by Mark Maine

Created on: October 06, 2007

The software wizards at Symantec have outdone themselves and their competition this time!
With added security features, an easy to use graphics interface, and a program optimized for performance, security, and minimum memory usage. Norton Internet Security 2008 is by far the best all around online protection available. The added bonus of a three user license rounds up to instant savings and is just icing on the cake.

The installation was smooth and seamless. I installed the software on three machines with various cpu / memory configurations, from a 1ghz computer with 384mb of pc133 ram to a 3.2ghz computer with 1gb of pc4200 ram all running windows XP sp2. Each machine was first tested with a similar Internet Security Suite and baseline memory performance tests were recorded. The computers were run through a barrage of tests to measure scan times, boot times etc. I then removed the baseline programs and installed Norton Internet Security 2008 on each machine.
After the installation completed on each machine the first thing that I noticed was the decrease in boot time on all three. After letting the machines run a while I checked the memory usage compared to the baselines. On all three machines there was a dramatic improvement, with the 3.2ghz machine using 28mb less memory than the baseline! The Symantec tests boasted of a 69% improvement in memory usage and 20% faster boot times.
The results that I achieved with my shop tests verified the data. With the added security features, anti-spyware, and enhanced performance this is easily the best one yet! It gets my vote for all five stars.

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