Kaspersky vs Norton – Which Is Better for Internet Security?

There was a time when we had no access to VPN security or inbuilt antivirus protection on our systems. The two most popular antivirus suites of those times were Kaspersky and Norton. Even though our systems are more resilient today than ever, these two premium suites still rule the internet security segment.

Kaspersky vs Norton – Which Is Better for Internet Security?

Kaspersky vs Norton

While both these giants have received mainly positive reviews among the user community, let us know about the unique features of each and which areas need improvement:

Kaspersky

Kaspersky Small Office Security is an advantage for small organizations that cannot afford in-house system administrators. With a simple interface in its latest version, Kaspersky offers the following interesting features:

Data Protection and Back Up

Necessary tools like two-way firewalls mainly protect your devices from the intrusion of local area networks. The tools include antivirus for files, emails, instant messaging, and network. The administrator can enable or disable these tools and configure them together or separately.

It offers automatic backup of data in four options- video files, music, images, and folders in ‘My Documents’ and ‘Desktop’. One more option is available where you can manually backup the folders by setting a schedule, number of copies, and the archive locations. In the first four options, the system analyzes the content, files, and amount to automatically back up the data.

Password Manager and Data Encryption

With the new password manager, the administrator gets a master password. You can generate crack-resistant passwords for automatically logging onto various resources. These are encrypted and stored in a separate location like flash drives.

Encryption is vital to protect people’s sensitive and private information. With data encryption option, you can connect an existing folder as a container or create a new one. This will be password-protected and stored on a local or external drive.

Web Policies and Network Monitoring

The web policies are disabled by default and you have to configure when you first use them. There are three options – Hard Restrictions, Soft Restrictions, and Collecting Data. These are to avoid downloads of forbidden files, for limited access to blocked resources and for user actions, respectively. You can also customize the settings to web resources, social networks, specific applications, and instant messengers.

The administrator can get a visual representation of each computer’s inbound and outbound traffic. You can view which applications are processing what data.

Applications Activity and Anti-Phishing

You can inspect the system and the legitimacy of the applications that are running. Every action, memory, and share of the resources are visible to you and you can stop questionable applications. With the Management Console, you can scan the systems and change the security settings of the entire network from anywhere.

Anti-phishing technology through Safe Money protects your online transactions. Phishing attacks and malicious software are blocked by using the ultra-secure browser.

Additionally, there are auxiliary tools to protect your data, like creating a backup boot disk, inspecting browser security, resetting Windows settings. You can use safe instruments for non-restorable data removal – both used and unused data.

Norton

Norton Security is available on all devices like PC, Mac, and mobile devices. You have the option to add more security and to move the protection among all your devices. Let us see the different features and benefits it offers for each of these devices:

For Mobile Devices

The internet security works as anti-theft as it makes locating stolen tablets and smartphones easy. You can use the product on more devices than the ones you subscribed for, but you need to pay prorated charges for the installation.

If you are qualified for the Norton subscription, you will be eligible to use its Virus Protection Promise. You can get a full refund on your subscription if the Norton expert cannot resolve the virus issues on your device.

For Mac

You can adjust the protection levels of the product depending on your location. It is useful if you are using a public network. It offers protection from vulnerabilities in operating system or applications.

Norton Safe Web prevents connecting to unsafe websites. It can scan the system daily in the background, for online and offline threats- all without disrupting the connection speed.

You have full control over how your applications access the internet and identify suspicious links and networking scams. Anti-phishing technology lets you have safe money transfers by keeping a check on fraudulent websites.

Norton can scan Apple mail and messages for attachments to prevent identity thefts. You can block incoming hostile traffic through the two-way firewall.

For PC

Stay updated with automatic downloading and installation of important product features even when the computer is not in use. You can identify and scan unknown files, block spam and fraudulent messages from your mailbox.

Millions of users pitch in to identify newer threats and contribute for more efficient protection via the community watch feature. Using this, Norton warns you before you visit harmful websites and prevents dangerous downloads.

Smart Two-way Firewall, password manager, internet protection and automatic backup up to 25 GB are the features similar to those in Mac systems. Protect your PC from ‘zero-day’ attacks by identifying the vulnerabilities in Windows OS or the applications.

Norton offers proactive protection against your data and files using SONAR behavioral protection. With the inclusive Family Premier subscription, you can provide the safest browsing to your kids.

What Works For Both

Both these internet security suites offer proactive solutions for safe browsing. Safe features are installed onto the web browser itself. Therefore, you get a warning before you visit harmful sites or download from them.

Norton and Kaspersky are constantly updating their virus definitions to include new and emerging online threats. You get to easily detect and remove malware from your system. Crucially, most of the protection features like firewall, antivirus and anti-phishing are available by default.

What Needs Improvement

Both these are proactive only with known threats, but for newer threats, the developers need to create a fix and update their software. The time between is vulnerable to more attacks.

The speed of resolving the issues depends on bandwidth and computing power. The main drawback is that most of the features offered are already available by the security tools of any OS. Moreover, for encryption and anonymity, you need a VPN service.

Kaspersky vs Norton – In A Nutshell

If you are pressed for money, you may be content with inbuilt security features of your system. But they would lesser than what these 2 internet security suites can offer. Consequently, feel free to check out Avast and Avira antivirus as well. Either way, keep your software updated and stop yourself from clicking on suspicious links or downloads.