Review by mateo52

Because, while I’m not about to go looking under the hood and I can’t see where the mechanics published any new exciting information about modifications to the engine, all I see are some rather inconsequential cosmetic changes to the user interface like the banner on the home screen now appearing as white rather than black ,Insight being relegated to a sub-menu,a link to download a power eraser tool if all else fails and something about a cloud there’s no way I’ll ever use. So, if you were satisfied with the performance of the 2013 version of this security suite, nothing about this version should cause any concern (…well, other than installing it which we’ll get to in a moment). If the interest is a first time install or a revisit to the Norton family, I am going to reiterate much of last year’s review, because for the typical home user, I still believe this security alternative is among the most comprehensive and easiest to use packages presently available whether the need is for one PC or multiples.

However, as far as installation is concerned, there is unquestionably room for improvement. With the de-emphasis of internal optical drives, many software developers are moving toward downloadable products. Norton 360 still has a physical CD available but the recommended option is download from the Norton site, so naturally my choice is to install from the CD which is supposed to upgrade the existing version…yeah, right or more accurately.. yeah, but not without encumbrances like a conflict between two versions that is not resolvable without a hard restart. My suggestion would be to delete the old version and do a fresh install if the decision is to go with CD install. It might mean loss of histories, existing network mapping and resetting preferences but it might also be less of a headache than trying to transfer them via the supposed upgrade capability. From my second PC, I did go the online route and it worked without incident.

That said, and feeding into my unabashedly admitted laziness, the following is an excerpt from last year’s review, and as I am a fan of the 360 product, probably a preview of my review of next year’s version:nnNorton 360 is a comprehensive security suite with an array of processes and tasks consolidated in a single application. The complement of features can be found in the manufacturer’s description above. Each of the features could be addressed through other resources and admittedly, a few of them might well be more effectively administered by standalone apps, but for the user who wants to set it and forget it, this product is among the top choices.

For less knowledgeable users, who may desire to find out more about security protocols and firewall settings, there are support functions here that can assist and increase awareness of threats they may not have even known they could monitor, of particular interest if surfing curiosity takes the user to a wide range of unknown sites. I know with dynamic IP assignment, 360 is a fast and convenient way to identify physical addresses for all of the devices I have on my network with logging on the router. Backup to external drives or online to the Norton storage site is also supported. In fact, the only difference between the standard and Premium additions of this suite is the amount of basic online storage available, with the standard addition providing 2GB and the Premium 25GB. Users, however, with multi-device platforms including Macs and mobile devices would be better served by purchasing the Multi-device version of this software.

I am rather obsessive about running registry cleanup and 360 offers another utility to supplement the shareware app I use most regularly. I do so because I do think any one product successfully identifies all files that could be cleaned. Similarly, Startup manager is another utility that can be assessed elsewhere but is another convenience found in this product and scanning performance can be improved by adjustments available with Norton Insight.