but Norton Internet Security has turned into one nice product. It has a firewall, fights virus's, spyware, and rootkits. The box also says it has "Intrusion prevention", "Web Site authentication", and "Eavesdropping protection". I'm not really too sure about those, I think they should fall under firewall and either anti-virus or spyware, but I guess it makes people feel more secure. And hey, whatever helps! Too many people get creeped out about using the internet, and hopefully this can help them.

So anyways, you all know the old versions of Norton. Those ones you loaded up, and they took forever to load or do anything, and made your computer grind its gears to do anything. Well, I think those days have changed. To me, since Norton 2007, they've done a complete makeover of their product. When I fist installed Norton Internet security 2007, it was noticeably faster. It seemed like a great product. Another good feature was for those people who get freaked out at the first question a firewall asks. Norton has a feature t0 manage the firewall alerts by itself, making yet another task automated. So basically, for the average user, Norton has become a self-sufficient, "let it do it's job and your computer will be safe" kind of program. The user-interface received a make-over and looks more friendly, telling you exactly what its protecting you against and if there are any problems.

So, with all that mumble jumble I just said, you also get a year subscription with Norton (pretty standard in the utility business). Now, what I just found out recently (wish I had looked sooner), was that, as long as you have a subscription to Norton Internet Security, you can receive the latest version. I have 30 days left (give or take) of NIS 2007, and I just got 2008 downloaded and installed. So, if you happened to just buy NIS 2007 and still have a year left, your not out of luck. You can just go to their downloads section of the Norton site, and click the version you have to get the newer one (direct link).

Now, I've been using Symantec software for a long time, and have a lot of trust in their stuff. One thing that might not be the best is their spyware, which I seem to find doesn't catch everything some other spyware scanners get. I'm not sure if the others just have a lot of false-positives or what-not, but Norton does get all the major ones you should worry about. I've had nothing but utmost quality from Symantec and their products. The only thing that has started to bother me recently is there subscription notification. As I said earlier, my subscription is starting to run out, and NIS 2007 and 2008 (tried both to see if they both do it), keep telling me to renew my subscription. As well, Norton looks like somethings wrong with it and keeps saying it needs attention. Now, this is very minor, and in no way affects any of the functionality of the product, nor is it intrusive. I just find it annoying. I like to see the green check mark saying all systems go. As well, 30 day notification will remind everyone to upgrade in order to keep protected. After all, we all know hackers love taking advantage of those who don't have the latest updates, whether of Windows, or while waiting for Microsoft to come up with a patch to fix a problem they promised to fix a week ago! Oh, one last complaint. In the 2008 version, there is no feature I could find to "Block all traffic". This could come in handy if your afraid you may have gotten trojan horsed, and are awaiting a virus scan to pick it up, or, if you just prefer to cut off access with the outside world for some privacy away from our instant technology world (I requested they add that feature back in before product release, but I guess they didn't listen or didn't have time to listen).

So all in all, if you have anything you would like to protect, or you would like to save some time and not have to format if you happen to get a virus, make sure to keep a security suite on your computer. For those who aren't as computer literate, or for people like me, who would prefer to do what they love on their computer, without having to tweak their security to its peek, buy Norton. The new Norton Internet Security experience has been a great one for me, and coming from a long time user of Symantec products, is a significant step up with performance and coverage compared to some of their other not so liked versions (although they have always did the job whether they were slow or not). Or you can use one of the free ones (AVG and Zone Alarm are some of the more popular free ones for personal use).

So, I'll leave it off at this: Use protection or you might give birth (give birth to a private information fiasco, not a baby silly!).