Norton Internet Security 2008 consists of personal firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus software packages and other features that make Web surfing safer. Its code is cleaner, performance better and the retail price much lower.

Installation & First Steps

Installation of Norton Internet Security is simple. Once the installation wizard has confirmed your system is sane, you can continue with the installation process tailoring NIS components according to your preference. The default settings, however, are fine for most users.

Norton Internet Security learns during the installation process about your system and common tasks you perform daily on your computer. It learns what you normally do and what tasks should be allowed and what should be banned from occurring.

For instance, Norton Security will learn about the programs we frequently use and allow them access to the internet.

After a day or two Norton Internet Security should be well informed about your online activities and should permit requested actions automatically.

Core Features

Firewall is one of the Norton Security core components that can detect inbound and outbound traffic generated from and to your computer.

Another features are anti-virus and anti-spyware components as well as automatic updates for those components. Norton Internet Security downloads every update automatically ensuring the virus definitions are up-to-date.

Program and definitions updates are loaded automatically in the background.

After installation is complete, a full system scan is performed. This is repeated every week.

Program Operation

Norton Internet Security works quiet despite of a number of its background processes. Norton, however, doesn't make its presence constantly felt.

With a simple interface and no alerts or pop-ups Norton Internet Security remains relatively quiet.

How does it allow access to the internet

Norton allows applications access to the internet without making much fuss. By doing away with the asking if the user wants to grant access to an application, Norton reduces the risk of a bad choice.

It comes with an application pattern that can automatically detect trusted programs without asking the user.

Technology 

Symantec has slimmed down its Norton suite by reducing the component count.

There are still some basic components such as anti-virus and anti-spyware tools but if you require additional features such as anti-spam, parental control or data privacy you will be required to download additional components from Symantec's site. 

The anti-spyware component comes with some nice built-in options; for example you can block emails containing attachment images or non-sense text. You can also block messages out that contain HTML code or JavaScript -- a potentially dangerous content. 

Symantec has introduced its Web Caller ID (WCID) technology to detect if a visited web site is a legitimate one or likely to be a phishing site.

The WCID technology examines the content, referring source as well as the URL itself to establish, whether it is a phishing site.  Norton Internet Security displays a notification each time a potentially dangerous site is visited.  

Many independent tests and reviews showed this to be a highly reliable method to fight phishing scam. 

Norton Security adds new features and extra protection when compared to its predecessor. Norton AntiSpam, Norton Parental Control, Personal Data Protection (Confidential Information Blocking) and Ad Blocking are optional and can be downloaded from the Symantec's website.

Antispyware 

This edition of NIS comes with built-in antispyware features that protect your PC from keyloggers and other computer spying software.   

Anti-phishing

Norton Internet Security comes with a brand new anti-phishing tool which uses Internet Explorer toolbar to alert to suspicious sites, depending on user's choice, to block them out. Tests showed the anti-phishing mechanism to be highly efficient and can detect four out of five potentially risky sites.

Behaviour-monitoring

Norton uses a behaviour-monitoring and behaviour-blocking tool to collect information about user's behaviour whilst surfing the Web. This information is later used for optimising security settings.

Enhanced detection

Norton Internet Security 2008 uses an enhanced detection method, which relies on Veritas VxMS technology, formerly used only in Symantec's enterprise solutions.

This technology compares files within a directory to files on the volume level to quick and precise detection of malware and rootkits operating on a PC.

Norton Internet Security can run its antivirus routines performing either in a quick or a full system scan either in the foreground or in the background allowing the user to continue their work with other applications.

Performance

Norton suite improves a lot on last year's CNET performance tests. Norton's scan speed improved mainly with individual file scans, but there's been also some slight improvement with boot time.

Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus have also been tested by two leading independent antivirus software testing organisations – AV-Comparatives.org and Checkvir.com – where it outperformed the vast majority of competitive products catching 98 per cent of malware and earning the highest test rating.

If you no longer need the application, you can uninstall it in one easy step. Uninstalling Norton Internet Security is pretty straightforward and it is explained in more detail in the application help. Disabling some services is an option if you don't want to uninstall the programme completely.

Windows Vista 

Norton Internet Security is compatible with Microsoft Vista. If you haven't done that yet, you need to download Vista Patch from Symantec's website to make it run on your Vista installation.