Norton 360 Version 6.0

The current Norton 360 has a streamlined main window that's very different from last year's model, which featured a black background and dark icons. Options now slide in at the side when you point to a panel, where before they slid up from below.

As with the previous version, the Tasks window offers fast access to the most common tasks in general security, backup, and tuneup.

From the Settings window you can quickly turn certain features on and off or click to dig in for each security component's detailed settings.

From the online Norton Management console you can view and manage your product subscriptions and even remotely fix configuration problems.

The Norton Management console also offers quick access to a large collection of Norton apps, among them Norton Online Family, Norton Safe Web, Norton Mobile Security, and Norton Anti-Theft.

Norton's firewall blocks Web-based exploits before they can affect your system. In most cases the transient notification that it uses to report this action identifies the exploit by name.

When the firewall detects and prevents an intrusion attempt, it also automatically blocks all access from the attacking site for 30 minutes. I had to turn off automatic blocking in order to complete my exploit testing.

The Norton Insight component will rate all the applications on your system for reputation, prevalence, resource usage, and (new in this version) stability. To arrive at stability ratings Symantec uses aggregate data from millions of Norton users to identify how often a particular process crashes.

You can dig in for any file's full details to see exactly what the ratings mean. In the case of a known malicious file this view will also include a list of malicious actions.

If you choose a full system scan, Norton 360 does more than just scan for malware. In addition it checks for updates, cleans up temporary files, runs disk optimization, and backs up your files.

Upon finishing a scan, Norton 360 either reports that everything is fine now or requests a reboot to complete the cleanup. If you want to know what it actually did you'll have to dig into the security history.

Norton's phishing protection blocks known fraudulent sites and also checks unknown sites for signs of fraud. In testing it consistently beats almost all of the competition.

New in this version, you can associate Identity Safe with your Norton Account. Doing so lets you share saved password credentials and form-filing information between different computers running Norton products.

From any Internet-equipped computer you can log in to your Norton Account and log in to websites using your saved Identity Safe credentials. However, you can't save new logins in this mode.

By clicking the Online Family link at bottom, parents can add a scrolling view of parental control events to the main window. Clicking the Get Details button logs on to Norton Online Family.

From the Norton Online Family console, parents can view a child's recent Web activity, instant messages, search terms, and social network activity. Upgrading to Norton Online Family Premier adds the ability to track videos, applications, and time spent on the computer.

Creating a backup set is as simple as what, where, and when. Identify what files you want to back up, where you want to store them, and when the backup should occur. By default Norton stores backed-up files online and automatically performs backup tasks during idle time.

This edition's new backup progress window makes it easier for users to understand what's going on, especially during the initial large backup.

As with previous versions, users can "flip" the main window to get a detailed live report on system performance.

At any time you can call on Norton to scan your computer and create a diagnostic report that will show any problems and offer solutions.