You can see right from the start that Norton Internet Security 2008 is quite an offer. It includes full-scale password and identity management (New Identity Safe manages personal data and passwords), and its innovative BrowserDefender technology provides an improved defense system designed for Web-based attacks.

The option of live chat is also available through the built-in help system. In this edition, the main screen differs from that of NIS 2007 and the previous blue background was switched to black. An overview of all the security modules and a great big icon that displays overall status is still available. There is also a Fix Now option in case the green check mark that shows full protection does not appear.

From PCmagazine’s review we get to understand that Norton Internet Security 2008 would be the closest to a perfect choice in protecting your system. All ports are put in stealth mode by the firewall which is very strong (it resisted the attempts of being disabled programmatically) and did not give in even to fake mouse clicks attacks (as, for example, Panda did).

Similarly to Panda's firewall, Norton Internet Security 2008 's takes upon itself to allow programs Internet access after a “fair trial”, removing or disabling threats when recognizing something as such. NIS 2008 uses SONAR (Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response) to supervise how programs behave and if they should be granted access to the Internet.

To the testing process also helped another tool, Core Impact which automatically generates exploits to check out a system's defenses. This type of exploit hacks into your system when you access a link in an e-mail message or visit a hacked or fraudulent Web site.

However, it seems that none of the exploits aimed either at Firefox or Windows had any success. Many of them failed merely because the test system's browser and operating system were efficiently updated and the one that got through was still stopped by Norton's suite.

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