Hands On: Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 (Verdict: Not Impressively Fast)

August 4th, 2008 by Dana Wollman  Current Price: $119.97 (1 seller)

Okay, okay. Security software is far from being the sexiest topic I could write about (that would be linux, right?). Although you might not have heard of Kaspersky, which launched Internet Security 2009 today, or wouldn’t consider them over their bigger competitors, they’re about to assume a bigger profile. Next month, Best Buy’s Geek Squad will start hawking it alongside Trend Micro’s and Webroot’s products. The program costs $59.95 annually for one user, and $79.95 for three. Indeed, Kaspersky makes no bones about the fact that they’re appealing to geeks. The company is betting that techies will appreciate its claims to low-impact performance, and its roster of customizable settings. For newbies, it has free technical support. We got some hands on time. After the jump, our first impressions: Installation Installing the small, 30.8MB file took just 1:29, and we didn’t have to click through many screens. Connecting to Kaspersky’s server to register took a few tries, but once we did we were golden. Internet Security 2009 also ushers in a new opt-in research feature, which allows your program to send statistics to Kaspersky’s lab. By default the box enabling this feature is checked, but you can uncheck it during the installation process. The idea is that if Kaspersky sees that many users are running a particular application without incident, they can classify it as Good, thereby making their list of threats and safe apps more accurate. As for privacy, Kaspersky told us that this feature won’t tie statistics to any personally identifiable information. Performance Impact Kaspersky prides itself on its low performance impact, meaning its products supposedly don’t slow down your computer the way its competitors do. That’s not entirely true, if our early hands on testing is to be believed. Launching Microsoft Word took 2 seconds without a scan running, and between 35 seconds and 1:05 to launch when the scan was running. Even moving the cursor across the screen was sometimes difficult. On the plus side, launching Windows Media Player took 2 seconds without the scan, and 5 with. Word even became briefly unresponsive. Internet Explorer took forever to launch, and as we typed in the URL bar, the letters came out seconds later. Our Acer TravelMate 4720 has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, so we’re not blaming the CPU. Interface The program’s interface is self-explanatory: In the left-hand pane are links for Protection, Scan, Update, and License. The Protection tab is divided into four sub categories: Anti-Malware, System Security, Onlione Security, and Content Filtering. You can click on these four links in the left-hand pane to get more task-specific options, or if you click the protection tab you’ll see all four categories in the center of the screen, with the most common tasks listed beneath. As with pretty much any security program out there, you can run either a quick scan or a full scan. We like how, unlike Symatnec’s Norton products, Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 shows a progress bar during scans, complete with time elapsed and the percent completed. And, as simple as it sounds, we like how the border of the main screen turns red, yellow, or green, depending on your system’s status; it makes it easy to tell at a glance what kind of shape your computer’s in. Customizability Our review of Iolo’s System Mechanic 8 isn’t up yet, but having had plenty of hands on with it, we’re not particularly impressed with Kaspersky’s customizability, even though the company claims to appeal to the geek set. With System Mechanic, a tuneup program, you can select power tools, which, run sets of related processes, as well as individual tools. With Kaspersky, there are fewer choices, for one, and this part of the user interface is less user-friendly, to boot. With Iolo, there’s a single button next to each option, allowing you to start a process, repair a problem, or optimize your PC, or what have you. With Kaspersky, there’s a box you can uncheck to disable a process, as well as another settings box, and links under Security Level and On Detection. It’s just more confusing. Responding to Threats We like how Kaspersky updates its threat list hourly, which is more frequent than its competitors. We also like that the company has added a third category for threats that it’s unsure of; for these, the program automatically proceeds with caution, allowing the user to use applications in an isolated way that doesn’t put the whole system at risk. One thing that baffles us, though, is the new anti-phishing virtual keyboard. It’s supposed to pop up when you’re entering online PINs so as to thwart keyloggers, but it never appeared when we signed into CitiCards.com. The Verdict We like Kaspersky Internet Security 2009′s easy interface and quick install time, but it doesn’t live up to some of its biggest promises: the performance impact is bigger than Kaspersky would have you believe, and the customizability is okay, but not the best. I’m not sure if it’s geek material, anyway.

Comments (2 Responses) Current Price: $119.97 (1 seller)
Tags:

Related Deals

 

2 Responses to “Hands On: Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 (Verdict: Not Impressively Fast)”

  1. John Jackson Says:
    November 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

    I am having trouble with your product. It is stopping program downloads, and the logging on to the Internet. I am not sure what I did to cause this and don’t know what to do to undo the screw up. Please help!

    phone (951) 244-8650

  2. Kevin Says:
    June 3rd, 2010 at 11:43 pm

    In the past ten years, I’ve gone through Norton, McAfee, ZoneAlarm, TrendMicro, and now I’ve been using kaspersky for the past two years. The software architecture has remained consistenly fantastic: super efficient, no frozen screens, and low system usage. By far the most stable anti-virus solution I’ve seen (no crashes). The verdict that kaspersky is not impressively fast is incorrect. Kaspersky does a very thorough check of new software you install that takes some time, but no longer than 30 minutes. And what I care most about, Kaspersky blocks all the ad/spyware that attempts to self-install when you browse the net.

Leave a Reply

Featured Sponsors