Symantec NORTON INTERNET SECURITY 2002 95/98/NT/W2K/WME/XP

• Reviewed by: poit57

  Strengths: AntiVirus, Ad Blocking, Personal Firewall

  Weaknesses: I haven't had any problems

  Overall: I have Windows XP, and I haven't had any problems like the other reviewers have mentioned. Personal Firewall is fine for home networking, as opposed to a free firewall I downloaded off the internet, which kept my computer hidden from the other computers in the same workgroup. The email protection is much better than it was with Norton AntiVirus 2001. Ad Blocking is great. You can add pop-up ads to the ad trashcan for future blocking, but many of the pop-up ads are blocked automatically. This product is great for keeping your computer safe from viruses, protecting your files from hackers, blocking annoying pop-up ads, and controlling what websites your children can visit.

• Reviewed by: bsq84

  Strengths: Does virus check update real good

  Weaknesses: Some features are missing in clean sweep. WORST OF ALL it will not perform with win XP - contrary to published symantec literature

  Overall: Symantec worked really good with win 3.1, 95, 98, me - BUT it (v5.0) really falls down with win XP. Customer support is non-available for this problem. You do not have free telephone support, only via email posted messages. The NDD, Image Disk, Registry tracker and speed disk all have compatibility issues with XP. I would not recommend the purchase of norton systemworks until the come out with a new version.

• Reviewed by: Walcom

  Strengths: Ease of use

  Weaknesses: Has bugs pertaining to Windows XP

  Overall: Could not download updates for the program. It would post a message, 'verifiing user registration'. It would not go any further. I regestered the product through the internet. Without updates, espeically anti virus, what good is it. The program has taken away lots of features that older versions had.

• Reviewed by: jmoorejr

  Strengths: Same clean interface

  Weaknesses: Many key elements removed in new version.

  Overall: I can't believe I upgraded to this version for "less" functionality. Several components -- noteably those in Cleansweep are missing -- no longer can you sweep duplicate dll's, transport, or move programs. I can't imagine clients wanted this. I believe these parts were removed because software manfacturers wanted it.

• Reviewed by: calgarydoug

  Strengths: The Anti-Virus is top notch, but if that's what I wanted than that's what I would have bought.

  Weaknesses: Virtually everything besides the Anti-Virus.

  Overall: The parental controls are the first disappointment on a product that had me very excited. In a test, I was able to view 8 sites out of 10 that should have been blocked. The ONLY saving grace is that you can manually add sites to the blocked list. My biggest beef with the software is that it all but eliminates having an easily managed home network. Because you must setup a "Trusted Zone" in order to gain access to other PCs (Even ones hard wired together) you lose the ability to use an ISP that uses DHCP - Like all DSL and Cable providers do. You can set up the trusted zone for a while, but as soon as the IPs change, the resource sharing is kaput. Very dodgy to say the least. And for the time ever, Syamntec Help was unable to help me with the problem.