Norton Internet Security 2002 Professional Edition

Rating:
Summary: Not recommended for professionals running NT
Review: I have used the Family edition of Norton Internet Security at home for two years. I have been very happy with the Family edition.

Symantec misleads end users when they advertise that Norton Internet Security 2002 Professional edition (NIS Pro) provides a "User Access Manager (that) lets you set different Internet access privileges from a single workstation for members of your workgroup also running Norton Internet Security Professional Edition software on their PCs." Reading that, I thought I could set up Internet access privileges for everyone in the office from one workstation. Not so! Instead, the manual tells you to configure one workstation, export the settings to a file and then import the file to the other workstations. After spending a fair amount of time configuring the "Master" machine, NIS Pro would not export the settings and neither their manual nor their website offered anything helpful on the subject. After almost three hours on Symantec's paid telephone support line (no free installation support is available), their experts could not help export the settings to the other workstations. Now I need to configure another workstation manually (and perhaps eight more if the "User Access Manager" fails again). This will take many hours.

Furthermore, since NT server installation is not supported, my network consultant tells me the installation of NIS Pro's firewall module on the workstations but not the server is seriously flawed. It's like closing the windows but leaving the front door wide open!

I don't recommend this product for professionals with NT servers. I also don't recommend it to anyone hoping to take advantage of a helpful "User Access Manager".

Rating:
Summary: Not recommended for professionals running NT
Review: I have used the Family edition of Norton Internet Security at home for two years. I have been very happy with the Family edition.

Symantec misleads end users when they advertise that Norton Internet Security 2002 Professional edition (NIS Pro) provides a "User Access Manager (that) lets you set different Internet access privileges from a single workstation for members of your workgroup also running Norton Internet Security Professional Edition software on their PCs." Reading that, I thought I could set up Internet access privileges for everyone in the office from one workstation. Not so! Instead, the manual tells you to configure one workstation, export the settings to a file and then import the file to the other workstations. After spending a fair amount of time configuring the "Master" machine, NIS Pro would not export the settings and neither their manual nor their website offered anything helpful on the subject. After almost three hours on Symantec's paid telephone support line (no free installation support is available), their experts could not help export the settings to the other workstations. Now I need to configure another workstation manually (and perhaps eight more if the "User Access Manager" fails again). This will take many hours.

Furthermore, since NT server installation is not supported, my network consultant tells me the installation of NIS Pro's firewall module on the workstations but not the server is seriously flawed. It's like closing the windows but leaving the front door wide open!

I don't recommend this product for professionals with NT servers. I also don't recommend it to anyone hoping to take advantage of a helpful "User Access Manager".

Rating:
Summary: Secure yes, but usability is very poor
Review: I used NIS2002 for about 4 months as a software firewall for my cable connection until I got a Wireless LAN and had a hardware firewall/router in place.

For security - it gets good marks. It did its job despite my ISP's inability to stop all sorts of Trojan and DDOS attacks - which is a real problem in a cable network's shared segments. Configuration was pretty easy with their wizards, although the admin runs slow on my P3-700 w/256MB RAM. It often would take 10-12 seconds to load the menu screen.

But that just begins the problems with the product: The pop-up alerts for "training" the product do not provide the type of granularity needed for a firewall. While you can configure it manually, the only option you get on the pop-up is either allow this packet, allow this application forever or forever block - and it is per application, not per IP address, unless you run the customization wizard each time, which takes you through about 5 steps to simply "trust" an IP/port. Tiny and ZoneAlarm allow you to do this with just one mouse click. Imagine if you run a local web server of file or printer share at home and want to restrict access to only the internal network or perhaps a few Internet IPs of friends, or your office. It will be a big job with NIS and I suspect that non-technical users would either do it wrong and leave unwanted holes or give up trying because after you get out of the standard wizards that NIS provides, you are pretty much on your own.

