Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 Review
Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 Review
Posted 11/15/2010 at 12:35pm
| by Paul Lilly
18
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Offers more protection than a pack of pit bulls
A part of us wishes Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 came bundled with its own aluminum foil deflector beanie, because it’s the only thing missing from what’s otherwise the ultimate package for paranoid PC users. Put another way, running Kaspersky is like sitting in a panic room behind a three-inch steel-frame door with multiple deadlocks, and toting a sawed-off shotgun just for good measure. Do you see where we’re going?
Underneath Kaspersky's unassuming UI sits a whirlwind of protection.
Out of the box, Kaspersky comes ready to throw down with any malware feeling froggy enough to jump. Almost as if trying to prove a point, Kaspersky wouldn’t even allow us to visit our synthetic spyware site (www.spycar.org) until we configured the web module to chilax and let us poke our head into suspicious web portals. Not that it mattered, because Kaspersky was unfazed by each of Spycar’s attempts to hijack our browser and simulate other malicious behavior.
We again had to disable the web module in order to download our dirty archive brimming with real malware, and once more Kaspersky shrugged off our shenanigans by keeping the lid tightly closed no matter how hard we tried to open it.
This is only the half of it, folks. All of our testing was performed with Kaspersky’s default security settings. Digging through the plain-English UI, we found that we could increase the security level for File, Mail, and Web from medium to high. Kaspersky only offers vague descriptions as to what these levels do, but the way it performed at default, we wouldn’t be surprised if increasing security to high resulted in Kaspersky sending a security consultant to your home to watch over your shoulder.
All this and we’ve still only scratched the surface. Do you have a sneaky suspicion that Bob from accounting installed a keylogger on your machine, but you just can’t prove it? Kaspersky includes a virtual keyboard to prevent Bob, or foreign hackers, from recording your keystrokes as you log into banking sites or anywhere else you want extra peace of mind. If your paranoia runs even deeper, Kaspersky’s “Safe Run for Websites” option adds an additional layer of protection to your surfing session, sort of like a souped-up private browsing session. Cookies, history, and other details are kept secluded from the OS so they can’t be exploited, and then are nuked when you exit the browser.
Kasperky’s Safe Run feature also extends to the desktop. If you’re unsure about that screensaver you just downloaded, the Safe Run option—found in the right-click context menu—runs the program in a virtual environment. This sandbox mode isolates the potentially unsavory app from making changes to the OS, and adds a layer of privacy—IMs, emails, and other communications are deleted once you exit the app.
On top of all these security shields, Kaspersky rounds out its package with a toy box of tools that includes a downloadable ISO to create a rescue CD or USB key, a vulnerability scan to alert you to potential security holes with your system/programs, a privacy cleaner (vacuums up your various caches), and a browser diagnostic for IE users. There’s even a system restore utility that searches for problems caused by malware and then offers to roll back changes, but if you manage to circumvent Kaspersky’s protection in the first place, then you’re doing something seriously wrong.
Kaspersky Internet Security 2011
Safe Room
Protects against a variety of threats; sandbox mode; virtual keyboard.
Panic Room
Scan times could be faster.
9
Benchmarks
| Kaspersky | Norton | ESET | McAfee | MSE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scan 1 (min:sec) | 35:43 | 16:18 | 7:45 | 13:13 | 16:15 |
| Scan 2 (min:sec) | 8:05 | 4:47 | 7:43 | 6:45 | 16:56 |
| PCMark | 5,582 | 5,760 | 6,067 | 5,645 | 5,622 |
| Boot (seconds added) | +22 | +18 | +12 | +13 | +9 |
Best scores are bolded. Our test bed is a Core 2 Quad Q9400, 8GB DDR2/800, a Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10 (~60GB filled across two partitions), a Radeon HD 3650, and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. The reviewed app is compared to the top-performing apps from our AV showdown.
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18
Comments
JCCIII
October 15, 2011 at 6:55pm
Kaspersky is always the very last to load, to start, and I have expressed this last-to-start problem to Kaspersky for more than a year. I have expressed, during tests, restricted programs have full access to other programs and the Internet during Kaspersky's late start.
Kaspersky believes it is best to deny the problem and to dodge its responsibility with constant nonsense requests, and I have four years of Kaspersky, in commercial boxes, yet to be used.
Being forced to suffer the money I paid, I am now looking for a security suite: Kaspersky is another corruptly corporate company that is into greed and irresponsibility.
Kaspersky 12.0.0 .374
Windows 7, 64-bitReinstalled the operating system (three times), reinstalled Kaspersky (five times), clean installed Kaspersky (twice), and the verdict is, junk!
Sincerely,
Joseph C. Carbone III15 October 2011
ambros
August 02, 2011 at 4:57am
This should sound convincing enough for most internet users, I first heard about it in internet security news. Kaspersky has definitely lift the standards, it makes me wonder what do the other antivirus softwares have to offer compared with the newest Kaspersky version...
