Protect your computer against a terrorist strike!. Review on Norton Internet Security 2009

How well is your computer protected against "terror attacks"? "Very well", you say. But unless you are an expert on Windows or a geek who runs Linux, the chances are that you have left the doors wide open for identity theft or hacking. Studies have shown that while 80% of computer users have antivirus protection(in the west) only one third of them update the virus database regularly. Furthermore, only a measly 20% have anti-spyware protection on their systems.

These startling statistics about our lack of awareness and insensitivity towards a problem that we face everyday is what prompted many companies to switch from offering standalone AntiVirus solutions to comprehensive security suites. While an antivirus protects your system against viruses, provided their database is updated regularly, the security suite integrates a number of other layers of protection to this base.

Norton had always been at the forefront of the battle against the computer baddies, but their software had suffered bad press recently because they became behemoths which swallowed computer memory in huge chunks, and slowed down the overall performance of the computers on which they ran. As a result, their 2009 releases concentrated on making the software leaner, meaner and faster. Let us see what the end result is like!

Norton Internet Security 2009 offers an antivirus, firewall, rootkit and botnet protection, anti-malware, anti-spam, anti-phishing and identity protection, all rolled into one smooth package. The program installs quickly and starts automatically when you start your computer. All the essential items run by default, so you don't have to delve into the innards of the software to turn the protection on. It also updates automatically when you connect to the internet, and so you will never run into trouble because you "forgot to update".

Unlike other security software, it does not keep giving pop up alerts every time a software tries to access the net. I particularly liked the identity protection feature, which enables you to save passwords, credit card information, bank details etc in an encrypted format, much the same way that Roboform does. It also scans your "at risk" files automatically when the computer is idle, reducing the chances of an infection even if you are complacent.

An add on file is available for download, which enables you to activate parental control, and prevent your children from accidentally accessing pornography or other undesirable sites on the net. This whole package is available for a reasonable Rs. 2700(approximately) for a 3-PC, 1-year license(which means that you can install it on 3 different computers and that you will keep getting updates for one year from the date of the first installation). If you have a credit card, you can buy the same software for Rs. 2000 from

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Of course, you can use freeware alternatives, but you will need to download at least an antivirus(AVG, Avira or Avast), a firewall(Comodo), an anti-spyware(Spyware Doctor Starter Edition), an anti-spam(Spamhilator), a password protection software(KeePass) and a parental control software(K9) to do the same work, and when all of them are set to start up with Windows every time, it will slow down the computer quite a lot.