Norton 360

The bottom line: Norton 360 version 5 maintains the Norton brand's recent strong performance record and introduces some useful new features, bringing recent improvements to Norton Internet Security 2011 to the more expensive 360 while also improving the program's feature set. Symantec believes Norton is the premiere security product around, so don't be surprised at Norton 360's price tag

Review: 

Over the past few years, Symantec has completed a course reversal for its Norton consumer Internet security suites. The massive package of security tools works better than it ever has before, with an impressive set of features, some useful new tools including the free Power Eraser, and third-party security efficacy benchmarks that are nothing short of remarkable. Meanwhile, CNET Labs' performance benchmarks indicate that though Norton doesn't leave the smallest footprint on your system, users should see a minimal impact overall.

Version 5 of Norton 360 includes the real-time threat map that debuted in Norton's 2011 consumer suites, along with all the features that were introduced in Norton's 2011 consumer suites last fall. These include updates to Norton's Insight engine, which instantly checks a file's origins and how long it's existed to determine how safe it is. The new version of System Insight also profiles your programs to determine if any of them are slowing down system performance, and automatically alerts you when a program is eating up too many resources.

There's also the Norton Bootable Recovery Tool, which will clean heavily infected systems enough to get Norton 360 installed, and can create a rescue tool on disc or USB so that your computer can be resuscitated. The backup features in Norton 360 have been improved, too, adding in automatic file encryption to the backup process. Lastly, Norton Safe Web's social-media scanner has been imported from Norton Internet Security 2011. Currently, it still only supports Facebook, though that's a good start: it will check your Facebook wall and news feeds from within Norton. There's also a link in the threat map to Norton's new Cybercrime Index, a free online service which summarizes the real-time threatscape in a Body Mass Index-style number and provides a lot of threat-related data.

Installation
For the second year in a row, Norton's former sluggish beast now offers a smooth and fast installation operation. 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. One of the new features in Norton 360 v5 is that the program comes with a Web interface for your desktop. You first encounter this when registering, but it pops up in regular program usage as well, so you don't need to open your browser to manage certain Web-based features. Uninstalling the software left about 10 Registry entries behind, but no other traces were detectable. Overall, Norton's installation experience was fast and hassle-free, with a minimum of configuration options, which all appeared necessary.

DOWNLOAD