As mentioned in my earlier post, I was glad to be selected to be in Norton Inner Circle, at the same time, I was skeptical over Norton Products as I really have not taken a good review on them. However, being in the Norton Inner Circle, I was able to grab hold of the latest Norton 360 Version 3.0. This post is a review about this product, based on personal experience.
My review will also cross reference to Norton 360 Version 2.0 which I was using before that. I will try to show what is good about this product and what is not from my own judgement.
First Impression
Because I am using Norton 360 Version 2, it is quite easy to upgrade Version 3 using the provided link. Download a file and execute it. Follow the instruction. That’s all!
Click Here to Upgrade if You Already Have a Norton 360 Subscription
I am reviewing Norton 360 Version 3 with the following build.
In the product page, it states that it has fast installation time. I could not verify it properly due to the downloading speed of the product and the uninstallation of the previous version.
Changes in Norton 360 Version 2 Versus Norton 360 Version 3. Below is the Norton 360 Version 3.
Notice that there are more options and new features as compare to the Version 2 below.
Features
There are many added features in Version 3. I will not discuss all of them (actually, I am still exploring). Some of those that is worth mentioning are:-
Norton Anti-Virus
Of course, this is one of the most important tools of any Anti-virus software. In Version 3, it was greatly enhanced with an super up-to-date virus update. Imagine updating the virus definitions every few minutes. Yes, that is what Norton 360 Version 3 is doing. Updating every few minutes.
The below are a few screen shots of Norton Anti Virus settings
Norton Insight
This is a very useful tool. Norton recognizes that no matter how fast we can scan a file, the time to scan them will still be a pain for many people. So, with this Norton Insight, it actually scan through the computer files and matches them with their database. If the signature of the files are the same, they are exempted from the scan. In this way, scanning time will be greatly reduced.
In my case, it is 24% that I needed scanning. The rest are verified either by Norton itself or the Norton Community.
Norton Community is actually users who agree to let Norton utilize their scan results and collected as a database. From the database, there will be ratings. So, from the Norton Insight, there will be Norton Trusted, Community Trusted or just blank. All of them will have ratings.
Norton Startup Manager
This is something new from Norton. In this Startup Manager, it allows you to choose which program(s) to start later. With this feature, it will greatly optimize the startup time. You can actually change the delay timing to your likings (from 1 to 10 minutes).
To change the timing, you can go to Administrative settings and change it. See below screen shot.
Norton Safe Web
In my opinion, this is one of the most important feature in Norton 360 Version 3 package. The reason is because there are so many websites that look OK but are not. Some websites owner may not even know that there are something wrong with their websites. With Norton Safe Web, you can at least have some assurance that the site that you are going to is OK.
You don’t need to have Norton 360 Version 3 to access their database of Safe Sites. You can access them here.
Click Here to Access Norton Safe Web
However, you will need to manually check the website one-by-one. If you have Norton 360 Version 3, it will incorporate this function into your browser. This screen shot is from Internet Explorer. You will also get the same tool bar in Mozilla Firefox. However, it is not available in Google Chrome. I do not have other browsers. So, I am not sure what other browsers it will support.
This is NOT the best feature yet. One of the best feature is that it has incorporated the Safe Site into major search engines like Google or Yahoo. When you do a search, the results will have a green tick or cross. Hover your mouse over it will show you the results of Norton findings.
If you have a site that is unsafe, you will see the results as the below screen shots.
Click on the Full Report, you will go to SafeWeb website from Norton and you can view the threat in this site.
However, the Norton Safe Web is not available in Mozilla Firefox. I am checking with Norton on whether it will incorporate into Firefox or not (Or if there is any settings that I have missed out 🙂 ).
Updated: 10th March 2009
Norton has replied and confirmed that Safe Web is available in Mozilla Firefox. Here is the screenshot.
It also adds extra drive-by-download protection into Firefox to make sure it stops the infections before they are delivered through the Browser. See the screenshot below.
I am checking my Firefox for a reason on why it cannot display the Safe Web green tick. Will update once I get my answer. Sorry for the slightly wrong information. Thanks David for the help!
Updated: 11th March 2009
The cause of my Safe Web green tick not showing on my Mozilla Firefox had been found. It is due to the Skype addon. The version is 2.2.0.87. See below for the screenshot.
To deactivate it. Click on “Tools” for Mozilla Firefox. Select “Options”. On the Main Tab, Select “Manage Add-ons”. Once you found the addon, click “disable” and you will be prompt to restart Firefox. Once Firefox restarted, the add-on will be disabled.
Conclusion and Final Comments
It is still too early to conclude, given that the product is very new and I am still learning. I have installed into 3 computers. One Desktop with Windows Vista Ultimate, one Desktop with Windows XP Pro and the last one is Netbook with Windows XP Home. I am honestly quite surprise that my netbook is working quite happily with Norton 360 Version 3. I was thinking that it will be taxing on it but I think Norton has given the words that this version will be using very low memory.
Regarding on whether who is suitable for this product. I think for those who wants fuss free protection will enjoy it. For gamers and people who like to tweak their computers, you may want to take a look at other Norton products that has you in mind.
Finally, I think Norton is going into the right direction to use community based advantage to report viruses or threat. In this technology age, social media and networking plays an important role. With their up-to-date protection, I think users can benefit from it.
However, there is no such product that can protect or prevent you from any harm (from viruses, malwares and etc), including Norton. At least, you know that Norton is at the top of the game, in my opinion.
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