NIS Netbook Edition

I just spotted the Symantec Norton Internet Security Netbook 2009, USB. This is a special NETBOOK EDITION



In a couple of weeks the free McAfee that came with my AO751h will be expired. Should I extend the McAfee subscribtion or would this NIS Netbook Edition be a better solution ?

 

All Norton or Symantec products are not good even for desktops. It probably will kill overall netbook performance as all products does that... There are much better alternatives.

 

Ah, ok, that is why they often rank so good

 

Their position in any rank depends on person doing them ranks. Believe me - I do work with PC last 7 or 8 years maybe more. Symantec products never been good from performance point of view. They do the job but still require a lot from PC. You can imagine then what they will pull from netbook...

 

That goes for your ranking too ot course

7 or 8 ? Thats not long, you must me a young dude ;-)

Are there any reviews available that compare the various netbook security suites that you know of ?

 

I'm not. I WORK with PCs on professional level - I'm not using them as toys - this part of my life I finished some while ago...

There is nothing available for netbooks. You need to do some research and choose for your self. All I can recommend is SpyBOT Search and Destroy(freeware). I use Avast for antivirus and sometimes online scanners. All this software does not require too much from netbook, works well in background and does not causing any problems with performance. You probably going to ask about firewall. I use WinXP one with some little tweaks - works rather well as I had no problems with "hackers" so far.

 

Norton and McAfee tend to use significant resources (memory, cpu etc). Netbooks by design are limited in resources. So its usually better to use a security solution that is lightweight. I do not know if this NIS would hog resources but I would be wary. I use Avast on my Acer One (ZG5). This is why melhiore recommends steering away from them.

 

There's a lot of holdover bad feeling for Norton from a few years ago. Now it's the best and lowest resource security available, but not cheap. Running NIS2009 standard (not netbook) on all my machines, including an old 866mhz Dell with 512 RAM, and it has virtually no performance impact. Norton bashers are flat out wrong about current offerings, though they had good reason to be sour prior to 2007 (I certainly was.) By comparison, McAfee has not improved its product by most reports.

However, I suggest waiting for post-Xmas sales - I haven't paid over $30 for NIS in several years, and you get three licenses with it for other computers (don't know what you'd get with a "netbook" version.) Once you've "timed" your annual subscription to start in January, you have an annual shot at a serious discount from a big box retailer. In the meantime, I'd look at the free new Microsoft Security Essentials (google some reviews)

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2 ... resses.ars

and Avira, both effective and light on resources, though might want to add a free firewall like ZoneAlarm or Comodo with either of those, depending on whether you use the netbook away from your home router sometimes.

 

I just noticed an announcement for a Security Suite Comparison Test in my favorite computer magazine next month. So I guess I have to at least wait till I have read that test.

 

Firewall

melhiore, You mentioned that you use a "tweaked" version of windows firewall - what would you recommend doing to it? I've got an A150 with Avast (and hopefully soon I'll get my WD Scorpio Blue 500gb HDD dropped in) and was wondering about a suitable firewall to run with Avast. I'm going away to SE Asia soon so I want to be as secure as poss - whilst at home I know I've got the peace of mind of the additional security afforded to me by my router.

I'm using Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-aware and Advanced Windows Optimizer - any other software recommendations guys?

 

Re: Firewall

Try one or another. Both programs performs similar operations so it's not recommended to have them both working in one system. I use only SpyBOT which does everything I'm expecting from this software.

I do not remember name of this utility. It's just GUI for ICF giving more flexibility then ICF it self. What I can suggest is using dedicated firewall from ZoneAlarm or Sygate - they are fine - doing the job and not killing performance.

 

Sorry, I'm not up on the technical terms, what are GUI and ICF?

Have you tried either of those firewalls along side Avast?


Bramster,

What were the results from the magaizne comparison?

 

GUI = Graphical User Interface - it's what you see on your screen.
ICF = Internet Connectivity Firewall - I think it's M$ name

 

Ah right, that's a bit clearer, thanks.

Have you tried either of the Firewalls that you mentioned on you netbook?

 

Apart from ZoneAlarm and Sygate Personal Firewall I wasn't testing anything else as both them firewalls working fine. Avast works on my netbook all the time, apart from that SpyBOT works continuously as well.

 

The magazine will hit the news stands next week.

 

Ah right, can you let us know what the results were?

Cheers.

 

Here's PC Mag, out this morning:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351871,00.asp

I tried the NIS2010 beta on my old 866mhz 512RAM Dell and it ran great.