Norton Internet Security 2010 and PC Tools

Norton and PC Tools released their re-spective security

suites for the com-ing year. Let's check what's new in bothand which one best

suits your needsWe start off by looking at the new fea-tures of both security

software:

Norton Internet Security Suite 2010



The new features include Norton System Insight, Parental controls, Threat

in-sight and Norton file insight. Norton's system insight feature shows a clear

picture of amount of the CPU resources being used. It also tells you about the

number of downloads and scans done in the recent past. The Parental control

features lets you keep an eye on the online behavior of your kid from any

computer connected to the Internet. File insight tells about the information

about the files inside your system. The scanner provides details about threats

detected and files which require user attention. The threat and performance

feature tells about the type of threat detected and how it can impact PC

performance. The software also identifies harmful web-sites within the search

results. The network map available in the main window reveals state of

protection of other computers on the network.

PC Tools



While Norton's Internet Security Suite lays emphasis on making the system

more performance oriented, the focus of PC tools is to make the entire suite

more affordable. The suite constitutes antispam, malware detector and removal

tools, antivirus software, plus the improved Threat Fire behavioral detection

engine.

Installation and interface



This time Norton has reduced the timetaken to install the software, and as

compared to previous versions, the installation was smoother and faster. Once

the installation was over, the service is ready to run. The user interface is

robust and well designed and gives a clear picture of controls and features

provided by the suite. You can also download Norton's 30 day trial version by

registering free from Symantec site. Once you open the Norton interface you will

see a performance meter on the left showing the current consumption of CPU and

other Norton tasks. There is also a flip window where you can see the system

in-sight feature that tells you about the important scan history of different

dates in the month. It makes the Norton's system optimizing feature more

detailed. On the left side you will also see an option of application ratings.

The applications which are considered safe by Norton are not rescanned, which is

an attempt to improve system performance.

PC Tools spyware doctor



The installation is quick and easier. After installation the software

prompts for live updates which take less very less time. Once the setup is over,

a message asks for deactivating Windows firewall since the software itself

provides firewall features. You can download the trial version of the software.

Whenever Windows is re-booted, it runs an automatic scan. The interface shows

five buttons on the left: status,start scan, intelliGuard, tools and settings.

The rest consists of services which are activated: antivirus, antispyware,

firewall and antispam. On the page you can see the start scanning button. Under

the scan button,you can get information on the history and general settings. On

the left side you can get information about subscription validity,last scan

details, etc. You can also browse through the time taken by PC Tools to scan the

systems. You can also access the guard tools provided by PC Tools to protect

every aspect of your system connected to Internet via IntelliGuard. The guards

include Behav-ior, Browser, Cookie, Email, File, Immunizer, Network, Process,

Site, and Startup. Each one contains a small link to the above mentioned

exclusion list, an on/off toggle,and relevant settings.

You can see detailed results of full system scan and threats resolved by NORTON Internet Security Suite 2010.

The figure shows the scan progress and the infections detected and resolved by PCTools. You can get all details related to threats detected.

Performance



The performance of Norton on our system with 2 GB of RAM was average.

Eventhough Norton promised to score on this front but still much improvement is

needed. It does make the system a bit slower. PCTools scored more here as it

takes minimum memory and does not affect system performance. It took about 2 hrs

to do a full system scan as compared to PC Tools which scanned the system in 45

minutes. It can be said on the basis of the test that the system with large

number of files will take Norton more time for scanning. The antivirus test

revealed that even though Norton was able to track more than half of the total

viruses, still it left out many of the files undetected,however it was able to

delete all the detected files completely. PC Tools on the other hand

surprisingly detected more infections as compared to Norton but it removed

lesser number automatically, ie many infections were detected as harmful and PC

Tools required permission to delete them. Norton however deleted many of the

infected files on its own. Conclusion If you don't want your system to become

slower during virus scan then choose PC Tools. But if you want a more

interactive,transparent and detailed interface then go for Norton. PC Tools is

less expensive and hence should be more attractive to light users then its other

competitors and on an average the overall performance was satisfactory. Norton

focused more on the accessibility and improving the transparent exposure on

performance is worthwhile to check too. The new features introduced are worth

checking out however more emphasis on the virus detection is expected in the

future.

Nidhi Sharma