Symantec claims speedy security

Symantec claims the latest version of its flagship Norton security products is faster and easier on both the user and the host PC.

Norton Internet Security 9 installs in less than a minute and can scan your files in a little over 30 seconds, with 'zero impact' on performance, the company claims.

"Everything has been engineered for speed without compromising safety. We want to get rid of the perception that security software is slow, which can mean that people sometimes don't get updates or scan their machine when they ought to," said consumer product marketing director Con Mallon.

He said the memory footprint had been reduced from 10-12MB to 7MB and the hard disk space required had dropped from 400MB to 150MB.

The fast scan is achieved by a feature called Norton Insight, which collects data on applications used on millions of PCs on which the software is installed.

A unique signature, or hash code, is derived for each application, and this changes if the code is changed in any way. This allows Symantec to track which applications are being hit across the world and a 'white list' is compiled of those which are currently considered safe.

"This means that when we do a scan we don't need to look at applications that are on the white list, so long as they generate the right hash code," said Mallon.

He believed it would be impossible to create a botnet of compromised machines to trick the system into white-listing dodgy code. "Even if it did happen we have fallback systems that spot suspicious activity," he added.

Symantec has also included what it calls 'pulsed updates' that can deliver virus information as often as every 15 minutes. And scanning is done not by scheduling, but during idle time when a machine is being used.

Norton Internet Security 2009, which includes the full suite of products including ID protection, anti-phishing, anti-virus, anti-spyware and a personal firewall, costs £49. This includes three licences. Norton Antivirus 2009, which includes anti-spyware, costs £39.