Review: Kaspersky Internet Security 2011
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| Manufacturer: | Kaspersky |
|---|---|
| Price (RRP): | $59.95 (1-PC, 1-Year) |
| Best Price: | $29.95 (save 50%) |
| Platforms: | Windows XP (32/ 64-bit), Windows Vista (32/ 64-bit), Windows 7 (32/ 64-bit) |
| Requirements: | Safe Run doesn't work under 64-bit Windows XP and is restricted in 64-bit Windows Vista and 7 |
| Softwarecrew Rating: |   |
At first glance Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 looks much like many other internet security suite. Antivirus engine – check; real-time protection – check; firewall – check; safer surfing tools – check; parental controls – check, it’s all seems very much business as usual.
Spend a little more time with the program, though, and you’ll soon begin to realise that this isn’t just another identikit security tool. A strong attention to detail, extreme configurability and some uniquely powerful features are a few of the positive reasons that help Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 stand out from the crowd. There are some negatives, too, but it’s still an interesting package overall, and if you’re looking for a new security suite then Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 deserves to be high on the candidate list.
Of course you’ll need to install it, first, and if you’re unlucky then that’s where the first problem will emerge. The Kaspersky setup program complained soon after launch on our test PC that it couldn’t continue because ClamAV was installed, this was an incompatible program, and we should remove it immediately. But ClamAV hadn’t been installed for months. What next?
Manually scouring our hard drive for ClamAV remnants didn’t help. We found a stray ClamAV reference in the Registry, but deleting that made no difference, either. And so eventually we headed off to the Kaspersky support site, where a page explained in detail how the “incompatible software” check could be turned off. (If you’re looking for the same information, go here.)
And finally the program installed.
While we think Kaspersky could do a better job of distinguishing between an installed program and leftover fragments, it’s important to put this into perspective. Checking for the presence of incompatible software is a good idea, and something that could save you a great deal of hassle later.
You may not experience this problem anyway, and even if you do, it only takes a couple of minutes to apply the workaround in the link above. Once it’s done, Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 installs with no problems at all, and you’ll be able to explore everything the program has to offer.
Antivirus engine
Kaspersky’s previous antivirus engines have been generally well liked by independent testing labs; AV Comparatives, for instance, awarded Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 their highest Advanced+ rating for on-demand detection of malware, noting in particular that it raises very few false alarms.
The Internet Security 2011 engine is starting from a solid base, then, and provides a range of ways to check your system. Once installed, for instance, the program will check your drives only when the PC is idle, so you don’t have to be interrupted by a scan suddenly coming to life.
But you can also scan a file or folder with a right-click from Explorer. There’s the option to run a Critical Areas scan, which checks for threats in the most likely area, or a Full Scan that scours the entire system. And you can set up any of these to run automatically through the very configurable scheduler, which again has options to minimise the impact on performance; you’re able to have scheduled scans be paused until the screensaver is active, for example.
Scanning performance overall is average, but acceptable. If you need better performance, though, there are plenty of configuration options that might help. Ask the program to scan only new or changed files, say, and you introduce some vulnerabilities, but scans do become very speedy.
Real-time protection
Just as you’d expect, Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 deploys extensive real-time protection measures to look for threats wherever they might enter your PC. So it will check the applications you run, the files you open, incoming and outgoing emails, http web traffic and instant messages (ICQ, MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Jabber, Google Talk, Mail.Ru Agent and IRC are supported), as well as checking incoming network packets for signs of danger.
Browsing protection is a little more lightweight than some of the competition. There’s no big extra toolbar here, no alerts displayed against search engine URLs, your browser looks just as it did. Kaspersky’s Safe Surf module is checking for suspect and phishing URLs in the background, though, and can block the opening of dangerous websites entirely (though, curiously, this option isn’t turned on by default).
At least, this is what should happen if you’re running IE or Firefox; everyone else is out of luck. A glance at the Settings dialog box reveals similar disappointing news elsewhere. There’s an option to “Block dangerous scripts”, but only “in Microsoft Internet Explorer”.
The core PC real-time protection is much better, though, in particular the new System Watcher technology. This tracks exactly what programs are doing, the files they’re creating and changing, Registry tweaks they might make, the system calls they’ve made. And if Internet Security 2011 finds they’re behaving suspiciously, then not only can the program be blocked, but many of its changes can be reversed in just a moment or two. That could potentially undo a great deal of damage, and is a major plus point for the program.
Safe Run
It happens to everyone, occasionally. You’ve found a program in some dark corner of the web, it looks interesting, but you don’t entirely trust the source – so should you try it?
