I first started using Norton 360 on my laptop running Windows XP and it was pretty awful. It would always "ding" an alert or notice on every legitimate web site or online retailer. In addition, my laptop became terribly s-l-o-w. So bad in fact I thought it was my memory, and even with a memory upgrade it was crawling along. After that experience, I evolved into a new laptop running Windows Vista and bought Kaspersky Internet Security. This was a total disaster. Kaspersky, in my experience, is total junk! EVERY web page and browsing experience was blocked with so many "threat" notices that I had to disable it just to use Internet explorer. Not even Mozilla Firefox had a chance. So, in need of relief, I saw this "new" version of Norton 360. I removed the Kaspersky and installed Norton 360 Version 3.0 (As of April 8, 2009 be careful what you buy, when I was shopping, many stores were still carrying the older 2.0 version.) I did cautiously backup my system before installing this, and after installing it; it pretty much works as described. It will keep log-ins, and passwords stored within its program for various sites, like Amazon.com for example and these are password protected.
What is more noticeable to me, over my past experience with Norton 360 Version 1.0 is the "diet" the software has undergone. On my laptop, again running Windows Vista, (two years old) there does not appear to be any lag, or sluggishness, and you could argue it is faster than when Kaspersky was running. At first I thought the protection was not running, but it is, and I don't notice it.
As far as options, there is a Premier Version 3.0 and a "plain" Version 3.0. The main difference, as you see on the back of the box, is an upgrade in online storage. I have not tried to use the online storage and don't plan on using it. I already have a big enough external back-up drive and I do not like uploading my personal or sensitive files for someone else to hold onto. But it's your call in the end.

Pros: "light" software, hardly noticeable, compatible with Windows Vista, and able to securely remember log-ins and passwords

Cons: Having to buy this every year

Hope this review helps!

Pros:
-Intrusion prevention/Auto-protect (Firewall)
-Virus scanner with the largest database among all virus scanners
-Heuristics scanner that makes even Kaspersky jealous
-Other security features (Email scanning, browser settings check, network address check)
-File backup
-Disk defragger
-Temp file removal
-Registry scanner
-Does all of the above automatically while your computer is idle
-Has a full gamut options to fully control what 360 can and cannot do

Cons:
-Price
-Backup will only backup files, it will not make an image of the disk. This means that if you have a hardware failure you will have to reinstall windows + every program you own
-People claim it's a resource hog but my Norton 360 is currently consuming 00% CPU cycles and 10mb RAM. It does consume a lot of resources during a scan but that's why you're supposed to let it run automatically while your computer is idle
-People claim it is hard to uninstall. This though is false, Symantec has a program on their website that will uninstall it completely for you or you can use a program like Uninstall Tool


In order to copy all of the features of Norton 360 with different programs you would need to pay for an internet security application, backup application, and a "PC Tuneup" application. I actually didn't want to use Norton but it saved me money over buying those three programs individually and allows them to run automatically saving me the trouble of setting up run schedules and making sure my computer is on during those scheduled times.

I've installed Norton 360 on 3 different computers and none of them have experienced any of the problems that all these 1-star reviews did. One of the computers is even a POS laptop with barely any resources and it runs fine.

Norton 360 does not contain or use the program "PIFTS.exe" which is the purported executable that Symantec uses to "spy" on people.

I have a Bachelor's of Science degree in Computer Science with a Minor in Security and Forensics. I feel qualified to speak about this product as a professional in the field. I am not an "expert" because I do not work in the "Virus" scanning or software field, and I do not work for Norton. But I am a professional in the field of Computer Science and Computer Security.

Note: I am putting the word "virus" in quotes, to emphasize that the word is a media creation, and is not entirely indicative of the real behaviors and traits of malicious codes and programs. In biology, an organism can "catch" a real virus by simply being near it and/or exposed to it. In the world of computer security, active acceptance of a "virus" is needed, in order to "get it." This can include running unknown downloads, browsing shifty websites with an insecure browser, etc. Security threats can come from a multitude of sources: websites, downloads, programs, scripts, macros, etc. They are called all sorts of names: "spyware," "malware," "viruses," etc. All of these names and categories try to order and control something which is by its very nature uncontrollable. It is better to call is all "malicious code" and stop trying to categorize it. But, for the purposes of this review, "virus" refers to a type of malicious computer code which is generally intended to do harm to a target computer, and/or to ferret out financial/personal information, and/or capture control of a computer to allow the "virus" writer to use it for illegal purposes later.