Reporting is also poor and almost impossible to find in the product. It isn't on any menu choices. Again, Tiny and ZoneAlarm are far better. Reporting is important because you often want to see what activity is happening that the firewall is catching for you or, more importantly, what is getting blocked that you want to give access for.

Most egregious however, is that when I tried to remove NIS after installing my hardware router/firewall, my XP Pro started freezing almost anytime it had to access the internet. There were many registry keys, including low-level driver left behind. MSCONFIG also confirmed this. I had run the special rnis.exe that Symantec provides, but this didn't work either. Because of my experience, I was able, after much difficulty, to stabilize the system, BUT, this is unacceptable in any product, even a firewall and is so huge IMO, that although I would give the overall product a 3, it earns only 1 STAR because of its poor behavior. Understand, that I never had this happen with XP before the uninstall.

I had used Tiny Software's Personal Firewall until I upgraded to XP and would have had to pay for their upgrade. Since I had Symantec's Norton Utilities, I figured to just buy the whole Norton suite. Tiny's admin was fast and easy to use comparatively and I really wish I had stuck with them. My limited experience with ZoneAlarm, combined with positive reviews from friends and magazines would lead me to recommend it before NIS as well. Overall Norton NIS2002 did the job, but wasn't worth the steep hassle factor.

Rating:
Summary: Secure yes, but usability is very poor
Review: I used NIS2002 for about 4 months as a software firewall for my cable connection until I got a Wireless LAN and had a hardware firewall/router in place.

For security - it gets good marks. It did its job despite my ISP's inability to stop all sorts of Trojan and DDOS attacks - which is a real problem in a cable network's shared segments. Configuration was pretty easy with their wizards, although the admin runs slow on my P3-700 w/256MB RAM. It often would take 10-12 seconds to load the menu screen.

But that just begins the problems with the product: The pop-up alerts for "training" the product do not provide the type of granularity needed for a firewall. While you can configure it manually, the only option you get on the pop-up is either allow this packet, allow this application forever or forever block - and it is per application, not per IP address, unless you run the customization wizard each time, which takes you through about 5 steps to simply "trust" an IP/port. Tiny and ZoneAlarm allow you to do this with just one mouse click. Imagine if you run a local web server of file or printer share at home and want to restrict access to only the internal network or perhaps a few Internet IPs of friends, or your office. It will be a big job with NIS and I suspect that non-technical users would either do it wrong and leave unwanted holes or give up trying because after you get out of the standard wizards that NIS provides, you are pretty much on your own.

Reporting is also poor and almost impossible to find in the product. It isn't on any menu choices. Again, Tiny and ZoneAlarm are far better. Reporting is important because you often want to see what activity is happening that the firewall is catching for you or, more importantly, what is getting blocked that you want to give access for.

Most egregious however, is that when I tried to remove NIS after installing my hardware router/firewall, my XP Pro started freezing almost anytime it had to access the internet. There were many registry keys, including low-level driver left behind. MSCONFIG also confirmed this. I had run the special rnis.exe that Symantec provides, but this didn't work either. Because of my experience, I was able, after much difficulty, to stabilize the system, BUT, this is unacceptable in any product, even a firewall and is so huge IMO, that although I would give the overall product a 3, it earns only 1 STAR because of its poor behavior. Understand, that I never had this happen with XP before the uninstall.

I had used Tiny Software's Personal Firewall until I upgraded to XP and would have had to pay for their upgrade. Since I had Symantec's Norton Utilities, I figured to just buy the whole Norton suite. Tiny's admin was fast and easy to use comparatively and I really wish I had stuck with them. My limited experience with ZoneAlarm, combined with positive reviews from friends and magazines would lead me to recommend it before NIS as well. Overall Norton NIS2002 did the job, but wasn't worth the steep hassle factor.

Rating:
Summary: Norton beats McAfee easily
Review: I've used both products for many years on PC & MAC(Apple) systems,and Norton has always had better products. The other antivirus, etc are usually slower, less effective, and over priced. This program is very good, and comes at the right time, because I've been checking the reviews for an effective security program. I'm very pleased with this one. As usual with Norton products, it installs easily and performs as advertised.

