We first took a comprehensive look at Norton Internet Security 2011 back in April, when Symantec released a very impressive public beta preview.

Now, five months on, the completed version of the suite is finally available. Has it maintained its initial promise, would it deliver even more then the first builds? There was only one way to find out.

Installation was certainly impressive. While some suites ignore incompatible programs, others demand you remove competing programs that haven’t been on your PC for months, NIS 2011 was different. On our test machine, it not only correctly detected our copy of PC Tools Antivirus, requested that we remove it, and even popped up the program’s uninstaller to make it easy.

And with that initial step out of the way, the remaining setup process was straightforward. Files were unpacked, a progress meter kept us up-to-date, and within 60 seconds the suite was installed. We then had to register the program, too, but that only took a moment, and overall the installation was fast and convenient, not even requiring a reboot when it was all over.

Interface

The core NIS 2011 interface has changed little since the preview.

Click the suite’s system tray icon and you’ll see the status of its various protections: antivirus, antispyware, firewall, spam filter and so on. Most of these will be left on all the time, but you can disable any you don’t need in a click.

This design isn’t always intuitive. Hover your mouse over “Smart Firewall”, say, and you’ll see it’s a link, so you might think that clicking it will lead to the firewall controls. But you’d be wrong, that just lets you tell NIS 2011 not to monitor the firewall status. To access the firewall options you must head off to the Settings area, instead.

Fortunately the NIS 2011 Settings dialog is very well organised. The usual small tabs are dropped in favour of scrolling panels that display all the configuration options and controls you need. Just a few seconds of scrolling will give you a quick view of all the settings that you can turn on and off, useful if the default settings don’t suit your needs. And more complex tweaks, like those advanced firewall settings, are only ever a click or two away.

Once you’re past any brief initial confusion, then, NIS 2011 proves easy to use, navigate and configure, and you’ll very quickly have it providing the precise level of security that you need.

Antivirus

You’ll want to start your NIS 2011 life with an on-demand antivirus scan, most probably. And you’ve plenty of options to choose from – six, in total.

A Quick Scan checks only the most commonly infected areas, for instance – not exactly thorough, but then on our test PC it could be complete in as little as 15 seconds. A Full System Scan gives your computer a more thorough examination. And the Custom Scan option will take a closer look at the files and folders you specify. (All these options can also be run on a schedule, or when your PC is idle: it’s your call.)

So far, so very normal. But NIS 2011 also provides a more interesting option in the new Reputation Scan. This checks your files against Norton’s Insight database, which holds details on how “trusted” a file is, when it first appeared, how common it is amongst other Norton users, and so on.

None of this is absolute proof of anything at all, of course. If you suspect your PC is infected by something, though, it could be very helpful. In just a couple of minutes you’ll be able to view all the files on your PC that are new, uncommon and with a low trust rating, extremely valuable information that could help you identify malware that might have penetrated your defences.

And the Insight data has other benefits, too. It allows NIS 2011 to avoid repeatedly scanning files which it knows are common, and trusted, for instance. On our test PC this meant 45% of our files wouldn’t be scanned after an initial check, significantly improving performance.

Elsewhere, another new feature is “Norton Safe Web for Facebook”, which checks shared links on your Facebook wall, confirming that they’re safe to click.

And while NIS 2011 had no problem detecting all our test malware samples, but the final summary of each scan type gives you a link to follow “if you think there are still risks”. Follow this and you’ll be able to download and run the Norton Power Eraser, a stand-alone tool that takes a more aggressive approach to scanning, and so is more likely to pick up new malware.

Unfortunately the Power Eraser is also vastly more likely to raise false alarms, and in our trials picked up entirely innocent programs only. So you should use it with extreme care. The tool is at least fast, though, checking our system in around 3 minutes: if you’re sure your PC is infected, but can’t track the problem down, it could still be useful.

Browsing protection

Accurate antivirus scanning is a vital component of a quality security suite. Strong web protection is, if anything, even more important, though, as it will help to stop you becoming infected in the first place. And so it’s good to see NIS 2011 extend its capabilities in this area with a three-pronged approach.

First, Norton Safe Web adds icons to your Bing, Yahoo! or Google search results, highlighting dangerous sites with a red cross, so you’re warned before you even click the link. The icons appear quickly, so your surfing isn’t slowed down, and simply hovering your mouse cursor over one of the red crosses will tell you more about the threat, if you’re interested.

Of course you may click on links elsewhere – in an email, PDF file, perhaps a Word document – but NIS 2011 also checks each URL as you try to access it. If the page is a known phishing site or source of malware, then you’ll see a warning message telling you that it’s been blocked. There’s a link to a detailed report that tells you why, if you’re interested. And you do have the option to continue to the page, if you’re sure it’s safe (which is a good thing, on balance, as all antiphishing schemes will occasionally block URLs that they really shouldn’t).

And the big change here is the extended support for Download Insight, Symantec’s technology for checking the files you access online. When a file is downloaded, NIS 2011 will interrogate an online database to determine its reputation, and warn you or remove the file completely if it’s known to be dangerous.

In previous versions of Norton Internet Security, you were only protected against downloads made via IE and Firefox. In 2011, though, the scheme will protect you regardless of how the file is delivered: by all the main browsers, email clients and instant messaging tools. It’ll allow Symantec to gather much more information, much more quickly, and as a result all Norton 2011 users will be better protected.

The Download Insight improvements will feed into other areas, too. Its “reputation” figure is used to calculate the trust rating displayed in the new Reputation scan, for example, so that should become even more useful when there’s a large number of people using it.

On balance, then, this all looks like very good news. And in use, it feels that way, too. Unlike some security tools, NIS 2011 didn’t make a noticeable different to our browser performance, or stability: everything felt just as it did pre-installation. Only a little bit safer.