First of all, let me state that I generally don't use any form of "Virus" security software. I generally don't trust them, and I do not like their subscription model of business. Over the years, I have used: AVG, McAfee, Norton, and lesser known products to CLEAN an infected system I was called in to look at. But, I do not use the products myself on my own systems. I generally use a simple firewall and on some more critical systems I will also use a behavior monitor to flag and block suspicious behaviors from software. If one follows good computer security practices, security software above a firewall and possibly a behavior monitor (such as from ZoneAlarm Pro or PC Tools "ThreatFire" or SpyBot's "TeaTimer") are all you need. Even with all of the security software in the world, you STILL have a chance of being hit, especially from a "zero day" threat. Because of that, the only way to 100% protect your data, is to perform regular backups.

However, I have to give Norton credit for giving this product a good "college try." First of all, they are doing their best to protect against "zero day" threats. A "zero day" threat is a threat on the day it is released. This is usually a problem, because most security software, especially "virus" scanners tend to rely on program "signatures" -- the names, and code and makeup of specific virus files. The "virus" is most dangerous on the day of its release, because the security software hasn't been updated to recognize it yet. In the past, updates to get new "signatures" used to happen on a daily or even a weekly schedule. This left a window of opportunity to get hit before the signatures were updated. And frequently, once you have been hit, the "virus" will disable your security software, or render itself invisible to it. Norton 360 v. 3.0 is attempting to combat this by literally checking for updates every 5-10 minutes or so. Additionally, Norton sets up an automatic backup process which can be used to restore critical files after a disaster. This will not help if your entire hard drive gets nuked by a virus, but it is better than nothing.

So, how did I test this product? I threw the proverbial kitchen sink at it, that's how. Note, this product requires Windows XP SP 2 or greater to install. The first test system I attempted to install it on was an original XP system with no updates. It refused to install (as do AVG and MacAfee for that matter, just to be fair). So, I installed it on a test system which I slightly more used than the older test system. Once I had installed it, run its updates, and run all of the scans, etc. (it found nothing, which is what I expected it to find), I was ready to try to break it. I networked a known corrupted system to the test system, and opened the network and file sharing protocols. I began accessing files, moving known infected files to the test system, etc. Basically, I gave the infected system the chance to take over the test system. I also loaded known virus files of various types (including Unix/Linux viruses which have no affect on Windows systems) to see if Norton would spot them, and what it would do with them.

Sure enough, the infected system started trying to get into the test system over the network. And I started receiving pop-up messages from Norton telling me over and over again that "such and such virus, or process, or whatever" had been blocked. It also dug up, within minutes, all of the known "virus" files and folders (even the Unix/Linux ones) I had loaded. Okay, so it was good at blocking bad stuff from a few months ago, and known "virus" files, even from other operating systems. What about zero day stuff? I hit a "hacker" website with an unsecured version of Internet Explorer (v. 5) which is known to try to inject into insecure browsers. Norton blocked it. I then downloaded the source code to a "virus" the "hacker" community was promoting, and compiled it and ran it (I altered the source code so it wouldn't actually harm any of the files on the test system if Norton failed), and sure enough, Norton had a signature for it, and blocked it. So, Norton 360 was able to repel attacks from a known infected agent. It was able to catch all of the "virus" files I presented it with, it was able to repel attacks from a known bad website, and it was able to catch and repel a self inflicted attack from a "zero day" "virus." Not bad. Not bad at all. For someone like my mother or grandmother, this is exactly the kind of product they need. It takes care of the details, and leaves them (more or less) safe.

The other features Norton 360 v. 3.0 has are fairly trivial. It has a disc optimization wizard (read: defrag), and a cleanup wizard (read: delete temporary files). Most of its PC Tune-up tools are either included in Windows, available for free online, or unadvisable. Their registry cleaner seems OK, but any time you mess around with the registry, you are asking for trouble. The backup function works fine, and can be scheduled to run automatically. And the identity protection stuff works fine too. If you are running Mozilla's "Firefox" you already have most of the tools that the identity protection offered by Norton offers, such as identifying insecure websites, etc. It has too many features too really rate and enumerate individually. I tested the major ones that an average user is going to care about.

Now, on to my only major gripe about Norton 360 v. 3.0 (and all security software suites for that matter). They claim, "Norton 360 3.0 [is] the industry's fastest, lightest, most complete security solution" and they claim that, "[it] is the fastest and lightest all-in-one PC protection solution available on the market today. [...] using significantly fewer system resources, so it won't slow you down: [...] It uses less than 10 MB of memory."

