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Follow UsBANGALORE, INDIA:Norton and PC Tools released their re-spective security suites for the coming year. Let's check what's new in bothand which one best suits your needsWe start off by looking at the new features of both security software:
Norton Internet Security Suite 2010The new features include Norton System Insight, Parental controls, Threat in-sight and Norton file insight. Norton's system insight feature shows a clear picture of amount of the CPU resources being used. It also tells you about the number of downloads and scans done in the recent past. The Parental control features lets you keep an eye on the online behavior of your kid from any computer connected to the Internet.
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While Norton's Internet Security Suite lays emphasis on making the system more performance oriented, the focus of PC tools is to make the entire suite more affordable. The suite constitutes antispam, malware detector and removal tools, antivirus software, plus the improved Threat Fire behavioral detection engine.
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Installation and interface
This time Norton has reduced the timetaken to install the software, and as compared to previous versions, the installation was smoother and faster. Once the installation was over, the service is ready to run. The user interface is robust and well designed and gives a clear picture of controls and features provided by the suite.
| Comparing various Features of Norton and PC Tools | ||
| Features | NORTON | PCTools |
| Memory Requirements | 1 Gb | Less than 1 gb |
| Number of viruses detected | 6125 | 9063 |
| Number of viruses automatically deleted | 6125 | 3367 |
| Full system scan | 2hrs | 45 min |
| System Interface | More interactive than PC tools | Less features |
PC Tools spyware doctor
The installation is quick and easier. After installation the software prompts for live updates which take less very less time. Once the setup is over, a message asks for deactivating Windows firewall since the software itself provides firewall features. You can download the trial version of the software. Whenever Windows is re-booted, it runs an automatic scan.
The interface shows five buttons on the left: status,start scan, intelliGuard, tools and settings. The rest consists of services which are activated: antivirus, antispyware, firewall and antispam. On the page you can see the start scanning button. Under the scan button,you can get information on the history and general settings. On the left side you can get information about subscription validity,last scan details, etc.
You can also browse through the time taken by PC Tools to scan the systems. You can also access the guard tools provided by PC Tools to protect every aspect of your system connected to Internet via IntelliGuard. The guards include Behav-ior, Browser, Cookie, Email, File, Immunizer, Network, Process, Site, and Startup. Each one contains a small link to the above mentioned exclusion list, an on/off toggle,and relevant settings.
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You can see detailed results of full system scan and threats resolved by NORTON Internet Security Suite 2010. |
| The figure shows the scan progress and the infections detected and resolved by PCTools. You can get all details related to threats detected. |
Performance
The performance of Norton on our system with 2 GB of RAM was average. Eventhough Norton promised to score on this front but still much improvement is needed. It does make the system a bit slower. PCTools scored more here as it takes minimum memory and does not affect system performance. It took about 2 hrs to do a full system scan as compared to PC Tools which scanned the system in 45 minutes. It can be said on the basis of the test that the system with large number of files will take Norton more time for scanning.
The antivirus test revealed that even though Norton was able to track more than half of the total viruses, still it left out many of the files undetected,however it was able to delete all the detected files completely. PC Tools on the other hand surprisingly detected more infections as compared to Norton but it removed lesser number automatically, ie many infections were detected as harmful and PC Tools required permission to delete them. Norton however deleted many of the infected files on its own.
Conclusion If you don't want your system to become slower during virus scan then choose PC Tools. But if you want a more interactive,transparent and detailed interface then go for Norton. PC Tools is less expensive and hence should be more attractive to light users then its other competitors and on an average the overall performance was satisfactory. Norton focused more on the accessibility and improving the transparent exposure on performance is worthwhile to check too. The new features introduced are worth checking out however more emphasis on the virus detection is expected in the future.
Nidhi Sharma