Symantec's 2012 Norton betas burst into availability online

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 18 April 2011 12:01

Your IT - Home IT

Although Symantec has only recently launched its Norton 360 v5 software, which uses Norton's Internet Security and AV engine while being even easier to use and including features like backup, times does not stand still with Symantec's 2012 Internet Security and AV betas bouncing into view and beta testing from today.

When it comes to Internet Security software on Windows PCs, we all know the names: Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky, AVG, Trend Micro, BitDefender, Microsoft Security Essentials and others.

While Kaspersky has done much to elevate its status as a solid provider of consumer and business-grade security solutions, including snaring Jackie Chan as its face in advertising and last year becoming a sponsor of Ferrari's 2011 F1 campaign, Symantec's Norton suites are still tough competitors that set the Internet Security standard.

Indeed, while Symantec doesn't seem to have sponsored anyone or anything with its Norton Internet Security or Norton Anti-Virus lines, its Norton 360 suite sponsors the V8 Supercars in Australia and has done so over the past few years to great effect, with Symantec retaining the No.1 spot, in Australia through a combination of Norton Internet Security and Norton 360 sales.

As Symantec's historical domination comes under attack from Kaspersky and others, the company obviously wishes to remain at the forefront of the Internet Security arms race and has launched its 2012 range, in beta form, for Windows users to test and trial - and no doubt Symantec's competitors will be downloading a free beta copy to see what's new and who's who in Symantec's 2012 security zoo.

Ever since Symantec radically rewrote Norton Internet Security a few years ago to abolish the 'bloatware' image it used to have, so too has the entire Internet security industry moved forward to promise the fastest performance, lowest memory usage and the most minimal impact, and naturally, it's no different for 2012. 

Symantec says its 'Norton 2012 betas improve on performance and protection in what are already the industry's fastest and lightest security products', and promise 'key security enhancements, including the ability to assess the safety and stability of an application before installation.'

As Symantec's existing 2011 suites already assess the 'safety' of applications after you've downloaded them, assessing the 'stability' of an app is new, and Symantec explains this a little further as we'll see in a few paragraphs below.

Jens Meggers, the VP of Engineering for Norton products said: 'As we've proven year after year, we are committed to arming consumers against cybercrime with the strongest protection possible, without slowing down their computers. For the Norton 2012 release, our aim is to continue to raise the bar for both protection and performance.'

So, continuing on the theme that modern security products don't cause performance problems any longer, what else does 2012 promise, not only for its betas, but also for its final versions?

Continued on page two, please read on!