Pros: All in one security package. Decent price after rebates. Seems to work well.
Cons: Download from Symantec is a bit confusing. Traffic blocking not intuitive. Pay-for support is expensive.
The Bottom Line: The product seems to perform as promised, but I suggest that you follow the installation instructions. It's not very intuitive; novice computer users may have difficulty customizing.
blueorbit's Full Review: Symantec Norton Internet Security 2003 (10024885) ...
My system: AMD 600MHz, 768MB RAM, 128MB ATI Radeon, Cable Modem, Windows XP-HE-SP1. The OS installation was made on a reformatted hard drive less than 1 week prior to installing this software so the OS is very new.
Similar product experience: Prior to the installation of the new OS I had used NAV 2001, the free ZoneAlarm, and PanicWare's PopUpStopper.
The purchase & download: I purchased the product from the Symantec website and chose the download option without the 1 year, $5.00, download extension option. The item you first download is essentially an instructional program that downloads the real program once you run it. There's a significant amount of software to download so go grab a beer while you wait. My only complaint here is that I lost track of what I should backup and save in case I need to reinstall this again. During the installation you are notified that you can only the download the software a limited number of times, but... it never gave the limit.
The installation: Like most people I usually fly on through a software install, but I've read a lot of very negative user-reviews from many different web sites about installation nightmares of NIS-2003 so I took my time and carefully read every word of advice the install program provided and followed every piece of instruction it gave. The installation went without a hitch.
The configuration: I would have to say that this is the programs weak spot. I definitely consider myself to be a computer savvy person, but the configuration portion after the installation was a little less than intuitive. There's definitely some reading to be done and some things I just left at the default because I couldn't really understand what a change would mean; this particularly applies to the the program Internet access control section. People who have used Norton products in the past will be able to pick their way around with a little practice.
The performance issue: I had read dozens of reviews by users who complained that NIS-2003 was a major resource hog and bogged their system down to a crawl. Prior to installation I took down some numbers from the performance tab of my task manager. After installation my available memory dropped by 26.3MB (from 644.7MB to 618.4MB) and processor usage increased an average of 3% (from 2% to 5%). The processor tends to spike more often than I had noticed in the past, but this doesn't appear to have any sort of a negative impact thus far. I forgot to measure Internet connection speeds before installation, but there has not been a noticeable decrease in transfer rates.
The actual program performance: I left the program Internet access control set to AUTOMATIC for everything. Norton has apparently gone through the task of making a list of "good" programs that should have access to the Internet and so far every program I have run has been granted access. The AlertTracker notifies you when a program has been given access. I downloaded the Trojan Horse test program from Gibson Research (grc.com) and the Norton Firewall picked up the program and asked me how to handle the attempted Internet access... just like it's supposed to.
NAV 2001 always worked like a charm for me and I was on the receiving end of dozens of infected e-mail during the Klez peak... so I expect NAV 2003 to be no different. NAV 2003 was even easier than NAV 2001 in that my server names didn't change in Outlook.
The Ad blocker seems to work fairly well. I've noticed lots of white spaces on various websites as I surf around.
Summary: Like I mentioned before, I have seen a lot of bad reviews on NIS-2003 and I was pretty scared about buying it. I looked high and wide for a good one-size-fits-all alternative, but I simply could not find one. Any alternatives required that I buy or d/l software from many different vendors. After talking with an uncle, who is a computer consultant, I decided to take a chance. I committed myself to be really diligent and careful during the installation and configuration. I did not encounter even one problem during the entire process. The program lacks simplicity, but keep in mind that it's really a bundle of many programs in one. New users may become overwhelmed trying to figure out how to customize and set things up.
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