We were excited to learn that F-Secure had unveiled Release 39 of its Internet Security product for 2012. F-Secure won several accolades in 2010 and 2011, including the 2010 Product of the Year designation from AV Comparatives. Our staff appreciated F-Secure Antivirus 2011, but gave it low marks for feature breadth, virus scanning performance, and general system performance impact. We were curious whether F-Secure had brought its feature set and performance up to par with its stellar virus detection.

The answer appears to be “no.” But on the plus side, F-Secure’s virus detection may be even more stellar.

While still not impressive as Avast! or AVG, F-Secure Internet Security 2012 does usher in welcome feature improvements. First up is a reboot-free install on Windows 7, which is always welcome. After installation, users will notice that clicking on the System Tray icon for the application produces a pop-up menu of choices centered just above the Task Bar. The F-Secure 2012 release notes tout that F-Secure Internet Security 2012 has been broken up into components “for easier licensing and installation.” We’re sure anti-virus users will be happy that F-Secure took their licensing needs to heart.

The F-Secure Dashboard will be familiar to users of the F-Secure 2011 product line; nothing fundamental has changed. The platform includes several protection changes that users won’t notice in the UI. They include DeepGuard 4, which F-Secure trumpets as a total overhaul of its proactive anti-virus scanner, and Mobile Broadband, which allows fine control over downloading updates when connected through a 3G or 4G Internet service.

F-Secure Internet Security 2012 Beta: The Dashboard

The Parental Control feature has been enhanced in 2012 Beta to bring it up to snuff with similar features offered by its competitors. The company has combined its Parental Control and Browsing Protection modules into a single Parental Control feature, and added Bypass Protection. In F-Secure 2011, Parental Control only worked for Internet Explorer and Firefox, and could be bypassed by using Google Chrome; in 2012, the feature operates at the networking level, forbidding access to prohibited sites using any application. F-Secure Parental Control also adds a Time Lock to restrict computer usage on a per-user basis.

Unfortunately, these enhancements to Parental Control may explain why we were unable to subject the 2012 Beta to a full review on our test machine. Immediately after installation completed, we were unable to access any Web sites in Google Chrome. When we attempted to kill the process, it hung. From that point on, we were unable to launch any other Web Browser, either! Neither Firefox nor Internet Explorer would start until we had hard-rebooted our machine and uninstalled F-Secure. Our attempts to re-install the Beta after that failed, as shown in the screenshot below. Downloading a new copy of the installer brought no relief.

Failed re-installation of F-Secure 2012 Beta.

Given its current state, users interested in Release 39 should be very wary of installing the product on a work or school system. For those who manage to run it, the 2012 Beta Release Notes contain some tips for those users who experience hangs or dramatic slowdowns post-install (turn off DeepGuard, disable parental controls and firewall scanning). F-Secure says these problems plague about 5-10% of beta users.

These pre-release issues aside, we found F-Secure Internet Security 2012 Beta disappointing in its feature scope, but were impressed with how much effort the company has invested in enhancing its already top-notch virus detection system. In today’s world, having an up-to-date virus definition database isn’t enough; anti-virus platforms must use advanced heuristics to combat zero-day exploits and self-modifying malware. If DeepGuard 4 lives up to its hype, F-Secure may yet again be able to brag it has the best damn anti-virus engine on Planet Earth.

The folks at ESET have been busy beavers. Version 4 of NOD32 AntiVirus was our #2 rated antivirus program of 2011. Not a crew to rest on its laurels, their development team has already released NOD32 AntiVirus 5 Beta. Version 5′s mission is simple: play catch-up with other leading antivirus platforms by adding a host of new features.

A Plethora of New Features

We lauded NOD32 Version 4 for its ease of use and its high degree of virus-squashing
accuracy (it scored 14/15 in our Effectiveness rating). While we admired NOD32′s simplicity from a usability standpoint, we did worry that users weren’t getting the most bang for their buck compared to Norton, Avast!, and other commercial AVs. NOD32 Version 5 aims to change all that.

The (slightly) re-designed main Dashboard screen has been renamed Home, and contains a list of frequently used commands.

Some changes will not be immediately visible to new users. Behind the scenes, NOD32 Version 5 uses a cloud-based reputation system to whitelist files that have already been trusted by a significant number of users on the network. NOD32 is a year or two behind the curve on cloud-based reputation: Symantec’s Norton already incorporates reputation-based security. Still, it’s good to see that the idea is catching on among more vendors. As Symantec’s Gerry Egan points out (see previous link), viruses are morphing so quickly that the traditional, signature-based approach to computer security is losing ground.

Other changes are more visible – though not as visible as we like. Somehow, NOD32 4 managed to take second place without supporting one of the most important features in antivirus applications: Gamer Mode. This simple switch suspends scans and antivirus-related popups while you’re playing an online game, watching a movie on Netflix, or performing some other processor-intensive activity. While this feature is most welcome in NOD32, it’s not well implemented in the beta: you can disable Gamer Mode from the context menu in the Windows System Tray, but you can only enable it by navigating to the Setup tab in the NOD32 Dashboard. Hopefully, ESET will add a context menu option for Gamer Mode before release. In better news, NOD32 provides a configuration
option to enable Gamer Mode automatically whenever an application runs full-screen.

NOD32 Version 5 also enhances the breadth of virus scanning by adding support for scanning removable media. Users can even prevent specific devices from connecting to a computer.

