Norton 360 4.0 review: A good deal for great services

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March 23rd, 2010 - Posted by Kent

Symantec has just released Norton 360 Premiere Edition v. 4.0. T the suite is a pretty impressive deal at $99.99 per year, it may seem steep, but it combines a lot of useful, even essential, applications into one product. Until March 31st, customers can receive 10% off with the code SYM2010NEW. Just enter the coupon code at checkout to receive the discount.

Norton 360 4.0 review:

Norton 360 Premiere Edition is a package of Symantec software that handily combines award-winning security software, 27GB of automated online backup, and various system utilities designed to speed up your computer and free up hard drive space, a package collectively known as PC Tuneup. The latter may sound like snake oil, and it's the feature we were most interested in testing. After all, we've tested the Internet security portion in the past; it's the same technology behind Norton Internet Security 2010, which has been rated tops by independent testing authorities such as A-V Comparatives.

All the elements are nicely grouped together in a single application. While all the elements are neatly organized under PC Security, Identity Protection, Backup, and PC Tuneup, there are additional choices grouped under Settings and Tasks. Some of these are redundant. It starts to make sense after a little while working with the program, and mostly you don't need to mess with these. Norton 360 is designed to run most components while your computer is idle, but we got impatient and wanted to run things manually.

We tested PC Tuneup by timing four different tasks, five different times, before and after installation, using a computer that had been used daily for well over a year and a half. In the pre-test it was running Norton Internet Security 2010. We tested (in this order) iTunes load time, an iTunes file conversion (MP3 to AAC), shut down, and start-up. The file conversion time did not change appreciably—the 2.3% speed gain was minimal and most likely random. However, it gave the computer some work to do, so we could measure the start-up and shut-down times in a more real-world usage case. It also assured us that the entire 360 suite did not actually slow our computer down.

It was in startup and shutdown that Norton 360 showed its might. We saw a 39% speed gain for shutdown, bringing a process that averaged 52 seconds to a process that averaged 31. This computer had turned into a real beast over its year and a half of service. Startup times got better too, by 37%, cutting the process from an average of 2 minutes and 7 seconds, to an average of 1 minute, twenty seconds. We should add that we used the exact same setup for both, although we did remove an old Norton backup utility after installing Norton 360.

What makes it faster? Norton Tuneup defragments your hard drive (making storage more efficient), cleans up your registry (removing remnants of old programs), and gets rid of useless Windows temporary files. The use of this latter feature freed up 49MB of space; not a lot, but enough to store another half-a-dozen MP3 files. There are a number of other useful utilities, including a startup manager that we were able to use to block a stubborn component of a program we'd long since uninstalled.

If there's a weakest link in Norton360 it's the automated online backup. It's good, but it's not great; in our experience the automated backup runs once per day, generally in the morning. Moreover, 360 asks you "close all programs so Norton 360 may back up your files." We're not sure why that's necessary. Some online backup services run iterative backups with greater frequency. You get 25GB of backup, enough for important documents and emails, but those with a lot of music or photos will need to buy a storage upgrade. It also does not seem to back up "locked" (i.e. in-use), files. On the other hand, Norton's online file access is snappy and easy-to-use, and includes a search function to make navigating your file structure easier. Users can not only retrieve or restore files, but also share them with others via secure email elinks.

A word about customer service: All tech support is provided by outsourced service reps, and it's conducted via chat. It's frustrating, particularly if your question falls outside the allowed script. If you disconnect your chat in frustration, you will get a telephone call back.

Despite our quibbles about the customer service and the infrequency of the backups, Norton 360 is a really great all-in-one deal. By itself, Norton Internet Security goes for a discounted $59.00, and the cheapest online backup plans out there will cost you at least $40.00. Add those up and you're already at Norton 360 Premiere Edition's discounted price of $89.99 (with coupon code SYM2010NEW). The PC Tuneup suite just sweetens the deal. All-in-all, it's a great bargain that will keep your computer protected, backed up, and running great.