Kaspersky Internet Security 7 Review

Now, a review of a piece of security software may initially seem an odd thing to have in a blog on making money online, but if you're going to be online, you need to protect your computer.

I've used Norton products for years, but truthfully have never been that happy with them. Admittedly, Norton Internet Security 2008 is better than 2007, and much better than 2006, but I've only really stayed with them because I'm familiar with how they operate.

So, this week I decided to buy Kaspersky Internet Security 7 instead, the three user version, which had been recommended by an advisor PC World (who on their adverts actually always push Norton products, not Kaspersky). Here are my initial impressions.

The product, according to its package blurb has much more features than Norton. It installed pretty easily, and I set it to work.

Now, the scan for viruses, which with Norton you couldn't do if you were trying to do anything else at the same time, because even on my dual core 3MB RAM PC it devoured too much of the systems resources even in background mode, doesn't cause any problems with other applications when I have it running. In addition, the scan is much more thorough. It's discovered over 600 viruses and malware that Norton never spotted, even though they'd been there for years in some cases. Okay, these are (mostly) in places where they won't do any harm - such as in zips - but finding them enabled me to remove some viruses which had infected my server without my knowledge.

The downside of the scan, possibly because of its' thoroughness and the way it doesn't interfere with normal operations, is the length of time it takes. Well over a day by the looks of things. You can, however, resume an interrupted scan even after turning the PC off, a very useful point.

These are my initial impressions, and I'd say that Kaspersky is better than Norton. Some of the difficulties I've had with scans may simply due to unfamiliarity with the program.