Symantec: Norton Internet Security 2009 is “zero-impact security”

Symantec: Norton Internet Security 2009 is “zero-impact security”

Category

Internet Security

Symantec are making a bold claim for the forthcoming release of Norton Internet Security 2009. The claim is that the security software will have “zero-impact” on PC performance with Janice Chaffin, group president for Symantec’s consumer business stating:

People have told us ’security software is too big, it irritates me, I turn it off when I’m gaming’ … Fundamentally, consumers don’t want to be bothered at all. We’ve set as our goal zero-impact security.

In order to achieve this transparent protection Symantec has changed the way in which the 2009 product decides to scan a system. It takes into account whether a system has been infected before and only scans files that have changed if necessary, therefore drastically cutting down the amount of time spent scanning a machine.

Norton 2009 also has a number of other user-friendly changes. The first is a reduced installation time to just 1 minute, compared to the 8 minutes of the current release. Norton 2008 also had a 400 MB installation footprint where as 2009 will only be 100 MB. The reason for the reduced size is because Symantec feel a large footprint is seen as bloated when compared to competitors.

Norton Internet Security 2009 will be released in the fall.

Read more at PC Pro

Matthew’s Opinion

These all sound like great improvements for the product, but we need to see some real-world testing to get a gauge on what they have done.

The “zero-impact” statement sounds like a marketing term to me and reading more into Janice’s comments the PC’s resources will still be required when scanning, but the amount of scanning has been reduced significantly.

The reduced install time is very welcome and I hope they have done a similar pass on the uninstall; as I have been through some painful and very long experiences getting rid of their protection from a machine. They have to realise an uninstall can put you off a product regardless of how well it performed while you were using it.

I hope this is a trend they continue to follow with their products. Nobody wants to be sitting at their machine for double-digit minutes while software installs, and no one wants multiple system restarts either. Security software is now a mandatory installation on all PCs and therefore everything should be done to minimise its impact while it runs.

http://www.geek.com/symantec-norton-internet-security-2009-is-zero