Norton Internet Security 2011 Full Product
Symantec has moved Norton 360 to the same release schedule as Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus, making them into a three-tiered strategy for consumer security. Norton AntiVirus is the entry-level product, with Norton Internet Security occupying the middle rung and Norton 360 aimed at people who want the most bang for the most buck.
Notoriously slow to respond to trends, the consumer security field is surprisingly not taking Windows 8 lying down. Norton and many of its competitors are optimizing their suites for Microsoft's new operating system ahead of its release, and Norton is combining that strategy with efforts to protect you on social networks, protection against scams and other social engineering attacks, and a bolstered firewall.
Installation
Norton has gone to great lengths to improve its installer over the past three years, and it finally figured out how to bring you a feature we'd been long requesting: the restartless install. It may sound minor to longtime PC fans, but it makes a huge difference in your workflow. It's what people expect from mobile, so why not on Windows?
Once you run the installer, the program is ready to operate in about a minute -- impressively fast, and doubly so considering past performance. The installation process is also the first time that you will interact with Quorum, Norton's behavior-based detection engine. You'll be asked to participate by sending anonymous data to Symantec's cloud. Opting out of the data submission, according to Symantec, will not affect your security.
Running the trial of Norton also requires registering the program. Like many programs, Norton used to force your default browser to open and take you to the company's registration Web site. However, version numbers have largely gone the way of the mobile app. That is, just as mobile app version numbers aren't readily exposed, neither are they readily apparent in Norton, either. The idea is that, like Chrome's and Firefox's rapid-release cycles, new features will be pushed to Norton more often than once a year, and updates will be seamless.
Will it happen? That's hard to say, given the Windows security business' glacial pace of improvement. But it's certainly a step in the right direction that Norton competitors would do well to emulate.
Overall, Norton's installation experience was fast and hassle-free, with a minimum of configuration options, which all appeared necessary.
Interface
All the Norton products received a major overhaul this year as the interface has been optimized for touch screens and Windows 8. That doesn't mean that the advanced customizations aren't available, but there's no question that the new Norton design is focused on the future.
The design features four Windows 8-style tiles in the middle of a gray box. It's strongly influenced by Windows 8 design, but it actually isn't designed for the Metro side of Windows 8 -- it opens in a single window in Desktop mode.
There's one big color scheme difference between Norton 360 and the AntiVirus and Internet Security suites. Whereas those suites have the feature "tiles" in black, 360 is in yellow with fonts in white. It renders the user interface horribly garish, and the white on yellow is difficult to read.
Questionable colors aside, there are only minor differences between the versions. 360's tiles access Security, Identity, Backup, and Tuneup, while the other two focus on security status, Scan Now, LiveUpdate, and Advanced. At the top, there's navigation to Tasks, Settings, the Performance window, Feedback, Account details, and Support. On the right, there are icons to link you to device management for remotely controlling cross-device Norton installations on the same account; the QR code for Android under Mobile; Online Family for parental controls; and Safe Web for verifying URLs and search queries as safe.
Norton 360 also offers a link to Norton Studio, the oddly named Windows 8 app for managing your Norton account.
The interface is easy to use on Windows 8, as that's what it's been designed for. It's also effective on a Windows 7 computer. Despite the size of the main screen "tiles," it didn't feel awkward with a mouse. Likewise on Windows 8, we had no problem targeting the text based links deeper down in the settings.
However, some of the legacy features from last year, like the real-time Performance charts, look small on Windows 8. A redesign here would've been appreciated. Instead, much like Windows 8 itself, the Norton suites feel like they straddle the Metro and Desktop worlds. Most of the time it works. Occasionally, it's a bit weird, but it's never unusable.
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