Symantec Releases Beta 3 of Norton 360 Security

By Greg McNevin

January 5, 2009: Symantec is edging its latest security suite, Norton 360, towards final release, slipping the third beta of the radically revamp security solution out for public testing.

The company has taken a ground up approach to re-engineering the latest incarnation of its security suite, promising more features and a lighter system resources footprint than ever before .

Gone is the CPU meter on the main screen, and all tasks are now performed at idle as to not interfere with performance. Malware and virus scans also no skip known “safe” files to increase speed, while the phishing filter includes a traffic light system of green, yellow and red to alert users to potentially harmful websites.

Perhaps most interesting though, are the new backup features, which include automatic backup of crucial files/directories at regular intervals to offline locations (externals storage, USB keys, DVD backup etc), or Symantec’s online cloud storage. The system also detects potentially important files, such as financial information in Microsoft Money, and automatically duplicates and backs up these files.

The final version of Norton 360 is expected to ship in the first quarter of 2009.

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