I own a 3-year-old Dell XPS 410 with an Intel Core 2 6700 CPU @ 2.66GHz, equipped with a RAID 0 650 GB dual hard drive, 4 GB DDR2 RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB "Direct X 10"-compatible graphics card; for the most part, I have been displeased with the performance of my computer ever since my initial purchase... and this disappointment extended to the performance of my chosen internet security suite, KIS 2007-2010.

After several years of using the miserably sluggish, sporadically buggy Vista Ultimate 32-bit OS, I have recently upgraded my computer to Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit (all I can say is WHAT A DIFFERENCE... for those interested, upgrade ASAP). After a clean install, I reluctantly decided to reinstall KIS 2010 and see how well it would perform with my new OS. I wasn't too impressed with KIS 2010's overall performance when I ran it on Vista Ultimate 32-bit (although it was improved over KIS 2009), but running it on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit is another story altogether.

The Good:

A newly-streamlined interface makes it far more user friendly than previous editions;

There's lots of smart configuration tweaks for experienced users;

It uses a lot less system resources to run than the last few versions;

It works extremely well with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit (which I have just upgraded to), with no slowdown or start-up hangs;

Firewall, malware and virus protection is among the best of any current security suite;

The "safe run" sandbox virtual environment is a nice new feature;

The free software upgrades means you only have to continue renewing your subscription, as opposed to shelling out twice as much for annual software upgrades.

However, there are a few cons:

My experience with KIS 2010 on Vista Ultimate 32-bit was erratic, as most of the time it would work well, but on occasion would tremendously slow down my computer's start-up time, sometimes to the point where I would have no choice but to re-boot the computer;

The spam filter needs work;

The interface could still stand to become a bit more user-friendly for novices in the settings section;

There is an issue with KIS 2010 that blocks the "Windows Experience Index" from completing in Windows 7 (UPDATE: a recent patch finally seems to have corrected the issue);

Scanning is fairly slow with large hard drives.

Still, for the several weeks that I have been using KIS 2010 with Windows 7 64-bit, I must say I am quite pleased with the smooth, quick and reliable performance it has exhibited, as none of the issues that marred KIS 2009 and 2010 while using Vista Ultimate 32-bit are occurring with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.


Overall, my recommendation is if you are using Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, I'd give Norton Internet Security 2010 a shot before KIS 2010. However, if you (like me) are using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, Kaspersky 2010 Internet Security Suite does its job quite well and I would strongly encourage users to give it a try.

I've used just about every security system in the world over the years and a year ago settled on Kaspersky 2009, which is easy to use, runs well, and does everything perfectly.

Then, in September, it came time to renew my annual license. I paid my money, and, instead of just renewing me, Kaspersky sent me their new program, 2010. I installed it with no problem. The interface is more complicated but not *really* hard to figure out. After a while, however, I started noticing that there were various sites that I couldn't get to on the Internet (I use Chrome as my browser). Then I discovered that some programs, such as Eudora and Agent were taking longer and longer and longer to shut down when I clicked the X in the corner. And that almost *all* programs I opened or *all* websites that I went to were *much* slower in starting up than they had been before. I tried getting help for various issues at the online Forum where various people send in their problems and other people, including, I guess, some types hired by Kaspersky, try to help them. I got various answers but not very good ones.

I finally discovered by reading a number of anguished threads in the Forum that *lots* of people were having terrible slow-down problems with Kaspersky 2010, even though 2009 had run smoothly. A few people said that the only way they fixed their problems was to uninstall 2010 completely and to reinstall 2009. Finally, after 2010 suddenly vanished from my screen and disappeared *entirely*, I used "Revo Uninstaller" (a *great, free* program, by the way, that everyone should have) to uninstall 2010 and then, using my CD that I had bought a year earlier, finally managed to reinstall 2009. It was hard, though, and took me several hours, countless reboots, and various clean-ups that hadn't been necessary when I first installed it a year ago. Now my system is once again humming along with 2009 and all the problems that I experienced with 2010 are gone.

Buying 2010 is like buying Microsoft Vista and installing it if you had previously been running XP -- a big mistake, and don't do it! It's nothing but a piece of over-priced bloatware that is full of bugs and should never have been released. Users of Internet Explorer 8, particularly: take warning! According to the Forum threads, it's *really* a problem with that browser!

PS -- For the Teckies: My computer is a Compaq Presario, with XP Home Edition, Service Pack 3, Pentium 4 CPU, 2.80 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM, running Google Chrome as the *only* browser on the system.

