Kaspersky Internet Security 2009

At a Glance:  Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 is a powerful package that includes an excellent firewall and virus/spyware scanner. A very nice user interface and great performance are the icing on the Kake.

The Triple "E" Keys

Firewall:  Part of a section called System Security, the firewall is outstanding. This baby is smart and works automatically by default. Rest assured, the Kaspersky firewall is like a Marine on guard duty: you aint gettin past him without a lot of help.

Malware:  Kaspersky's anti-virus engine is licensed by several other companies and so is the powerhouse behind them as well. It's very good and neutralizes a high percentage of threats. Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 takes an interesting three pronged approach. If you're a known threat, you're dead. If you're a known safe program, do your thing. If you're unknown, well, you are relegated to some level of "restricted" activity. This all happens automatically and quietly behind the scenes leaving you to compute, compute, compute.

Install/Uninstall:  Well, Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 is smart. I installed it after I uninstalled McAfee Internet Security 2009. Setup informed me that "McAfee Internet Security Suite with SiteAdvisor 2008" was installed and would be incompatible. Mmmm, I didn't install any 2008 versions of anything so this must be a remnant of the McAfee package I didn't find or a typo in a file. Whatever.

Fortunately, there's a link to the Windows Add/Remove programs utility so I could remove it. Unfortunately, there weren't any McAfee programs listed. Deleting the only files and folders that remained did nothing to make setup happy, either (sad face).

So, rather than do surgery on the deep, dark recesses of Windows XP, I reverted to a previous good state on the virtual machine (virtual machines allow us to test products without danger to the actual computer).

That did the trick but it wouldn't necessarily be so easy for real machine users. Some people may have to call support on something like this--if it happened at all.

During install, there's a point where setup asks you if you want "Self Defense" enabled before continuing. Wow, Internet security software that also does roundhouse kicks! It's probably just a memory scan but I'd like to see it break some boards just the same.

After restarting I was asked to activate. I chose a trial license activation and, after the process, got a black screen and weird colored dots. The only solution was to force a shutdown and reboot. However, this did not affect the program itself which was already running at the time of the activation.

Note: To be fair, after reverting the virtual machine to a state before any security suite was installed, there were no problems during installation. Therefore, it could have been a fluke related to the virtual machine and wouldn't happen on a real system. However, it should be possible to install any suite after removing another, so watch for problems in this area.

Update: It appears the problem is related to the actual scanning which started right away the first time due to choices made in the setup wizard. It could be that the virtual machine just didn't get along with Kaspersky's scanner so I'll just give them the benefit of the doubt since there are many satisfied customers using real machines.

Uninstall was effortless, fast, needed a restart and left a couple of folders behind. Otherwise, no problems here.

Setup/Use:  I like Kaspersky's user interface and overall look. Again, this web site is aimed at the vast majority of people who simply want a set it and forget it solution. Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 does this well for the most part though the setup wizards. If you want to peek under the hood, you can find settings down deep for most of the components. I give the ease of use high marks for Kaspersky.

Help:  Help is readily available from a help link and support link at the bottom of the main screen. From there you can get tutorials, forums, and online chat.

Performance:  Kaspie is awesome on performance. The way that it scans includes a white listing approach that speeds up scans by a huge factor. For most users, there's no significant system performance hit. Whew!

Value:  At $80 for 3 PCs, Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 is at the pricey end. However, it's one of the top three or so scores, so it just might be worth it.

Bottom Line:  Don't buy these suites for the parental controls, anti-phishing, spam filtering and other feature stuffing add-ons. But for virus, spyware, and firewall powers, Kaspersky is a big boy on the block. And since he knows karate, I wouldn't mess with him if I were a malware wannabe.