Identity Safe

NIS 2011 also includes Norton Identity Safe, an IE and Firefox-compatible tool that will manage your user names, passwords, credit card numbers, addresses and other personal data, keeping them safe from keyloggers.

Your data is stored in an encrypted Identity Safe profile. This can be saved locally, or to an external Flash drive so you can take your data with you (although of course you can only use it on another system that has NIS 2011 installed).

Conveniently, while creating your profile Identity Safe will offer to import any existing IE login details. Revisit one of your favourite password-protected sites later, and if IE doesn’t log you it, then Identity Safe almost certainly will – it’s much more reliable, in our experience.

You may then also create new logins for additional sites, as you like. NIS 2011 will even evaluate your password, letting you know how strong it is, though oddly there’s no option to generate a secure password automatically. And elsewhere there are options to complete “cards” that can be used to automatically fill in web forms, and “notes” that may contain other secure details you might need from time to time (social security number, taxpayer reference and so on).

While this may sound complicated to set up, it really isn’t: NIS does a great job of automating the process, logging you in automatically, and helping you fill out forms in a few seconds. Doing this automatically or via the mouse does reduce your exposure to key loggers, but it’s also much faster, so if you’re tired of trying to remember endless passwords, or having to fill in numerous forms, than Identity Safe could be the perfect antidote.

Spam filter

NIS 2011 includes a spam filter which integrates with Outlook 2002, 2003, 2007, and 2010 (though only the 32-bit version of the latter, curiously), and Outlook Express 6 or later. There’s sort-of integration with Windows Mail – spam emails are moved to the junk folder, but there’s no toolbar – and, disappointingly, no support for Thunderbird or any other clients.

Performance here was generally very good, with the program blocking 76% of our test spam emails immediately. And just as importantly, out of 100 sample legitimate emails, only 2 were falsely flagged as spam. While that’s still 2 too many, it’s better than much of the security suite competition, and the misidentified emails were at least regular commercial mailings: all our more personal and important emails made it through.

This is only the start, though. In Outlook and Outlook Express you’re able to train the filter, by selecting incorrectly flagged messages and selecting a “This is Spam” or “This is not Spam” button, as appropriate. Over time the program should learn and become more accurate.

And if you do notice legitimate messages turning up in the Junk Folder, then there’s an easy fix: just add the sender to your Allow List, a white list of email addresses whose messages will never be flagged as spam.

It’s not quite as good as the best specialist antispam tools, then, especially in terms of client support. Still, the standard NIS 2011 filter performed better than we’ve come to expect from a security suite, and can easily be tuned to improve results.

Performance

Symantec security products are often criticised for being bloated resource hogs, but while there might have been some truth to this, long ago, it certainly doesn’t apply any more. The company have worked hard to optimise their applications, and while they’re not always the most lightweight of tools, they’ll have less performance impact on your PC than much of the competition.

In our tests we found no significant changes to boot time, or application launch times, for instance. If we clicked on an Internet link in, say, a PDF file, it took longer for the browser to appear, but otherwise our browsing appeared unchanged.

Core RAM requirements are reasonable, too, ranging from around 25MB when idle to perhaps 150MB when running a scan. CPU use on our test PC peaked at around 10% when scanning, and device use was moderate: even the most intensive of scans didn’t get in the way of us doing other things, and using our system more or less as normal.

There’s no need to take our word for it, though, because Norton 2011 now includes a performance monitor that tracks exactly how your CPU and RAM is being used at any one time. If your PC has seemed slow in the last few minutes, just switch to the Performance module and look at the memory and CPU graphs. Click a moment of peak use on either chart, and NIS 2011 will display the 3 programs that were making the greatest demands on system resources at that point.

And a System Insight chart highlights performance issues by plotting an icon every time one appears. One click will then tell you which was the offending program, and why (“high disk read usage”, “high CPU usage”, “high memory usage”, whatever it might be).

This is a very smart move by Symantec, then. Not only does the Performance module show that NIS 2011 is, relatively speaking, a very minor drain on your PC, but it’ll also highlight the far more resource-hungry apps that could be holding you back. And as an end result, installing NIS 2011 could actually help to speed up some PCs.

And there’s more

We’ve yet to mention the NIS 2011 firewall, of course: an easy mistake to make because while the module does a good job of protecting you from a range of network attacks, it’s so unobtrusive you can easily forget it’s there. Once you remember, though, a quick check in the Settings dialog reveals plenty of configuration options, and the firewall can easily be tweaked to suit your network needs.

NIS 2011 also includes a new Network Security Map, which alerts you to problems like unencrypted wireless connections, displays the status of other Norton-protected PCs on your network, and shows you a map of network hardware that makes it easy to detect unidentified devices.

Inconvenient alerts are kept to a minimum with the Silent Mode and Quiet Mode, which automatically limit messages when you’re running full-screen apps like games, burning discs, or recording TV with Media Center (and if you’ve other programs that mustn’t be interrupted then they’re easy to add).

And while the suite doesn’t include parental controls of its own, you do get a link to the free Norton Online Family, which provides a quality implementation of all the core features that you need. So you can create profiles for each child, limit their access to inappropriate web resources, apply time limits to their internet use, and monitor what they’re doing, all from any internet-enabled PC.

What you won’t get here is any form of backup – that’s a feature reserved for Norton 360. And there’s no vulnerability scanning, no checking for (say) outdated versions of Flash or Adobe Reader.

Overall, though, NIS 2011 proves to be a powerful, feature-packed package, while remaining likeable, lightweight, not getting in your way. And it’s this excellent balance between functionality and ease of use that makes Norton Internet Security 2011 our pick of the current security suites.