I purchased Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 because of great reviews I read. At first I was pleased, but I am now 100 days in with 266 days to go on my one year subscription and realized that over the last several months, whenever I was annoyed at my puter being slow, EVERY time I checked to see what the cause was - it was KASPERSKY slowing down my computer. I read reviews that Norton Internet Security 2010 won awards with its new innovations, so I upgraded to that abandoning the 266 days paid subscription at Kaspersky, and I am so glad I did. The last time I used Norton utilities was 2005 and I stopped then because Norton was a known resource hog but the reviews now say it is fixed. The interface is great and it hasn't bogged down my computer yet! I did get it with two $20 rebates and we will see if Norton makes good on that. In 2005, they did not give me my rebate money saying that I did not submit the UPC symbol and I needed to resubmit the UPC symbol ORIGINAL ONLY - NO COPIES ACCEPTED; so, of course, they ripped me off. Hopefully, they got that fixed as well; I will keep you posted.

Count me as a convert. Aside from the fact that both Norton and McAfee are bloated and intrusive, Kaspersky has some really nice features.

One thing that's a big win for me is how the protection coverage works. Buying this package gives you a license to run the software, and virus database updates for a year for 3 PCs. At the end of that year, the updates stop but the protection level you had when it expired continues as long as you like. With the others (esp. Norton and AVG), your protection stops after the license expires, which is of course a total ripoff that you don't find out until you're 'hooked'. Then your protection turns into 'nagware', bugging you every five minutes until you renew. Up until my switch, I always cursed them under my breath then coughed up money to them (bad). In this game, Kaspersky comes off as the good guys.

You get standard virus coverage, along with some extras that should keep you safe against most malicious websites/emails/downloads/environments. Database updates happen automatically, and you can do all the scanning you might need to.

I'm a big fan of the "Vulnerability Scan" feature. It looks at your base Windows configuration and software versions, and suggests updates for software with known exploits, and config changes that make your system safer (like turning off CD/DVD autorun; you don't still have that on, I hope).

Downsides are that it's a little on the slow side. Even the 2010 version is lacking a little in the maturity department, as I've seen it get wedged a few times for no good reason. Still, I installed it on a machine I knew was infected with something fairly bad, and it was able to clean off the system and get it running again (saving a Windows reinstall). That alone made the software worth the price.

When this product works, it works great. I have used the recovery CD multiple times to recover computers that had been rendered completely useless by viruses.

However, when installed on my own desktop, after a month of operation, it started to destabilize my computer. First, it blue screened my XP computer. After reinstalling, it worked great for another month. Then it would cause the computer to hang on startup for at least 10--sometimes 20--minutes. I reinstalled it, everything worked fine. Then it would hang again.

Also, once when recovering a computer with the recovery disk, the computer was rendered useless (blue screen on every start up); I had to reinstall the OS. Perhaps it was an infected critical file that the tool removed. I feel that if critical OS files are found infected, the tool should warn me that system instability could result, and that the file should be reinstalled from the XP CD before continuing.

Like I said, when it works, it works well. However, I finally, reluctantly decided that I did not have the time to keep reinstalling this product, and I uninstalled it completly. I keep it around for making recovery disks.

I purchased this software thinking it would run as well or better than the 2009 version. I have been a long time user of Kaspersky since version 6. I was upgraded automatically to the 2010 version from 2009 version on one of my home computers and I have had nothing but problems. Performance was degraded and websites were being blocked for reasons I could not understand. Kaspersky is trying to do too much and it is severly impacting their product. I returned my unopened Kaspersky 2010 today and purchased Norton 2010 which apparently has a much smaller footprint and is supposedly not a resource hog (I will follow up in my Norton review). As mentioned in a previous post, the 2010 version is really classic bloat-ware.

I had previously used the 2009 verison with no problems but the new version has
lot's of issues. It slows the computers I have it installed on down to a crawl and at times they just lock up and have to be rebooted. I wish I could return the product for a refund and will be looking to do so.
Stay away from this version of internet security.Intrnet Sec Home Ed 2010 3U/1Y

I've never had the displeasure of using a more annoying Anti malware software in my life. For one, the interface is complete crap. For two, it nags you about everything. If windows runs an update, it nags you about granting the auto updater access tot he internet (I even configured it so that it would auto grant access...and it still asked me every time). When windows installs updates, it goes crazy. Every second it asks would you like to allow widows updater to make registry changes. It does it with every program. I contacted Kaspersky lack of customer service and demanded a refund. Running Mcafee Internet security 2010 now without a gripe in the world.

Have been using Kaspersky on my computers for the past several years without a problem...BOTH are Vista machines...I DO NOT consider the 2010 version an upgrade however, the scanning takes MUCH longer!! Other than that, it seems to work fine and I have never had a virus or spyware issue since using Kaspersky products...The installs have always been EASY too, although I do personally prefer doing a clean install of any software product!!

My IT department opted for Kaspersky, replacing Norton.
What a blunder. Where Norton would at least see you were trying to do something and fade into the background, Kaspersky literally takes over your machine and let's you do nothing until it's done.
We have seen Kaspersky routinely take over 75% of system resources.
I'm not saying Norton is better, but at least you could sit down and start work right away, instead of waiting for 3-5 minutes.