Norton 2009: Gamer gives Norton 9 out of 10

A gamer reviews Norton Internet Security Suite and awards it 9 out of 10 – see what he has to say!

Gamers who received a copy of Norton Internet Security Suite 2009 were required to give back a 50 word review … but some of them were so impressed, they wrote more.

Hadokyuu writes:

Norton and me have something in common: we don’t like each other. Norton wants to protect my computer, even from myself sometimes, and I don’t appreciate software being more intrusive than my mother.

Apparently, someone at Symantec showed Norton how to grow up; Norton and I now get along, and that’s thanks to the most radical transformation imaginable for a security product.

I got a copy of Norton Internet Security Suite 2009 at the Sydney Gamers League event in October at Hunters Hill. All I had to do was review it, although I didn’t realise how easy that would be.

Firstly, the look from Norton 2008 has changed, and it’s more befitting of a security product than an alien on your machine. It’s easy to install, taking around a minute, and it updates quickly too.

Speaking of updates, the LiveUpdate rubbish has been dropped from last year’s version. Thank you Symantec. Thank you.

Moving on, the main criteria that was sold at SGL was the ‘silent mode’ feature. The head admin explained that it made Norton run in the background, protecting but not interrupting your system. It all sounded a bit like a miracle drug to me, but you never look a gift horse in the mouth, so I tried it out anyway.

And what do you know? The admin was right, although it’s in conjunction with the new pulse updating system, which relies upon micro definition files that updates every few minutes. I never saw a defintion file older than five minutes, which was astonishing. I wonder how fast they’d update if a new worm started doing the rounds.

I never had any troubles playing a game or watching a movie. I do the occasional bit of video editing as well – Norton didn’t bother me then either. Thoughtfulness is a trait I appreciate, but it’s not something I expect from a security solution.

The rest of the features weren’t that useful to me, like the Identity or Password Manager, so I turned those off when I can. But for what it’s worth, I’m extremely impressed with the Norton Internet Security Suite. The only catch is that if I had to make a reccommendation, I’d go for the anti-virus by itself, which is only $40 a year, rather than the full security suite. But I’m sure Symantec won’t mind – after all, at least someone is reccomending their product, which is leaps and bounds ahead of the shoddy reputation Norton products have received in the past.

Score: 9/10