Norton Internet Security 2012 beta Video

Norton Internet Security 2012 beta Video Transcript

Symantec's Norton 2012 betas are out and about, and today we're going to crack them open to see what they've got. Hi, I'm Seth Rosenblatt for CNET, and in this First Look video, I'll be showing you Norton Internet Security 2012 Beta. It, and its less robust sibling, Norton AntiVirus 2012 Beta, are available from download.com. The two engine changes in the Norton 2012 betas aren't exposed in any new interface modules, yet they are important. Insight 3.0 and its component, Download Insight 2.0 feature, have been improved. Download Insight now will look at downloaded files for security and stability. It won't stop you from downloading a file that's known to cause instability, but it will warn you and provide an option to stop the download. This is a fairly well-designed feature and you can tell the difference between operating systems. This means that if a file is known to be stable on Windows 7 but unstable on Windows XP, only Windows XP users will see the warning. Meanwhile, improvements in SONAR 4.0 include upgraded behavioral protection which monitors running programs for suspicious behavior and will stop them if it detects any. One of the bigger changes in SONAR is that it now scores DLL files separately, allowing for more nuanced detection. There have been some interface tweaks in the betas, adding bright green to the yellow and black interface. The online storage vault also catches up to the competition this year, integrating a cloud sync feature, and the Norton Power Eraser for last-ditch attempt computer fixes has been integrated with the Norton bootable recovery tool to create a single serving download. My experience with the beta has been that it's generally stable, although the Chrome extension has caused some browser instability. Expect that to be addressed by the time the final version gets released some time in September. With your First Look at Norton Internet Security 2012 Beta, I'm Seth Rosenblatt.