Well, true enough, it generally didn't use more than 10MB of RAM. But who cares about RAM usage? Most PCs on the market these days come with 1GB of RAM, or more. It is CPU usage, which is the problem. And just like every other security software suite like Norton which I have used, 360 v. 3.0 is a resource hog, just like all the others. Scans consistently topped 50% CPU usage. The test system is a 3.2GHz, dual core processor, with 2GB of RAM, running Windows XP SP3. When scanning, or doing anything CPU intensive, the computer basically freezes, or runs very slow, until the CPU has been released. This behavior is true of all security software, so Norton cannot be dinged too hard for this, which is why I am only subtracting 1 star from the review. However, they COULD have been a bit more honest in their claims and advertising. The thing is a resource hog, plain and simple. The main process running in system memory is pretty much always claiming 5-15% of the CPU, and whenever it is doing something more involved, then it regularly pings the CPU to 50% or higher.

My only other complaint about the product is how chatty it is. By default, it will pop-up and bug you whenever it has ANYTHING to report to you, including "tracking cookies" (which are not a real security threat.) This gets annoying after the 100th pop-up telling you it has blocked something. This behavior can be modified in the settings, but it is on by default. Norton also will ignore you if you restore a file which it has identified as a "virus," and it will re-delete the file when it encounters it again. This is a problem if you are a computer security professional, and part of your job is to archive and analyze security threats. I had to encrypt the files I wanted to keep, in order to prevent Norton from finding them, and trying to delete them. Good job to Norton on being so aggressive, but they need to make it easier for a professional to override the program.

So, overall, I rate the product a 4/5, with it losing a star for its less than honest advertising about how "fast and light" it was, and for the other obnoxious behavior listed above. I will not be continuing to use the product, because as I stated previously, I don't use any major security products. But, from the tests I ran, I would be perfectly happy to recommend this product to any family member or anyone in the general public, so long as they had the money for the product itself, and to pay for the updates subscription.

Norton 360 saved me a great deal of problems and potentially years of lost data. Dealing with several trojans at once was too much of a problem for my previous anti-virus program, AVG 8.5 (a free program that I thought was good). In reality, I had been living with the trojans for a few weeks without knowing (since AVG never caught them -- though to be fair, neither did Spybot S&D, Anti-Malware, Windows Defender, or Ad-Aware). You get what you pay for, in the end.

I installed Norton 360 thinking I might have many problems installing because I already had a virus, but the installation took less than 5 minutes and within 30 minutes all the viruses, trojans, and rootkits had been removed from all three infected computers. This is an excellent product. It runs quickly, unobtrusively, in the background, and just WORKS.

I highly recommend this product; it saved me a lot of time and problems. Though I would not recommend buying it from Amazon (kind of expensive). Staples and Office Depot frequently run specials on this product and I got mine for $30 from Staples.

I bought this as I had some cookie that always came up with a scan from my old Nortons saying it could not be deleted. And you guessed it, the same cookie keeps coming up and Norton 360 can not resolve it either. Anyway now I have noticed that Nortons has slowed down my start up of my computer, even after using Norton 360 application to reduce the number of other applications in the start up, my Vista Windows takes twice as long to open, showing an ominous black screen with a flashing cursor in the top right for a long period of time. I would not recommend this to anyone as it seems to be a burden more than assistance to my computer

I was completely shocked at the improvement of this year's edition over last year's. I expected slow and clunky software, but instead found more streamlined, user friendly software.

Setting up Norton 360 3.0 was simple. The new version deleted the old version and installed itself. Installation took about 15 minutes, making me reboot several times.

After it was up and running, it performed well. It immediately found a Trojan without my having performed an initial scan. This Trojan was probably lurking on my computer, which the old version of Norton completely was unaware.

Then, I set up the back up software. Norton scanned for important documents and found files I would likely want to back up (images/documents/music/etc). I was to able choose which of these files I wanted to back up and given options on where I wanted them backed up - to an external server, external hard drive, DVD burner, and so forth. Included in 360 is 2GBs of sever space from Norton. Obviously, this isn't enough to back up images and music, but it is enough to back up important documents.

Next, I scanned for viruses. Norton found a few minor issues and deleted the malicious files.

Finally, I defragged my hard drive, which took several hours.

So far, I have been quite pleased with the new Norton 360. It runs smoothly in the back ground and is far less intrusive than last year's edition. I'm surprised that I can actually recommend this software.