Kaspersky recognise that you’ll have these doubts from time to time, and Internet Security 2011 helps out with a feature called Safe Run. Launch this from the program’s Vista/ Windows 7 gadget, or with a right-click on Kaspersky’s system tray icon, and a new desktop will appear. This looks just like your regular desktop, and you can run programs from it in exactly the same way, but it’s a sandbox, isolated from your system. Even if you accidentally launch malware in a Safe Run session, there’s very little chance that it will be able to infect your system or cause any damage.
A similar “Safe Run for Websites” opens your default browser (as long as its IE, Firefox or Chrome) in an isolated window. This then works as a private browser, so if you log in to your online bank, say, then any cookies or logs will remain in the Safe Run environment, invisible to malware. And the system works well for surfing any potentially dangerous sites, as if you run into some forced download (for instance) it’s again very unlikely to be able to install itself onto your PC.
Safe Run isn’t perfect, and can’t provide a 100% guarantee of safety. It’s going to be very difficult for malware to break through the protective wall it provides, though, and overall the system is a welcome addition to Internet Security 2011, a genuinely useful technology that you won’t find in most competitors.
Parental controls
Kaspersky Internet Security’s Parental Controls used to be quite weak, but this version sees them extended into a far more capable product.
The core internet controls allow you to control when a particular user can go online, the sites they can visit, and the file types they’re allowed to download, for instance. It’s generally easy to set up, although we missed the option to configure defaults based on the user’s age. You can’t choose a “teenager” profile for one user, “pre-school” for another and be confident that the settings will be more or less appropriate: everyone gets the same default configuration and you must tweak everything individually.
Elsewhere you’ll find options to control which programs a user can run, when and how often (so maybe only one hour of games per day, and not after 10pm on weekdays, for example).
You’re also able to decide which instant messaging and social networking contacts can send messages to, or receive them from your child. Or, at least, that’s the theory. Even if they don’t have access to some other PC, or an internet-enabled mobile, though, it’s difficult to guarantee success here.
There are additional options to restrict the sending of private data (credit cards, phone numbers, addresses and so on); monitor the use of particular words or phrases in a users messages; or control exactly when your kids can use the PC at all.
But if you prefer to be more hands-off, you can tone down the restrictions and simply take advantage of the Parental Controls reports. These will let you see the applications a user has launched, the web sites they’ve visited, instant messaging conversations and more, so you can keep an eye on what your kids are doing and confirm that everything is okay.
Antispam, firewall
Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 includes a spam filter, with direct support for Outlook, Windows Mail, Thunderbird and The Bat!, and POP3/ SMTP/ IMAP traffic filtering to ensure it can work with everything else.
It uses a mix of techniques to detect spam; iBayes, GSG-based image recognition and a custom heuristic technology, comparisons with databases of dodgy URLs, and your own personal black and white lists. (You can directly import your address book into the latter, for instance, so emails from legitimate senders will never be marked as spam.)
You can even customise the results further by more traditional methods, building a list of “blocked phrases” that will be used to filter out the junk. That’s generally not a good idea, though, and probably unnecessary. The default settings did a decent job blocking our test spam, out of the box, and training only improves the results further.
The firewall similarly needs little in the way of configuration. It automatically chooses the appropriate actions most of the time, letting safe programs communicate online and only warning you of genuinely suspect behaviour.
If you’ve a complex network setup that requires a few tweaks, though, there’s plenty of configurability available. You’re able to set up rules for DNS packets, emails, remote desktop traffic, ICMP and more, and if anything these are more clearly presented here than in some competing firewalls.
Other features
Other interesting features include the Vulnerability Scan, which checks your Windows and application settings for security vulnerabilities. On our test PC we were warned that that CD/DVD autorun was enabled, for instance, and that we had Adobe AIR and Java files that contained security flaws.
This is all useful information, though sometimes not sufficiently detailed. The report on our test PC complained that “protocol prefixes are modified”, and gave us the ability to fix this at a click, but didn’t tell us exactly which this involved. Which prefixes were modified, what changes would the fix make? The Vulnerability Scan wasn’t saying.
There’s also a Privacy Cleaner, which removes your choice of various system and Internet Explorer histories: memory dumps, Windows logs, the Start > Run history, Regedit Favourites list and more.
While some of these steps are worthwhile, others may be counter-productive. We were recommended to clear the prefetch cache, for instance, and set IE to clean its cache when the browser closes, both of which would improve privacy only at the expense of system performance.
We had better luck with the Virtual Keyboard, an on-screen keyboard that allows you to enter personal details like logons or bank account details without them being intercepted by malware.
And hidden away at the bottom of the settings dialog is Kaspersky’s Anti-Banner, an effective tool for blocking ads and banners in your browser. It’s turned off by default, but is worth enabling: in our tests it did a great job of blocking annoying ads and speeding up our browsing, and proved a welcome finishing bonus to a generally very strong security suite.