ClosetHorse
December 24, 2010 at 12:46am
I'm using Kaspersky but I still ask help from a pc online support not because of virus problems but because of its complex functions.
cabbrick1243
November 19, 2010 at 4:35am
Kapersky's products are probably the second-best retail ones, or at least from my experience, having ESET'S (rather expensive) software being first. I have used Avast and Malwarebytes for a long time, and I never came across an infection. Of course, since then my systems have all been switched to Linux Platforms, which is as virus repellent as hell.
da_samman
November 17, 2010 at 3:37pm
I too use free AV (Avira), firewall (comodo), and anti-malware (spybot and malwarebytes), and haven't had any breeches of security yet. As fara s I can see, there is no real reason to pay for them, unless they can do things that the free versions cannot that I would really need. Can anyone out there think of anything? Please tell me.
V/R,
SGT Samuel Eugene McClard II
sniggler
November 17, 2010 at 3:35pm
What Crap-spersky has in utility it completely lacks in the performance department...
I'll stick with ESET thanks.
Hg Dragon
November 16, 2010 at 11:11am
I've been using Kaspersky both at work and at home for years now. KIS 2011 just simply shouldn't have been released in its current state. The benchmark scores don't reflect what I was seeing in my personal usage. This was simply beating up my system, no matter what level settings I used. Everything was sluggish and slow to respond. And this isn't a case of "you don't know what you're doing," either. I administer Kaspersky at my work for close to 5 years now, managing about 750 workstations and servers at over 40 locations nationally. I know how to use their products.
I had a hard drive failure in late July/early August and restarted with a fresh install of Win7Pro64. I used the opportunity to make the switch to KIS2011 at that time. My overall performance was simply terrible. Take World of Warcraft for example. Iwent from 40's pre-crash to mid-teens if I was lucky, even after turning down all of the settings to "fugly." Fearing that whatever killed my hard drive may have done some other damage to my PC (recent storms and power company issues), I started going through normal troubleshooting steps. All of my componets tested fine. PSU, RAM, video card, everything. After putting up with it for about two months, I finally traced it to the AV after doing another Windows reload thinking maybe something had gone screwy with the Windows load. Reinstalled KIS2011 and all of my bad performance issued returned. Turning down and disabling various compoonents helped, bnut only margianlly. WoW went from 50-60 FPS with no AV all the way back down to 10-15. I went so far as to take Kaspersky's own removal and registry cleaning tools to remove everything Kaspersky-related and installed again. Just on a lark, I downloaded the installer for 2010 and reistalled that. Lo and behold, my PC no longer functioned like it was made of molasses.
While KIS2011 has some extra tools and freatures that I loved having, I couldn't deal with the impact it had on my system. 2010 serves me better, and probably anyone else with perfomance issues with KIS2011.
archangelx
November 16, 2010 at 8:04am
I and my clients have been using Kaspersky Internet Security for several years and we never have a problem.
Long live King Kaspersky!
MleB
November 16, 2010 at 5:43am
While I appreciate that all software has a license that the user agrees to and whose agreement affects its install or use, its retail AV products like Kapersky (McAfee, Norton, et al) that are the worst offenders. You pay the initial retail price, agree to the license and then - a year or two later - the program essentially disables itself unless you agree to pay more even money to 'subscribe' to updates.
When freeware AV products from Avira, Avast!, Comodo, MSE and other products like ZoneAlarm, PC Tools Firewall Plus, MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, CCleaner and SpywareBlaster - and even just a modicum of user intelligence exists - the value of 'pay to play' has to be questioned.
I haven't used retail security products - over a range of PCs - for several years and have never had a significant problem. I've found an ideal mix (and due dilligence) for my computer and see no reason even to consider the alternatives.
baker269
November 15, 2010 at 11:42pm
I've been using comodo firewall/avira antivirus/spybot for the last couple years and have never had a single problem with malware. BTW all three are free.
TsunamiZ
November 15, 2010 at 8:08pm
ZoneAlarm Extreme Security uses the Kaspersky antivirus engine. Can Maximum PC do a review of it to show us how it measures up to Kaspersky and other security suites?
wk
November 15, 2010 at 2:47pm
if u read the whole review, why is no mention of high impact on system performance as the table shows.
please revise your scoring which should consider performance impact in addition to security features.
leftfield2263
November 15, 2010 at 2:25pm
i dont get why this is rated 9/10 kick ass when it clearly does not perform as well as MSE, McAfee and ESET?
Paul_Lilly
November 15, 2010 at 2:47pm
It would be silly to grade an antivirus suite based on scan times and PCMark scores alone. In a nutshell, the reason Kaspersky scored as well is it did is because it offers a ton of useful and effective security tools without bogging down system performance. The virtual keyboard and sandbox modes alone are worth the slightly longer boot time compared to the suites with the least impact.
-Paul Lilly
fragonman
November 16, 2010 at 7:44pm
makes sense. but i bet if i installed this on my 2.2 ghz single core AMD sempron laptop i wouldnt be able to do anything given what i believe most people believe about the effect it has on system performance.
i use avira and have had no problems thus far
evilyeti
November 15, 2010 at 9:14pm
I have to agree with this, especially with the power of most PC's these days the performance impact is barely as noticeable as it was years ago on slower processors.
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