New Tools

The Tools tab (previously only available in Advanced mode) has also been greatly
improved. In Version 4, the Tools menu was a text-based listing of four tools. ESET has gussied up this screen, and added several new tools to boot. Protection Statistics provides basic reporting on past scanning activity. The Watch Activity screen displays how many read/write filesystem operations are currently occurring on the system. While the filesystem is the only Watch Activity option currently available, the existence of a drop-down selector on this page implies that ESET will be adding more components to this screen prior to release. Finally, Cloud-Powered Reputation uses ESET’s new cloud-based reputation system to calculate which processes currently running on the system  may pose a security threat.

The newly redesigned Tools menu brings a little beauty to this previously drab screen. ESET has also added several new utilities, including Watch Activity and Cloud-Powered Reputation.

User Interface Improvements

The NOD32 beta also introduces a few user interface improvements. Previously, the default Dashboard screen was called Protection Status, and it contained nothing but information about the computer’s security state. The new default screen is called Home, and it contains a list of Frequently Used commands.

NOD32 also appears to have eliminated its distinction between Standard Mode and Advanced Mode. The Advanced Mode option on the Setup menu has been replaced by a link labeled Enter advanced setup, which just opens the Configuration dialog.

Gone is the distinction between Standard and Advanced mode in NOD32 Version 5: all users are now presented with a single interface.

Conclusion

NOD32 Version 5 Beta is a great leap forward for the platform. While none of these features are particularly unique, they do help justify investing in a product which has already proven itself a champion in terms of anti-virus eradication.

Whew! Just as we finished reviewing all of the Antivirus and Internet Security software for 2011, antivirus manufacturers began releasing beta editions of their 2012 software. It’s no surprise that one of the first vendors out of the gate with a 2012 beta is Symantec Corporation, whose Norton AntiVirus 2011 can reasonably lay claim to the best antivirus platform of the year. What tricks does Norton have up its sleeve for the new year?

• NOTE: This review was based on Norton AntiVirus Beta Version 19.0.1.16. This review is informational only, and is based on software designated as Beta. Features are subject to change between this version and the final 2012 release. Since this is a Beta release, we ran none of our usual performance or virus scanning metrics.
• Because this is Beta software, users install it at their own risk. Consult the Norton AntiVirus 2012 Public Beta Forum before installing to gauge what problems you may encounter.

Norton continues to possess one of the fastest and smoothest installation routines of any software package on the planet. As shown here, Symantec isn't shy about bragging, either.

Dashboard Re-Design

The Dashboard is the critical UI element of any antivirus platform. A good Dashboard updates a user on the current security state of their computer, and provides easy access to virus scanning and other protection utilities, such as anti-spam, identity protection, and parental controls.

Like its predecessor, the Norton 2012 Beta Dashboard leaves you feeling like you’re heading North American air space defense operations. But Symantec has done a great job reducing clutter and improving the organization of key features. The Dashboard’s content area has been reduced to three commands: Scan Now, LiveUpdate, and Advanced. Scan Now enables launching a complete virus scan, a Reputation Scan, or a Facebook Wall Scan. LiveUpdate ensures you’re running with the latest version of Norton, and the latest virus definitions. And if you miss those configuration options? Not to worry – click Advanced, and you can configure Norton AntiVirus to your heart’s content.

The Norton Dashboard gets a housecleaning in the 2012 Beta: the Dashboard's main content area is reduced to three major commands.

While we like the improved interface, we found some of the UI icons inconsistent in this Beta release. For instance, whenever you enter a sub-window, such as Scan Now or Advanced, Norton displays a Close button that will return you to the main Dashboard display. On Scan Now, the Close button is an x; on Advanced, it’s an arrow. On the Norton Tasks screen (accessible via the Performance window), it’s a big button labeled “Close”! We hope Norton performs a UI review before releasing this latest version upon their customers.

Remote Management

Along the bottom of the Dashboard are three buttons for accessing more of Norton’s capabilities. The Activity Map button displays the worldwide infection map we’ve all come to know and love. The Manage button displays a dialog for the new Management feature in Norton AntiVirus, which enables managing security on all of the PCs running on your network. A few other anti-virus packages offer remote management, and we were happy to see Norton take it up.

Norton 2012 Beta provides a Web-based interface for managing multiple computers and devices over the Internet.

Unfortunately, the experience was not ideal. Management was not installed by default, and took several minutes to set up. Then we were forced to create an account on Norton.com to access the Web-based Management interface. We assume Norton implemented this as a  Web application so that users could manage PCs and devices outside of their local network. Even taking that into consideration, we found the process cumbersome.

Mobile Device Security

If you own an Android-based smart phone, you can take advantage of Norton’s third bottom-bar button, which directs users to download the Norton Mobile Security app from the Android Market. Since we’re iPhone devotees, we were unable to assess Norton’s mobile experience. But the company deserves kudos for its foray into the mobile security marketplace – especially given the stagnation of PC sales, and the rapid growth of smart phones and tablets.

Under The Hood

On their Web site, Symantec claims that the latest Norton offers “our fastest performance ever.” We’ll leave that up to our performance tests to decide once the application goes live in September.

Chrome Extension?

One of our biggest complaints with the 2011 crop of antivirus software is that few vendors offered Web surfing protection for users of Google’s Chrome browser. The news from Symantec appears mixed on this front. It appears that earlier versions of the Norton Beta included a Chrome extension. As of the latest build, the extension appears to have been yanked. We have high hopes that this extension will return in subsequent builds.

Conclusion

While there was nothing here that blew us away, Norton appears at least to be treading water against its competitors. Whether they’ve provided enough incentive for existing users to upgrade remains to be seen; features like Management and Mobile Security will only be of interest to select users.