Norton 360 Version 3.0 Review

I have never been an admirer of the Norton's security solutions. That's not because Norton's products were bad at stopping viruses - on the contrary, this is somethig at which Norton have invariably excelled - but because they were big, clunky programs that often had a considerable impact on the performance of a PC. With solutions such as ESET Smart Security being able to offer excellent protection without making your computer run at the speed of molasses, Norton's resource-hungry products never seemed like a good choice. But it appears that Symantec have finally decided to pay attention to their critics. According to their website, Norton 360, "Provides industry-leading security without slowing you down — Runs fast and uses less memory than competing programs, so you won’t sacrifice performance for security." Let's see whether Norton 360 actually lives up to Symantec's claims.

Norton 360 is an exceptionally easy and speedy install. Simply download and run a small setup file and ... well, that's pretty much it. No need for complex configuration. No need for a reboot. Excluding download time, the process takes less than a minute.

Like most security suites, Norton 360 offers protection from viruses, spyware, rootkits, Trojans, keyloggers, worms, spam and includes a bi-direction firewall to protect your computer from external threats. But 360 also has some features that you will not find in most other security suites:

• Anti-phishing: 360 integrates with both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox to provide protection from phishing websites.
• Identity Protection: 360 acts as a password manager and offers secure login and form filling.
• Backup and Restore: 360 can be scheduled to backup your PC to backup media of your choosing or to Symantec's online backup website (each subscription includes 2 GB of online storage space, and additional space can be purchased as needed). Backing up can be an intimidating process for inexperienced users, but 360 makes it surprisingly easy.
• Parental Controls: via an optionally installed add-on. This feature uses the OnlineFamily.Norton service which is completely free until January 2010 (after that date, it will cost $60 per year). The parental controls built into other security suites are usually not particularly configurable and not particularly effective, but in my (limited) testing, 360's proved to be rather good.
• Performance Tools: to delete unwanted files, defragment and clean history and registry files. 360 also includes a feature referred to as Smart Startup Manager which monitors the performance impact of startup programs and advises you as to which you may wish to disable.

I can only assume that making 360 as easy to use as possible was one of Symantec's main design objectives. The product is exceptionally straightforward and even the most inexperienced of users will have absolutely no problem using it.

Norton products have always provided excellent security and 360 is certainly no exception. The protection is the product will provide is pretty much as good as you can get. Look at any independent test or comparative and you'll see that Norton is right up there with the very best of the bunch.

Norton products have a (not undeserved) reputation for being bloated resource-suckers. But if this is the reason that you've been avoiding Norton products like the plague for the last few years, then the time has come to give them a second chance. Norton 360 is excptionally light on resources, scan times are extremely speedy and the program has practically no impact on performace whatsoever. See the Performance Challenge on Norton's website and see how it compares to your current solution (while the results were based on the results of Symantec's in-house testing, having used the product, I do not find them particularly difficult to believe). Symantec really do deserve a hearty slap on the back for the improvements they have made.

At $79.99 for a 12 month/3 user license, Norton 360 is competitively priced. By way of comparison, ESET Smart Security and Kaspersky Internet Security cost $89.99 and $79.95 respectively - but neither has as many features as 360.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, I have never been an admirer of Norton products. But, with Norton 360, Symantec have managed to change my mind. This is an excellent product. If you're looking for an all-in-one security solution that's easy to use, comes at a great price and will provide your PC's with industry-leading protection, then Norton 360 fits the bill. Highly recommended (and I'm surprised to find myself saying that!).

Be sure to check out our review of other Norton products: Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton Antivirus 2009.