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KIS 2011 is one of the best protection suites available to date with unprecedented protection against countless malwares with plenty of options for every protection component and is highly configurable to suite anyone need. I will highly recommend it to experts (prompt/custom mode) as well as novice users (automatic mode). Your review is good. However, I want to clarify few things:
The installation problem you suffer might be (I am sure) due to your previous security solution leftovers (Clam AV). I have installed this suite on 20 computers until now and have not seen a single problem like the one you have mentioned. You should try it on fresh installation/fresh VM image. For testing purpose, if you uninstall KIS 2011, it does not leave folders behind like others. Therefore, other AV will not complain that KIS has been detected. It is fault of other AV installer/uninstaller, not of Kaspersky products.
Browsing support is very good. It support IE, Firefox, Google Chrome out of box and can be configured for Opera (See Help file). It scan for HTTP and FTP by default (for every program irrespective of whether it is browser or download manager) and can be configured to scan HTTPS (See Help file). It supports Geo Filtering (I have blocked China forever) as well as Online Banking mode. It integrates into three major browsers and scans downloaded files as well. It supports command line parameters and can be integrated into countless programs (minor browsers, download managers, you name) for automated scanning. Should antivirus support integration into every browser and download manager out there? Shouldn’t the browsers and download manager have such options? What, you need more than that?
Vulnerability scan is good for detecting unpatched and outdated programs. I do not think anyone bother to find why service time limit is out of admissible value. If you have customized this option by yourself, you know about it. If you have not customized this option (virus infection), then you do not need to know what it is and should follow recommendation. If KL starts to explain everything, then you might complain that it is overloaded.
BTW, nice reading. Try to further explore the security suite. KL products are better for novice and the best for experts. Have a good time.
(NOTE: I am not an employee or worker of Kaspersky Lab, nor is affiliated with them. All of the above are my personal observations/opinion).
Just upgraded from NIS 2010 to 2011. One of the best features of earlier versions of Kaspersky Internet Security was a feature called “mail dispatcher” which allowed the user to preview all incoming pop mail on the server. In this way, you could delete ant emails from suspect sources before downloading them. Especially useful if Outlook is left open. However, NIS 2011 seems to have discontinued this feature. I have therefore reverted to KIS 2010 until I can somehow sort this out. Does anyone know if this feature can be activated in NIS 2011? Thanks
Just a wee warning about KIS2011.
I’m a long time Kaspersky user and currently use KIS2010 9.0.0.736 (a,b,c) without issue. However, KIS2011 v11.0.0.232 is an absolute disaster!
I can’t believe the reviewer actually tried the product. The application will not deal with threats correctly and the ‘Fix it Now’ function doesn’t work. In addition, the application misreports the status of threats and also will not accept exclusion rules. These issues are all widely known about and reported at length in the user forum.
Unusable!
The so-called critical fix for these issues (v11.0.1.400) suffers from a serious bug with the Windows PhotoViewer in Vista and Windows 7 and will hang the OS until hard rebooted. 64 -bit systems will lock up at random also, the COM Surrogate function in Windows has a serious incompatibility with Kaspersky.
Avoid these products until fixed is my advice from experience!
re. deadfred
I can assure you that we thoroughly test the applications before we commit to the review. Indeed, Mike has a superb industry-wide reputation for the quality of his reviews.
However, it’s easy to forget that software is dynamic and performs differently across computers. What works without flaws for one person, may not work at all for another.
Thanks for your input. Have you made Kaspersky aware of these issues yourself?
I have just tested Kapsersky on my VM and it works perfectly blocking every threat with its webguard. The major improvements arein the scan times and update times. These have improved dramatically but the slight withdraw is the memory usage but apart from that it is perfect in every other aspect.
I have just upgraded from KIS2010 to KIS 2011 and have also just upgraded from Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010.
Everytime I open Outlook I get the Kaspersky Anti-Spam settings dialogue box asking me to set what happens to Spam and Probable Spam. I then set it up to move emails to the “Spam” and “Probable spam” folders that I have set-up in Outlook. Even though I apply these new settings I still get this dialogue box appearing everytime I open Outlook. The dialogue box has reverted back to default settings.
I had exactly the same problem 2 years ago when I installed Office 2007 and also KIS2009.
Back then I was told to unregister and re-register the oeas.dll plug-in. This in it self didn’t work (back then) and I had to then go into the registry to change the permissions for the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\kasperskylab\protected” folder to FULL CONTROL as it was not set to full control. This did work back then.
Now when I try to set the permissions I am told that access is denied and I cannot reset the permissions.
I have also tried to unregister and re-register the oeas.dll file as follows:
regsvr32 -u “C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Internet Security 2011\oeas.dll”
regsvr32 “C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Internet Security 2011\oeas.dll”
This then gives me a RegSvr32 0×80004005 error.
