Applelinks.com: Review - Norton Internet Security

Macs hold a special place in the world of the Internet. While the PC users squirm against 28,365 viruses (as of July 31, 2003), Macs must struggle against 65 (12 of which are Hypercard viruses). Admittedly, there are a couple of thousand Macro viruses that can effect either PC or Mac versions of Microsoft Word and/or Excel. Either way, it's a rougher life for PC users. All that notwithstanding, not having something to prevent viruses on your Mac all depends on how important is the stuff on your computer and how lucky you feel.

New with Norton Internet Security 3, one cannot boot up off the CD to search and/or remove viruses from your computer--you can only install the software. That's not necessarily a bad thing because you are supposed to get software like this before you have a virus. Once installed however, Norton Internet Security does not want to be ignored or forgotten. More on that later.

As with NIS 2, one receives Norton Anti-Virus, Norton Personal FireWall, Norton Privacy Control, and Aladdin's iClean. Dropped from this version is "Who's There," a tracing software for FireWall attacks, but the features of Who's There remain as they are now built into Norton FireWall.

When Opening the CD, you will find options to load the Classic version and/or the OS X version. Either way, Symantec points out the following new features for NIS.

About a year ago, I reviewed Norton SystemWorks 2 and Norton Internet Security 2. These had OS X functioning programs, but one could not boot up in OS X from the CD. Thus, one either repaired the OS while in OS 9 (Macs could boot into OS 9 way back then) or, if one had partitioned his hard drive into two (and had a system on both), one could repair the one that wasn't the start-up volume. Now, one cannot start up off the NIS CD, so the whole issue is moot.

If you have installed both Norton Internet Security and Norton SystemWorks, when launching, one is presented with the "Norton Launcher" with all the possible selections shown below. If you have only installed Internet Security, one will find only three buttons: AntiVirus, Personal FireWall, and Privacy Control.

Norton AntiVirus

Probably the biggest change in Norton AntiVirus is that Symantec wants to enlists all the Mac users help in slowing down the deluge of PC viruses. New with this version is that Macs can identify and eradicate PC viruses.

Keep in mind, as Symantec has added all the PC virus definitions to the Mac collection, we are talking about over 28 thousand pieces of information. These are to be updated at least monthly if not more often for the "all-to-often" surprise PC virus scares. There are two ways one can obtain the updates for NAV: the least desired is to download the full collection. For the recent set of definitions, this is a 5.6 MB compressed file. For those on modems this can be overly intrusive and expensive. Alternatively one can use the Live Update feature and this will update any new information that you currently do not have. A considerable time saver but at the price of intrusiveness. [See LiveUpdate further down in this review for more information.]

Using Macs to seek and destroy PC viruses is not as hairbrained as it seems. I have received more than my share of virus-containing spam over the years at my work. At one time, I was getting so many, I sent a small collection of them over to the IT administrators asking why I was receiving so many of these if the school's computer virus filters were all they were cracked up to be. They were not amused.

However, since that period, the school's filters do seem to be working better, and I've not received one in quite some time. As such, I have not been able to test these aspects of NAV. However, as Symantec promises, if a known Mac or PC virus is detected, it will be flagged, repaired, or (a new third option) "quarantined." These files are kept "locked up" until some future time where they can ostensibly be repaired. Meanwhile, they cannot perform any evil action. That's cool, but you can also delete the file(s), and, for me, that makes a lot of sense as well.

Regardless, the quarantine feature is important if you just received your corporate report and it's been infected and the guy that just put it together is dead because his office has blown up and there's no other way to get the data but the file has a new unknown virus and NAV doesn't know how to repair it so you quarantine the file until perhaps next month (or so) when you can repair the file and get out of the accusations of insider trading. Wellllll...you get the idea (and I apologize for that last sentence).

One feature that has come and gone over the various versions of NAV is a "hot" key feature for the scanning of removable media. The vast majority of removable media I place in my computer are those that I use to move files between work and home. It is so seldom that I place other people's media in my computer that it can be counted on one hand for the year. That's why I prefer to have a "hot" key (such as press the Shift key) to examine these disks. Removed once again in this version is this "hot" key. However, in a very nice compromise, one can "hide" the resultant window that pops up examining the disk. For me, I don't care if NAV is examining my disks every time I insert a disk if I am not interrupted each time.

Curiously I could find no information on this preference in the manual. For your benefit, I have the cursor showing where to turn the scanning results widow on/off in the screen shot below. Its default is on, so beware.

On the other hand, if you download a file that must be decompressed by Stuffit to create (say) a ".dmg" file, Norton AntiVirus will open, scan the file and just sit there looking at you. It looks like this:

You have two choices, have compressed files such as these scanned, or not. You do not have the option of "let me know if there's a virus, otherwise, please do not bother me."

Norton FireWall

When I received Norton Internet Security 2 and installed it, in a few minutes I found that Norton had already blocked several attempts to get into my computer. At that time I had a different DSL provider. I wish I could remember the protocol they had, but I was told that it was Mac-friendly. Since then, they have gone the way of all good things and the people I have now are not so Mac friendly. Symantec does warn users that some of the features of FireWall (such as Stealth mode which turns off a computer's response to pings) are not compatible with all Internet Service Providers.

Surprisingly, I did not have any problems with the Stealth mode, but I did have major problems with "Enabling suspicious activity protection for denying incoming suspicious traffic." When I had that turned on, I couldn't use a web browser. I tried to fine-tune the settings to let these type of activities be allowed, but to no avail. On the other hand, I could deny outgoing suspicious traffic with no web browsing problems. However, that is for not letting your computer perform activities when controlled by a virus or worm. That's all well and good, but it does not help me prevent outsiders from getting in.

