Norton antivirus settings

Norton Antivirus

Norton antivirus a product of Symantec Corporation, protects users from virus, spyware, Trojans, rootkits and other malware.  It also keeps one safe from phishing, and other online threats. It conducts regular system scans which can be scheduled or carried out on demand. Norton antivirus 2011 is the latest and it has an advanced intrusion detection feature that eliminates threats the instant they are enter. Norton AntiVirus' pulse updates ensure users are always plugged into Symantec's global security grid and are just moments away from software updates. Norton’s Safe Web technology blocks threats that arrive through internet before they can infect the PC. The antivirus uses latest technology called Quorum technology to detect threats that don’t have a definition yet. Norton Antivirus checks the authenticity of the programs that are installed using reputation-based security, which works by comparing the data against the 58 million NAV users in Norton Community Watch.

Norton Antivirus dashboard

Options in the settings menu and their use

Using the settings menu

Norton Antivirus dashboard

The Norton AntiVirus 2011 Dashboard has an appealing visual display with black and golden being the prominent colors. The dashboard displays the state of security of the system with an interactive map displaying the worldwide security status. The usual Quick Scan, full system scan, and the custom scan disks options are accompanied by newer scan options, like scanning Facebook wall for suspicious contents. The user can set the timings for timings for scans.  Installed programs are scanned immediately and each scan is followed by a detailed summary report. This can also be viewed from the History option. The component ‘System Insight’ is enhanced, increasing the efficiency of warnings against programs which try to clog the system. The new ‘Download Insight’ component also matches the new downloads against the same principle. SONAR (Symantec Online Network for Automatic Response) looks for suspicious activity of any software and automatically responds to them. Bootable recovery tool creates CD, DVD, or USB-based bootable devices automatically. This security suite provides other valuable features Norton Online Family parental controls, Norton Safe Web and Norton Power Eraser for free! The Power Eraser tool can clean the computer from disguised threats.

Options in the settings menu and their use

The settings menu link is present at the right hand side of the dashboard. The options present in the settings menu are computer settings, network settings, miscellaneous settings and parental control. The computer settings include computer scans with their options. The smart definitions can be set at on or off, compressed files scan, intelligent skip scanning, remove infected compressed files, Microsoft office automatic scan, rootkits and stealth items scan, network drives scan can all be set at on or off. The heuristic protection option, the low risk option(set at automatic or ignore) and the tracking cookies scan option are also present. The idle time scans can be set to daily or weekly, and the number of threads for manual scans can also be changed. The antivirus and sonar exclusions can also be configured. These involve the given options: items to exclude from scans, items to exclude from auto protect and sonar detection, signatures to exclude from all detections. Other settings include insight protection,, scan performance profiles, enable boot time protection. Real time protection includes antispyware, auto protect, caching removable media scan and SONAR protection.

Using the settings menu

Norton AntiVirus 2011,  Settings  dialogbox has simple on/off toggle buttons, and three-state switches. You can change the Tracking Cookies Scan setting to one of the three, namely,  Remove, Ignore, or Ask Me. The updates are of two types, automatic or live updates. The internet settings include antispam settings, browser protection, email scan, IM scan and intrusion prevention which has further settings like intrusion exclusions and intrusion auto block. The default settings can be restored by clicking on the use sections default link on the right hand side. Thus, Norton internet security enables users to configure each and every aspect of the internet security suite.