Every year more cyber-threats and attacks are popping up and every year, Symantec is making sure that they’re on top of it with the latest technology to counter them. Norton 360 v6 is their latest and most complete PC protection package in the market today.
Building up from previous 360s, Norton 360 v6 not only offers an anti-virus solution but also identity protection, parental control, system tune-up and online backup.
Upon installing 360 v6, which I might say was quite a breeze, you’ll notice how simple the interface is which is good since most people who needs this kind of rounded protection are afraid of too much complicated menus. The ones on the v6 looks to be designed to fit the upcoming Windows 8 with its simple, blocky interface.
PC Security is where you do your scanning and virus updates. It’s also where your live protection settings can be configured powered by Norton Insight which monitors applications you intentionally or unintentionally (malwares) install if they’re harmful or not. Actually a good feature for those who are click-happy whenever they see something pop-up while browsing. They also included the Facebook scan here which scans your news feed for malicious links and strips them off your wall. This is already an available Facebook app but they included it here as well. It’s also where you can manage Firewall behavior but I just leave it to its default settings and let it handle decision-making automatically when dealing with suspicious activities in your network.
Identity Safe is a critical feature for those who love doing business online or those who find themselves falling for scam sites. For one, it securely stores your personal information, passwords, addresses, cards, etc., if you wish to do so. But the most useful feature here I might say is the Norton Safe Web which attaches itself to your browser so it can warn you of links that might be harmful to visit, including those found when doing a Google search.
Not really their core area but Norton 360 also offers a somewhat comprehensive yet simple Backup solution for your data. You can choose to have Norton backup your data on any part of your disk, an external disk or use the free 2GB online storage that comes with your subscription.
PC Tuneup does what its names suggests, tune up your system by defragmenting your disk, cleaning up your files (cache, temporary files, uninstall leftovers, etc.), manage your startup applications, and give you a detailed diagnostic report while at it. Not the most complete tuneup solution in the market but its serviceable for those looking for a hassle-free process.
Performance
We don’t have stats to compare this with other total security software out there so I’m going to defer on a Passmark study of current versions of such security suites.
Norton 360 v6 is average when it comes to boot time, 6 seconds lagging behind the speedy Trend Micro.
It is above average when it comes to scan time achieving 24.5 seconds to scan a set of 6,159 files. The average is 36 seconds.
It is the least memory hog during system idle among products tested requiring only 24.6MB of RAM. Almost 10MB less than second placer Kaspersky’s PURE 9. It also won’t compete when your PC is doing resource-intensive task.
For security reasons, Norton 360 is taking up more time to let you install 3rd party applications.
You can see more tests and results from Passmark comparing all total security solutions including the Norton 360 v6.
Verdict
If you’re looking for a complete protection package for your PC, the Norton 360 v6 is one of the top solutions out there. It retails for Php3,150 and is good for a 3-PC license. If you don’t need the PC optimization and backup, the Norton Internet Security 2012 is a good alternative.