Rating:
Summary: A breeze to install on XP
Review: It certainly provides all the details for this interested, it's default settings are what I went with for most things. I feel much more educated and know that my system is better protected w/ this software.

Rating:
Summary: A Nightmare
Review: Need I say more than I did in the title ? If you have Windows 98 and/or a cable modem and ethernet card this is just that. Please don't even think of buying it because of compatability issues with your operating system, your server and within the Norton software itself. I did and regretted it for two days while I cleaned up the mess and went back to my older version and all its updates. As others have said Norton's service is arrogant and apallingly bad both on the phone and online.

Rating:
Summary: A Nightmare
Review: Need I say more than I did in the title ? If you have Windows 98 and/or a cable modem and ethernet card this is just that. Please don't even think of buying it because of compatability issues with your operating system, your server and within the Norton software itself. I did and regretted it for two days while I cleaned up the mess and went back to my older version and all its updates. As others have said Norton's service is arrogant and apallingly bad both on the phone and online.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Mess Around....This is Serious
Review: So you go out and spend between 700 and 3,000 bucks on a brand new computer. You load it up, attach your cable modem, and your on the net surfing around. However, there happen to be alot of bored people out there who want to hack into your computer, steal information (such as credit card numbers, your financial info from say Quicken) or just plain want to destroy your investment. You don't buy a new house and leave the doors unlocked all the time with no alarm system do you?? NO!
That said...

Don't mess around, plain and simple. Your Computers Security is an important issue. The thing is its EASY to protect yourself. Nortons programs are the best there are, read the reviews in all sorts of PC magazines. They know what theyre doing.

I HIGHLY recommend the Norton Internet Security PRO Edition. This thing comes with EVERYTHING you can think of in Internet Security. There is no more loaded program. You can FULLY customize it, shutting down features that you see people complaining about on here. Yeah, you have to know SOMETHING about computers, but if you don't its not brain surgery either. There are plenty of help menus that explain each and EVERY function. You get a 2002 Virus Scan, Firewall, and an ADDED firewall in a sense, the threat detection. This is great, because if a computer tries to break into yours, it shuts ANY contact down with that computer for 30 minutes, or it can permanetly shut it down, your in control. It also alerts you when someone is "port searching", where hackers use programs to find vulnerable computers. You also get a year of automatic updates, so its NEVER outdated, and its always able to protect you agaisnt new threats. You can update it every day if you want to (although thats extreme haha!)

Bottom line is this...I had Nortons 2001 Firewall, and it stopped 3 hackers from attacking me with trojan horse viruses (ones that steal information). I was so pleased with it, I went and ordered the Internet Security PRO, because Norton proved to me they are serious. Prove to yourself and your family that your serious about security, and order the Pro. If you wanna save money, grab the regular edition, its still a great program.

Good luck and take care.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Program
Review: The features of this make the price worthwhile; one improvement for a product in this price range would be a spam eliminator. This program is intuitive, accessible, and provides valuable information- including attack attempts. Cookie blocking in an extensive (and controllable) way to protect some information; this program protects private information- names, e mail address, credit card information, address and telephone, any other information you enter can be blocked from communication and access; permits effective and thorough blocking of inappropriate sites for parental protection and control; includes firewall and anti-virus (Norton's Anti Virus can be used separately, and which can pay for itself quite quickly by isolating and destroying viruses before they get into a computer hard drive- awesome program). There is also, in Internet Security, an ad block feature that turns off most all advertising (graphics tend to be blank). A stellar feature of this whole program is that your browsing information is private. Norton's Internet Security works flawlessly with Windows Xp [in my experience]. It's a task in itself to keep up with security requirements, and Norton's makes it easier with this program. Highly recommended. Also recommended: Webroot's Window Washer and Spy Sweeper. There are many ways to increase computer security; one program doesn't accomplish it all. A firewall should be on all computers; Norton Internet Security is an excellent program to begin with.