Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 Review
The popularity of all-in-one internet security software has increased over the years due to its efficiency to tackle and secure the computer from all kinds of online threats. There are currently numerous choices in the market that claimed to be the best in performance. One in particular is Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 (KIS 2009). KIS 2009 comes with a complete internet security solution that includes anti-malware, anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-spyware, anti-phishing, firewall and also parental control features. As you can see from the diagram below, all components are arranged in a way to allow easy configuration and system scan access.
When ran under the default setting scanning option, it didn’t showed any sign of decline in performance. However when opened a large installation file for the first time, the initial scanning caused a slightly delay. This is relatively quite common for any AV software. If you compared Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 with other rivals package, you’ll notice that the usage of the whole system resources is quite low. Their scanning speed is also appeared to be quicker in both on-access and on-demand mode. For some other AV packages, this might cause a high usage of memory space and an unstable HDD action.
Anti Virus
According to a recent report of “On-demand Detection of Malicious Software” published by AV Comparatives, Kaspersky was ranked at the top 4 most efficient AV software and was awarded with an “Advanced +” for an excellent on-demand detection test. Kaspersky was tested along with 16 other rival products under default setting. A total of 97.1% of detection rate was scored. In order to measure the quality of the detection, false alarm test was also carried out. Kaspersky found 14 numbers of false alarms out of a full set of clean files. Despite that, it still considered as reasonably low compared to other rival products. From this tests, as well as previous past performance, Kaspersky without doubt are consistently giving superb performance each time a test is conduct.
The KSI 2009 email scanning feature worked excellently to detect any potential viruses and malware. It was configured to automatically add on to the main email client. The Kaspersky email virus detection is not only able to detect potential malicious viruses, it also found to be able to detect phishing emails.
Also new in the Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 version, there is addition features of Secunia Vulnerability Scanning that are available for free download. This feature is a great preventative tool to keep up-to-date with the latest patches and known vulnerabilities in some common commercial applications such as Adobe Reader, Flash, Windows and Java. Users can easily activate this feature by enable the “Signature Scan of Vulnerabilities” under the manual scanning option.
Firewall
The overall firewall platform and performance of the new Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 is not much of different with the old version. It still provided a very sound and solid protection against any potential threats. Despite the firewall blocked the ports, users can still have superb control over the response of each applications in their computer. Under the simple mode setting, every responses and requests will be dealt by KIS 2009 automatically without any pop up alert notice unless a severe threat has been identified. If users want to have greater control, there is an advanced mode option that allows users to customize on how they want to respond when the application first make a request to connect over to a network or internet. Take for instance, if you download a new application online, a pop up alert notice will appear to inform you that there is a remote location trying to access into your system. You can either choose “Allow” to accept the request or “Block” to deny the access. This option gives user a much greater control and better alert to any potential threats.
Other Features
Beside the above standard features, KIS 2009 also integrated other useful protection components such as anti-dialer, anti-phishing, keylogger detection, banner ad blocker and parental control in their package. One in particular is the Proactive Defence feature. This feature gives alert to any potential unusual and wary behaviour, such as application that attempts to alter your website or new suspicious items adding to system startup.
Not all the components in Kaspersky Internet Security are up to our expectation. The anti-spam tool included is quite lack of many features compared to other rival products. It may be good for normal domestic home users, but for more high demanding users, it might be wise to use either other products or carry out manual controlling. A test has been conducted by running through an email account with high volume of spam, up to 90%. The result – a few false positives were identified. Overall, the anti-spam feature in KIS 2009 can still be a very useful tool in a more moderate volume email account with standard configuration.
Conclusion – Verdict
From our review, Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 performs exceptionally well. It is based upon the success of past version to provide a user friendly platform and complete all-in-one internet security solution. It carry out remarkably well in the crucial aspects of anti-virus and firewall security, but slightly disappointing on the anti-spam feature.
The new KIS 2009 was priced at £39.99, with this pricing, it is a superb comprehensive internet security package for domestic PC users, not to mention that it also offers great custom configuration for more advanced users. To make the most out of the KIS 2009, some users might need to change the basic default settings.
When KIS 2009 was installed, the overall boot up times did increase in some extent. There is no any sign of slowing down in the system, and the overall usage of the resource was found to be fairly low.
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