I opted to upgrade from Norton's basic Internet Security to the more deluxe Norton 360 primarily because of the included 2 GB of online secure storage (for files that I wanted double backed-up). Internet Security provided great protection from online threats, as does 360, but I downloaded the purchase of 360 and experienced many frustrating problems. First of all 360 failed to download after purchase. My bank account was charged for the purchase, but I was left with an error message stating that 360 could not be installed at this time, and that I would receive an email notifying me of when I was able to retry the download. What? At this point my old Norton product had just expired and was telling me that my computer was "at risk" -- isn't instant access the whole point of purchasing via download? I contacted tech support, who had to remotely control my computer to install the product. Within days of having 360 installed I received an annoying warning from 360 (which looked like a virus threat warning) stating that I needed to setup my backup. So I opened 360, attempted to activate my purchased online storage, and was informed that I was unable activate my online storage. The error message was not even written in correct English, and thus didn't actually make any sense. This caused my second chat with tech support, who once again "had to" remotely control my computer. After 60 minutes of excruciating boredom my technician told me that he was going to setup 360 to backup my files on my own hard drive to get rid of the error message... what? I paid an extra $20 for a measly 2 GB of online storage, and I was being told to fix the problem just setup 360 to not use the 2 GB? I explained that this upset me, and the technician said that my product key was broken, and that I would have to wait an additional 15 minutes for a new product key to be generated. 30 minutes later the technician said that he was unable to generate a new product key at that time, and that he would have to call me back the next day, so he asked for a time and date when I would be available. We confirmed the appointment for the call. The date and time came and went and I was never called. This technician managed to change my password without telling me, which meant that not only did the problem persist, but now I was unable to log into my Norton account. For a third time I had to connect to Norton tech support chat. For the third time they had to remotely control my computer, and after another 30 minutes my problem was finally fixed, and my 360 was finally working. What a headache! I'm no computer novice; I know my way around computers very well and all of the problems that I encountered were due to problems with Norton's service, not with my PC or its user. 360 is a wonderful product, maybe the best for-purchase protection to-date, but I HIGHLY recommend purchasing a hard disk version from your local Amazon =^) as the product download service from Norton's own website has proven to be a strikingly unreliable nuisance.

I've never been a big Norton fan because it would let the occasional spy ware or virus through. When my subscription expired I updated to 360 ver 3. It would have been better to download a virus. My computer in general and the internet in particular ran very, very slow after the installation. Not only that, but I lost use of Google and access to several websites.
Norton support was none existent. I waited on hold for 2 hours and finally gave up without speaking to tech person. The only way to get my computer back was to uninstall 360 and do a system restore.

I was a long time avid norton fan and supporter until i upgraded to norton 360 3.0. My friends had always told me that norton was a resource hog and a virus by itself but i never had any issue with their software and i enjoyed their interface. However on installing norton 360 3.0 my computer felt like it was infected and programs such as paint shop failed to operate eventually leading to a complete system failure. I uninstalled norton and things felt lighter and more robust all round. Now the thing is that this was 2 months ago and i reinstalled the software again thinking some updates may have resolved the issue but i was wrong. This is why i am sitting here and writing this review. Ill wait until windows 7 releases and ill buy a new antivirus software for it and it is likely it wont be a symantec product.

I struggled for months figuring out the best way to write a review for this program and, admittedly, spent too much time testing it out as 2010 versions of security software are already starting to hit the shelves. After testing a number of antivirus and internet security programs over the course of 2009, I would like to call this the best of them all as there are many features I absolutely love. However there are also some serious design flaws in this program that make it almost unusable.

I will get right down to the most serious issue. This program absolutely cannot be used in Automatic Program Control (APC) mode. APC mode is the "set it and forget it" mode that is enabled by default and allows Norton to work behind the scenes to allow "good" programs and block "bad" programs from accessing the Internet. Most people like this because they're not bugged with all the annoying messages about whether to allow a program or not. Unfortunately, when I ran a series of firewall breach tests (thanks Matousec!) with APC enabled, Norton 360 failed in every single one(!) This means if you mistakenly download a trojan or backdoor, if it is not detected via the antivirus database Norton WILL allow it Internet access. In my experience, if APC mode is enabled, 360 will allow Internet access automatically to any program we execute ourselves. Fortunately I can say that with APC mode turned OFF, Norton 360 was able to detect and alert me to every potential firewall leak and give me the option to block it.

To help users disable APC, I uploaded an image to show you where this setting is enabled. To do this yourself, open the Norton 360 main menu by doubleclicking the Norton icon in the system tray, click "Settings" at the menu at the top, then click "Firewall" (2nd option from the left), then click the tab at the top right that says "Advanced Settings". From there, turn Advanced Program Control OFF and make sure Advanced Events Monitoring is ON. Unfortunately this will mean that you will receive the occasional message when you execute an unknown program or a program tries to access the Internet for the first time. It will give you information like the filename and the directory the file is located so you can determine whether the file is safe. Once you select Allow Always, it won't bug you again. In other words, it may seem annoying at first, but eventually you won't even notice it and it's much safer than leaving APC enabled.

