Cuddling up to a security blanket

By PETER GRIFFIN

Walk into any Dick Smith or Noel Leeming electronics store these days and you'll find at least half a shelf of uniform yellow boxes.

That's because yellow is the colour security software maker Symantec swathes its products in.

Providing security software has become big business for Symantec and its competitors.

By now you may have had your web browser hijacked, your PC rendered inoperable by some nasty virus or, God forbid, been ripped off in some financial "phishing" scam.

With around 65 per cent of worldwide email estimated to be spam, you've definitely come to loathe trawling through the junk mail in your inbox.

According to IDC, Symantec has 33 per cent of the security software market, the largest single share among the software vendors.

It's worth checking out, then, just what next year's line-up of Symantec's Norton security software has to offer.

Norton Internet Security 2005

The most noticeable thing about NIS 2005 is its user-friendliness and the way it integrates a key set of security features.

A central panel gives you an instant overview of the health of your PC security. If the screen is green you're in the clear, but if there are any red segments you need to pay attention.

A thorough scan after installation will inspect every last file on your computer. NIS picked up nine viruses on my neglected machine. It dealt to six of them, unable to delete the rest, but quarantined them so they could cause no further harm.

Norton's flagship product bundles in a firewall, anti-virus software, anti-spam software for filtering your email and parental and privacy controls.

The firewall is at the centre of protection, particularly for those on high-speed internet connections that may be permanently connected to the web. It will scan every connection to the internet, detecting "port scans" and intercepting known "worms" designed to infect your system through your connection to the web.

NIS automatically recognises around 1700 programs that connect to the web. You'll be expected to okay ones not on the list.

You can set your level of security based on your tolerance for alerts popping up, as they will do as usual traffic is detected.

A new feature will automatically switch your firewall back on if, because of some software clash, you have had to temporarily disable it.

You can also train the firewall to suit your needs and check out statistics on data usage.

The antivirus software scans incoming and outgoing email, and instant messenger traffic and attachments looking for known viruses. As well as viruses, spyware and key-logging programs, web-hijacks and internet diallers are also scanned.

Well respected for the effectiveness of its virus scanning, Norton's usefulness to you depends on regularly downloading the latest virus definitions. The Liveupdate feature with help you do this.

Norton Antispam takes care of your mailbox, scanning your email for junk messages and giving you flexibility to set up "rules" for what you do and do not want to receive.

You can whitelist people in your address book to avoid them being mistaken for junk mail.

The software will work with just about any POP mail client you're using as well as webmail such as Hotmail and now Yahoo Mail.

Two other useful components dealing with privacy and parental control are thrown in.

NIS features a sealed, encrypted database into which you can store all your personal passwords and account information, safe from bots sent to sniff out such information on your hard drive.

In theory, everything you enter into this database is prevented from being passed to internet websites or being sent in emails or instant messaging sessions - unless you authorise it.

You'd think putting all your sensitive information in one database is asking for every hacker in the world to have a go at cracking it, but Symantec is confident there's no access to the information without permission.

A browser privacy feature provides a degree of anonymous browsing by suppressing standard information about you and your machine that is normally broadcast via your web browser.

An excellent feature lets you enter password and credit card details only into approved websites. You'll be alerted, therefore, if you try to enter such information through a webpage that is mimicking the real page - a common trick of web fraudsters who mirror everything from eBay's account page to bank account log-in screens.

The parental lock is intelligent, letting you restrict specific websites or types of websites. You can even ban the use of Instant Messenger or prevent applications from connecting to the internet. Password controls stop your settings from being tampered with.

Norton 2005 seems less intrusive than previous versions but still expect to be faced regularly with dialogue boxes as your web behaviour changes. But such an expansive product suite will chew into your computer processing power.

NIS sometimes takes several seconds to respond and switch between management screens.

* Price: $170 (upgrade $110, renewal $30). Personal Firewall, Antispam and AntiVirus are also sold separately.

Norton GoBack 4.0

Believe it or not, no matter what you do on your computer, it can be undone. GoBack allows you to "roll back" your system to the state it was in before a major change you made threw a spanner in the works.

You can rescue deleted files and set rules to stop changes being made to your system. A new "safetry" lets you test new settings and introduce software without bringing your computer to its knees.

* Price: $90 (upgrade $70).

Norton Ghost 9.0

Ghost, the New Zealand-developed software that lets you take a snapshot of your hard drive to protect yourself from losing everything, wasn't updated last year.

With Ghost you can easily back up your hard drive to DVD, CD, floppy disk or other hard drives. In the new version, that image can now be mounted on your computer as a drive letter for easy access.

"Hot imaging" means you no longer have to boot out of Windows to back up.

* Price: $170 (upgrade $110).

Norton SystemWorks 2005

SystemWorks includes GoBack, but also a suite of tools to clean up your computer and run diagnostics to check you are getting the performance out of the hardware you should be getting.

* Price: $170 (upgrade $110, subscription renewal $25).

Norton PartitionMagic 8.0

A useful tool for those wanting to keep data separate for security reasons or those looking to run Linux and Windows on the same computer neatly. PartitionMagic divides up your hard drives and sets rules about their use. Windows does some of these functions already, but PartitionMagic is useful for those wanting greater control.

* Price $130 (upgrade $90).

The security mix

Internet Security and Ghost are a good combination for the average home-user. Keeping your hard drive tidy can largely be done using existing tools, and if you use Ghost to mirror your hard drive regularly, you'll avoid losing everything. GoBack and SystemWorks are better suited to more sophisticated users.


Symantec