Norton Internet Security 2000

Richard Price
May 2000

If you are a cyberchondriac and spend most of you life plugged directly into the Internet, Symantec has just the thing for you - Norton Internet Security 2000.

Installation is easy enough. Basically all you need do is provide a user name and security password during installation. Norton Internet Security takes care of the rest.

Although I wish the documentation had warned that I'd need five floppy disks to make a set of recovery disks. Does anyone have that many spare floppy disks? I had to hunt around for some.

I didn't have any problem with the installation. After the obligatory reboot, my computer froze. It took three attempts before Norton Internet Security 2000 could complete the initial virus scan.

Does it stop viruses? Well, it comes with Norton AntiVirus 2000, which is billed as one of the world's most powerful anti-virus programs. I wasn't about to deliberately inflict my computer with a virus just to find out. Besides, how do you get your hands on a nasty virus when you want one?

I have been on the Internet for years. I have received thousands of emails from all over the world, many of them with attachments. In all that time I have only come across one problem, a rather benign bug in an email attachment which an older version of Norton AntiVirus alerted me to. The delete key got rid of it. Prior to that, when DOS reigned supreme I picked up the "stoned" virus. I can't even remember what I used to get rid of it.

Goodness knows what Norton Internet Security 2000 has actually done to my system, but it is now humming away quietly in the background.

It claims to be setting up a barrier, known as a firewall, between my computer and the Internet.

As the supervisor, I get to decide who or what gets through the firewall. The Assistant Rule Wizard helps step you through the process.

As the supervisor you can:

• prevent Java or ActiveX programs running without your permission
• block cookies, or any other information your browser is likely to report to other web sites
• prevent confidential information being entered from non-secure sites
• control which sites can be accessed
• control what applications can be used online
• strip out banner ads

If more than one person is using your computer you can set up separate accounts that allow different levels of access.

If you are worried about your kids buying stuff online, it is quite simple to restrict them from making secure connections where they would be asked for personal information.

Proactive parents can use the parental controls in Norton Internet Security 2000 to automatically block objectionable web sites. You can create your own list of sites to be avoided, or use Symantec's lists to specify the categories an account-holder can access.

The Interface is so simple a child could use it - and they will if they get hold of your password.

Stripping out banner ads is a neat feature, which may reduce the time it takes to download web pages. To get the most out of it you need to spend some time building your own ad blocking list.

However, blocking ads may also prevent specific HTML strings being downloaded which in turn may cause script errors on some pages, but this feature is easily switched off.

In fact the whole program can easily be disabled if you have the right level of access. If disabled, Norton Internet Security 2000 should automatically be enabled when your computer reboots.

Perhaps! But while writing this review I was playing with the enable/disable feature and my version is now permanently disabled.

My guess is it has something to do with a little Microsoft utility called Regclean that I use. This was confirmed by an email from Symantec technical support. There is a fix available from there web site that allows you to re-activate the Enable/Disable button.

So, the kids don't have to figure out your password. They can just crash it with Regclean, then download and run the fix.

As the program comes with an auto-update feature I am surprised it never picked up the fix on its own. It would have been more useful than the system alert reminding me my subscription expires in 365 days.

I am sure reinstalling it will also fix the problem, but uninstalling is a lot easier. Norton AntiVirus still appears to be working, so I will keep using it.

By Richard Price, Editor, EnergyME.com

For information on getting a product reviewed email richard@energyme.com