I have been using Kaspersky for the last 4 years on both my computers. If you work with Excel and use macros a lot in Excel than I recommend not using Kaspersky. I use Excel all day and Kaspersky slows my computer down to a crawl due to my use of Excel and macros. If I disable Kaspersky everything runs fine. I have contacted Kaspersky about this but they seem to ignore the problems. I guess there are not enough users with Excel and using macros to make it worth there time to fix the problem.
Hi,
I agree with Ferd. I bought and have started using KIS2011 and its nightmare. I scanned my laptop and it reported some 5k infections, upon clicking FIX IT NOW, it starts popping out from system tray for the infected file, but its been 3 days and its never ending. It has asked me to reboot laptop upto 10 times but still the protection status is RED. I get many popups for RunDLL32 and I have to clikc on cancel and then it sends some error report. After running OS for few minuites or so, i could see many rundll32 and dumpprep processes running in task manager and the cpu consumption upto 100%. Unable to do anything, disabled KIS and then I was able to do my work like browsing, Remote desktop.
MY OS is windows XP Professional. Everywhere else review says that KIS2011 is very good, 2nd or 3rd best AV in top 10 AV’s. I am in indecisive mode now as what to do with KIS2011, should I return and ask for my money back under 14 days moneyback guarantee policy or be patient for few more days and try with FIX IT NOW.
Experts please advise.
regards
Raj
I have Kapersky 2011.
When I run Excel 2007 with macros it is painful slow to start and close.
If I paused Kapersky it runs fine.
Is there a way to disable Excel macro Scans ?
I have been using KIS Internet Security 2010 for a year now and have had my ups and downs with the product. I’m not a network engineer so I may have done some things wrong in my setup. Please read below
The quick scan feature always ran perfectly, but when it came to doing a full scan it would always freeze up after the first terabyte, even on default scanning levels, where i would have to restart as an object scan on the drives it didn’t scan.
I didn’t leave Kaspersky on it’s default setting as I wanted to tweak the firewall settings, having lots of software (like Itunes, WD smartware, Steam etc) needing to update or just connecting to say it was there when KIS was set to trusted network.
I would have liked to have left it with the default setting and then change what I wanted, but when you give KIS full control, manually changing firewall settings does nothing and does not prompt the user for action.
On every browsing session it was a total headache having to allow ‘apply to current session’ svchost, ipv6, upnp, and through various ports, which were blocked when I used Zonealarm and zonealarm still gave me internet access. With KIS one wrong block and internet access stops. Understandable, but trying to find what you blocked to unblock it is a nightmare, as it is never uniformed in ‘what you’re blocking is what’s stopping internet access’.
The ‘apply forever’ rule for most applications worked, but there were times that would have wanted the option of ‘apply to current session’ when you would want to give access when you wanted, just not all the time.
I tried to apply rules to the application but that somehow always managed to close the entire port and I would have to back track on the changes I made or restore the configuration entirely.
Updates would go corrupt after several days without internet access and would not update, even after using the rollback feature and would update a 300kb file indefinitely once online.
I just want something that would give me control like how zone alarm would with an easy to understand interface.
Sorry for the whine
If KIS 2011 is the same I would have to pass this round, OR, some kind folk on this site tells me where I went wrong.
…..can’t shake the feeling I’m about to have my a*@ handed back to me.
I have used Kaspersky for around 4 years and I have always been more than satisfied until I upgraded to the 2011 version. What a nightmare. It has been on amber for a week telling me that I have numerous threats and virus’. It won’t let me neutralize of disinfect anything. I have run the repair programme on it which just keeps saying an error has occured and it wouldn’t let me uninstall it from my computer. I have had to take my laptop to a shop and have the hard drive formatted to get rid of it. There is no way on this earth that i will ever use Kaspersky again.
Hi,
I have installed kaspersky 2011 in my laptop which is having Vista in it, after the installation my internet is not working and most of the sites are not opening can anybody please me.
Is it the problem with the kaspersky or vista ?
I have used KIS for the last 3 years and found it effective without problem.
We have 2 year old laptops, with Windows 7 and latest IE.
There is very little on the drives, and they are both high performance dual core 64-bit.
Recently acquired KIS 2011, removed all the 2010 component as advised, and installed this, with updates as required.
It is excruciatingly slow,continually have ‘Internet Explorer not responding’ now and fails to load about 25% of pages. Very irritating.
Going to try the settings fixes suggested on the Kaspersky forum later this weekend, but at this stage beginning to wonder why the product hasn’t evolved to become more reliable and faster than ever considering the success of the previous products.
Will return with any findings (my housemate is a techie), but at this stage thinking of sending it back and going to an alternative.
i keep gettin “black list of licences is corrupt” and the fix it now option wont do as it says on the tin. will an uninstall/reinstall fix this? its on both my pc and my laptop……
thanx ppl