Norton 360

Since quite some time, Symantec’s Norton set of applications have been known to computer users — particularly the anti virus application. Over the past few years, Symantec has been bundling more and more applications into a single suite for Internet security. Recently I got my hands on a review copy of Norton 360 v6.0 and tested it on my system for a period. Lets’s see how it does.

UI

Norton 360 packs a simplistic UI. The application’s start page is divided into 4 sections; each highlighting the various areas of protection it offers — PC Security ( Virus/Malware  Prevention/Firewall), Identity ( Phishing Protection/Password Management), Backup ( file backup) and PC tuneup( general maintenance). Norton 360 also has a separate section for scheduling tasks and looking at the system performance. The start page also has an activity map of cyber-crime activity across the world.

PC Security

Norton is quite well known for their anti-virus lineup. The PC security section handles tasks related to anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spyware, intrusion prevention, incoming/outgoing email scanning and firewall.

The PC Security tab allows you to check on previous scan results, run scans on demand & check for updates to definitions. Clicking on “Run Scan” brings up the option to start an anti-virus scan. Like most anti-virus programs, there’s an option of running a quick scan which checks the most essential files, a full scan which performs a through scan and does a backup and a custom scan/task which allows you to customize what to scan and what to backup.

The scan Facebook wall is a nice feature; it goes through your Facebook Wall and checks that the posted links are safe. With additional permissions, you can configure Norton Safe Web to automatically scan links and auto-post them to your if it’s not malicious — a nice way to keep your Facebook account clean.

Identity

The identity section manages the features in ensuring your online identity is not compromised. Features included in this section are

• Norton Safe Web
• Antiphishing
• Identity safe

Norton Safe Web installs an add-on to your browser & uses Norton Safe Web service and looks up the site’s ratings and review, much like Web of Trust. Identify safe is Norton’s solution for a password manager, much like LastPass. In addition to passwords, Identity Safe also allows you to save Notes and Credit Card details — all behind a master password that you’ll need to enter to open the safe.

If you login to a site that you haven’t visited before, Norton will offer to save your credentials, which can be autofilled in when you next visit the site. This is a nice and recommended way of password management since you’ll have to remember only the master password to unlock the safe — the others will be autofilled. You can also configure Identity Safe passwords to be transferred to your Norton account so that you can access it from any computer which has internet access.

For all the nice things about Identity safe, I’m pretty disappointed because of a lack of Generate New Password option. A password manager without the capability to generate passwords is just flawed.