Among the kinds of problems one can have when using FireWalls is that if you occasionally need to FTP some web pages to a site, you may find this activity prevented by your FireWall. To help you overcome this the easiest way possible, Symantec provides a new menu icon called Norton QuickMenu. It lets you turn off your FireWall in a quick and easy fashion. The problem with things like this is that it is all too easy to forget to turn the FireWall back on once your activities are completed. Well, Symantec thought of a splendid way around this. The other option Symantec provides is to turn off your FireWall temporarily. When selected, you are provided a box to enter how many minutes you want the FireWall turned off. Once those number of minutes are completed, your FireWall is back on. Simple and brilliant.

Norton provides a security check on their site that will examine the safety of your computer. You can try it here. Funny thing is, I tried this with Norton FireWall turned on and then turned off, and both times I received a passing grade.

For what it's worth, Apple does provide a limited FireWall protection capability. (You find this in Control Panel -> Sharing -> FireWall.)

Norton Privacy Control

While some may argue whether privacy is a right under the constitution, few would argue that opening ourselves to the web is likely to decrease our privacy. Whether it's unwanted spam, unwanted adds, or our kids viewing unwanted web sites, NPC can provide some level of help. It's not perfect, but it is better than nothing.

There are three features to NPC, Ad Blocking, Confidential Data, and Parental Control.

Ad Blocking looks for a variety of html codes, some as blatant as comments within the page that say "Ad Space" and prevent the image from downloading into the browser. While this is a "nice thing to do," it can be more significant than that. Especially if you are on a modem and you are trying to have as fast a download experience as possible, all those adds can slow browsing down. Below is a screen shot for the web site of the Los Angeles Times. On the left is the normal page with adds allowed and on the right is after I turned off adds. The only other option with this feature is to have a small graphic turned set to replace the location of a removed add. This did not always work and occasionally adds would get through.

Symantec claims that Norton Privacy Control will prevent JavaScript Popup adds, but I saw no option (preference) to turn them off and they continued to show up despite the add blocking feature set. What I sometimes saw were no add in the popup adds. I also felt it worked better in Internet Explorer than Safari, but I didn't make any counts on this--just general observation. Ad Blocking can be improved.

Confidential Data assumes you are on a network and you do not necessarily trust everyone on that network. It lets you drag documents to a special window where they will be blocked from people and prevent them from downloading the files. Alternatively it does let you identify web sites that can receive any selected document. What it can't seem to do is let Bill and Joe have access to the document while Fred and John cannot. While it would be nice to have this option, it might give Fred and/or John the excuse they need to beat the tar out of Bill or Joe so as to get access to their computers and download documents they else wise shouldn't. Just a guess...

Parental Control provides four mechanisms for website restriction. One is categories of pages to block. These range from religion to violence and web chat to sports, and of course things related to sex and nudity. There are 30 in all of these predefined types, but there is no ability to add your own or edit the parameters of control. However, you can work with the 2nd level of control: add specific web pages by copying and pasting the URL into a box. Similarly you can allow access into other sites that would otherwise be blocked. The classic example of this is to block access to breasts, but allow access to (specific) sites involved in breast cancer. If in doubt, there is a 4th level of control that provides, when accessing a web page that is not in any of those already stated, a level of control Norton Parental Control will, or will not block access to the site.

My wife and I some time ago decided we would not get blocking software for our kids but do what we can to monitor what they do on the computer. Yes, we cannot monitor them all day, but we do have reasonably open dialogs with them and do what we can. While we realize this is not perfect, I do not see that Parental Control is either. Our kids are teenagers and we cannot monitor them 100% of the time. If they were much younger, we could monitor them extensively (and did). We cannot teach them to grow up if we do not let them.

While Norton Privacy Control does provide a reasonable range of features, I'm not sure there are any that I couldn't live without.

Norton LiveUpdate

As mentioned earlier, Norton LiveUpdate does for Symantec's programs as Apple's Software Update does for the Mac OS and their digital hub software. Norton LiveUpdate is also part of the Norton SystemWorks package. The one problem I had with NLU is how intrusive it is. When it starts up, one sees the following on their screen.

While the LiveUpdate is running, you might as well get a cup of coffee. It does not want to run in the background and it doesn't want to be moved from wherever it places itself on the screen. LiveUpdate doesn't play friendly, it plays as if it's the only kid on the playground.

Conclusion

As far as viruses go, it's a wonder that more businesses who care about their operations and/or data don't use Macs. When you consider how much havoc has been done to businesses due to lost time and IT expense, it's a wonder how some of these businesses make any fiscally responsible decisions. But as they say, that's their business.

That notwithstanding, I repeat: if the data on your computer is important, than it's probably worth getting some anti-virus protection. Norton AntiVirus can, and does do a fine job in this endeavor.

But if you have purchased Norton SystemWorks, you already have Norton AntiVirus. The question here has to be is it worth getting a 2nd copy of something you already have and get Norton FireWall which may or may not be needed and Norton Privacy Control so you can turn off ads. Keep in mind that iClean also is bundled with Norton System Works. In my view, there's not much to recommend this as a separate purchase.

While some may know that they need advanced FireWall protection, many other people will not. I hate to deny potential protection to those who don't know if they need it or not, but these people are likely to be totally satisfied with the FireWall protection provided by Apple. If you know you need very customizable FireWire Solutions, I strongly recommend you get Norton Internet Security.

Review: Norton Internet Security

Norton AntiVirus

Norton FireWall

Norton Privacy Control

Norton LiveUpdate

Conclusion

Cool Mac Gear