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Secure and convenient are two words that can't marry. At least till now. Security firm Symantec says it will offer users both convenience and online security with its Norton 2009 range that comes with a "zero-impact" performance goal promise.
What the software designers at Symantec have done is to work out more than 300 improvements to create software that is big on security but small in PC processing.
"Our goal is to make sure we are not slowing down any other applications on your computer" said Tom Powledge, Symantec's Vice President of Product Management, Consumer Products Division.
The revamp of the Norton software came about through feedback from users.
Clearly one often-heard feedback must've been the slowdown on computers during start-up and scans caused by security software.
That's why Powledge was quick to assure that one of the goals with the '09 product is to minimise the impact of the boot-time of a PC.
"(Current software) may add several seconds of boot-time to the PC. We're working to cutting that down to the minimum possible" he added.
The reason why PCs act as if there's a tiny Robocop lumbering around their insides blasting away Trojans, is due to the RAM taken up when the security system kicks in.
By offering a smaller 'foot print' on a PC, users no longer have to bear with a start-up that's as slow as a seven year old getting out of bed at 6AM. Neither should users experience system scans that reduce applications to a crawl so that they have a good few minutes to count the different ways to eliminate the machine, the software and the person/s who either created or installed the software (or both).
"The amount of RAM and memory we are using in the background on your computer is already very,very low and we aim to keep optimising that " said Powledge.
"Our applications use roughly 10 MB of RAM in the background on your PC, while before, several years ago it used 50-60 MB, so we have a very significant reduction."
The design team at Norton has clearly been hard at work because with Norton 2009 users will also see fewer prompts from the system thanks to a silent scanning and backup system that's more intuitive.
So files that are commonly found on most computers and statistically determined to be trusted won't be scanned. And the only time users get a prompt is when the system finds that there has been no back-up or scans for some time.
"What we've done is we've changed the logic of the product" explained Powledge during a recent visit to Singapore.
"It used to be that once a week it would pop up and ask you for a system scan. So we've changed those business rules, we try to run during idle time, if we don't get enough of idle time during a certain period, in this case two weeks or so, then we will prompt you."
Apart from more user-friendly software, the team at Symantec decided to offer new features based on the needs and behaviour patterns of users.
One of trends which Symantec found when it came to the backing up of files was location.
More users were choosing online storage as it allowed them to access their data from any location and any PC.
Based on that, Symantec decided to expand the online storage option for users and acquired Swap Drive, an online company founded in 1998 that was offering backup and storage services.
Now, Symantec will be able to offer more options to its some three million Norton 360 online backup service users.
Said Powledge, "Our intention with the acquisition of Swap Drive is to begin to offer additional services to consumers to help them secure and manage the data that they have on their PCs."
Another feature from Symantec is a family safety service.
This will offer monitoring of websites that children visit by taking snapshots of the site, as well as the popular time management options to monitor and control computer time.
With the rise in instant messaging, Symantec will also be offering the ability to monitor chats so as to protect children from strangers they may meet online.
Before the commercial launch of the software later this year, the family safety service should be available in Beta as an online download.
In the meantime, if you want to check out the Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton AntiVirus 2009, these are also available in Beta as a free public download at the Symantec website.
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