Internet Security Suite Comparison: Kaspersky vs. Norton – Part 2

Both internet security suites are offering what most customers would like to have: a malware, spyware, Trojan, rootkits, adware prevention and removal in addition browsing, email, instant messenger, intrusion and vulnerability risks protections. However, Kaspersky is featuring a cool Safe Run Mode (Sandbox), Game Mode and Virtual Keyboard. It also allow Kaspersky customers to use the Kaspersky Security Network, this is similar to Norton Community Watch in Symantec products.

NIS 2010 is featuring Silent Mode (for gamers), Norton Community Watch, System Insight, Norton Insight, Download Insight and File Insight. These features are helpful especially if the protection signatures by Norton currently do not have detection. It will help reduce infection by providing the end-user the initial information about the file: Malicious, suspect or safe. However, this feature can also put a PC in danger because the Insight feature will only give a warning or information on potential threats in a file but will not prevent the download. More information on this in Part 3 (Last Part) in this series of article.

The Parental Control feature in NIS 2010 is not installed by default which is odd to see in supposedly complete PC protection software. To take advantage of Parental Control by Symantec, you will have to sign-up for OnlineFamily service (free until January 2010 as of this writing) or download the free add-on pack to manually install Parental Control feature for NIS 2010.

When the system is idle, NIS 2010 will use 3.7MB of memory while KIS 2010 is using 2.7MB of memory only. During a system scan, KIS 2010 will use up to 15MB of memory while NIS 2010 will use 5MB. The system is a bit slow after installing KIS 2010 and during a full system scan but this performance issue disappears after a reboot. It’s best to restart the computer after installing KIS 2010, even if the program does not prompt for a restart. No such performance issue with NIS 2010.

I compared the quick and full system scan time and number of files that the two programs will do using its default settings:

A quick scan using KIS 2010 will finish in 3 minutes and 6 seconds and it has scanned 4,123 objects. NIS 2010 on the other hand finished in 67 seconds only and has scanned 6,128 objects. A full system scan using NIS 2010 has scanned a total of 559,954 objects in 40 minutes while KIS 2010 finished scanning a total of 552,377 objects in 44 minutes and 10 seconds. Both programs did not give false positive which is a good thing.

KIS 2010 and NIS 2010 includes a firewall protection to help prevent intruders or attackers in taking over your network or machine. Using the default intrusion protection rules by NIS 2010 is easy to understand but advanced users of a firewall will love the settings, options and more control in using controlling application and network traffics using KIS 2010.

Both programs have shown stealth state when I test using GRC Shields Up! And both programs have passed leak test. One thing I like with KIS 2010 is the handy command to block network traffic in its notification icon. NIS 2010 does not have this handy command in its icon. You have to open the settings to block the network traffic.

Create a Rescue Disk, troubleshoot Windows settings, tune-up browser setting, and erase your activities history, anti-banner and an option to roll back to previous version of database (detection signatures) are the extra features you’ll find in KIS 2010.

NIS 2010 extra features include application ratings, one click optimization of applications and performance viewer of applications. Note that the installation CD (the boxed version) of NIS 2010 includes a bootable RescueCD.