That major gripe aside, this really is the best version of security software Symantec has ever made. Following the trend of "just enough to get the job done" computing that the explosion of netbooks has taught the computer industry, Norton 360 is stripped down and optimized in order to have a negligible effect on computer resources, even on my aging computer. Installation was unbelievably fast. It really is the fastest and most trouble free version of antivirus software that I have ever used. Most of the menus are intuitive and settings are easy to find. Scans and backups are automatic and behind the scenes. Most things happen while the computer is idle and you won't get the annoying menus in your face while it's updating which always used to disrupt our work in the past. Amazingly, customer service has improved too!

Let's start with customer service. Finally, we get something besides a FAQ to look at. When we open support it will automatically install flash player if we need it, then scan our computer for potential problems. If that doesn't work we can open a chat session and the person on the other end has the ability to fix things from their end if we allow them to (they'll ask first). I did run into one problem, they'll assign ticket number for us to enter if a reboot is necessary. When I accessed the Symantec website in order to enter the ticket number and reconnect I was unable to do so. A serious issue that happened to me twice. They say they are working on the problem. We'll see. Talking to a human is an available option but still a fee service. Regardless, this level of service is much improved versus others that send you to a FAQ or force you to wait days for a return email.

Backups work well and you are allowed to select whatever you want along with system files if desired. Backup can be done to either the Internet (2MB max, more costs extra) or other hard drives, including external devices. The only problem I run into is it seems to backup items almost every single time I let my computer idle or when I'm watching a DVD. It would be nice if idle function could be set for a little longer than just half an hour. Backups to CD/DVD are available but you will need to do this manually. Now for the bad news, in spite of constant complaining by Norton Users, Norton 360 still will not do a complete clone of your system to another drive. If your hard drive crashes, your backed up files will be safe as long as they were saved elsewhere. As far as restoring Windows, prepare to suffer the joys of Windows reinstallation. If you want a real backup system (hard drive cloning), I would recommend Casper by Future System Solutions. I like the way backup works, but until Norton is able to restore our operating system as well as files I will always knock off a star.

One nice feature about websurfing is Norton examines websites on the fly and will warn you if you are entering personal information in a website deemed unsafe. When you Google Search, you will now see green checkmarks next to all sites deemed safe along with grey for unsure or red for unsafe. In addition Norton 360 has "Identity Cards" you can set up that are similar to a popular program named Roboform. By using the identity cards, you can enter repetitious personal information like your name and address and so on into webforms automatically whenever you wish. A paranoid person like me does get a little concerned about entering personal information into Norton but I've learned to trust the encryption and it's a wonderful time saver. Again, none of these features seem to slow down websurfing at all. My only gripe is that the two icons representing Norton's services have to take up an entire toolbar and they won't allow anything else to be added to the large blank line that takes up precious space. What gives?

With APC mode disabled, the antivirus scans work as they should. I have caught a few false positives which is problematic because it quarantines them automatically. I have yet to find an option for it to do otherwise, even though I have the "remove viruses automatically" setting turned OFF. It's also a giant clickfest in order to find out what files Norton actually removed. After a scan (or whenever you return to your computer and start working), a popup will appear that tells you x number of files contained viruses, but then you have to click, click, click through a giant database that logs every action taken by Norton in order to find the exact filenames. Once you find the files, there is an option to submit them to Symantec for review but the false positives don't seem to be resolved quickly. The so-called Security History Database is a real mess and could use some optimization of its own.

Now... all this said, it probably sounds like I hate this program but the truth is it's the most aggravation free program I have ever used. Those gripes I have mentioned have been the only ones I have come across after months and months of use. Aside from the APC problem, the program runs like a dream. When you start an antivirus scan and realize that you don't even notice a reduction in performance, you'll know what I mean. The pulse updates are truly awesome and everything that is supposed to work just works as it should. You are notified of pretty much everything that you should know about. Gripes aside, I still think Norton 360 is the best security software of 2009.

Edit 11/4/09: Found some of the notes I misplaced.
* It's time Norton starts supporting the popular email programs for antispam that are not MS Outlook.
* I miss watching all the blocks being moved around during a defrag. It was strangely hypnotizing.
* Each monthly report shows 'x' intrusions were blocked but there are no details in the database.
* The backup process works fine but setup is really slow and laggy.
* A nice feature is Delayed Startup to make your bootup times faster. The problem is the delayed programs start about 5 min later whether you're working or not. Some programs may steal focus. The feature could be improved if Norton waited until there was no activity on the computer before executing.