Kaspersky Pure 3.0 Total Security

It provides AV protection for your files, E-mail, Web, IM, as well as application control, firewall, network attack blocker, anti-spam, anti-phishing, etc.

One new feature introduced in this package is "Cloud Protection", which speeds up threat detection and removal. But there are a number of constraints associated with this feature. For one, it only works with metadata (data about files), hence is solely based on the hashing function. Also, there is bandwidth limitation when you have this feature ‘on', plus it works only with executable files.

I used my test cases for the AV on a Dell notebook with Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2 GB RAM to evaluate its efficiency. Setting up the product is fairly simple and straightforward, and completes within a few minutes. The user interface is intuitive, with 3 major tabs in the front, namely; Backup, Computer Protection and Parental Control. Right below these tabs, there are 5 more tabs whose functionality is self-explanatory.

I tried to download eight EICAR test files but Kaspersky blocked them all. I ran a full system scan, which took about 4 hrs 40 min to scan 150 GB of data. The time taken is more than what should be normal but the good thing is that Kaspersky Pure 3.0 is extremely light on the system. Scheduling a scan hardly impacts system performance. Also, a routine scan was able to clean up my system completely.

Comparing Kaspersky Pure 3.0 with Norton 360, I would say, there is not much difference in performance but Pure 3.0 is much lighter on the system.