Setting up a firewall can be complex but the Security Assistant wizard walks you through all the choices you need to make, and it automatically sets up PCs on a home network to work behind the firewall. The Program Scan looks for Internet-enabled software on your system so you can let all your Internet tools have access at once; you can add other software to the list as well. When a program you havent specified tries to connect the Alert Assistant helps you decide whether to allow it, block it or tweak the settings; it checks both file names and checksums to make sure an application hasnt been tampered with and you get specific suggestions rather than generic tips.

Similarly it uses signatures and detects common techniques rather than just looking at file names to spot incoming attacks. If your PC is attacked, it will block the source address automatically for 30 minutes, and you can see where the attack is coming from. If you need to be completely secure you can block all traffic in and out. And you can easily see how youre protected and if there are any problems from the red and green indicators in the Status display.

If you share your PC, everyone will need anti-virus and firewall protection, but you can choose whether to turn on the ad and spam blocking tools, the privacy controls that protects private information and the parental controls for blocking particular Web sites, Usenet newsgroups and programs. Symantec categorises these so you can keep people away from gambling and job sites as well as adult sites, and you can add specific sites that you want blocked or allowed. Its no substitute for monitoring what children do on your PC but its certainly a help. You can also configure the settings for privacy, blocking spam and pop-up and pop-under adverts.

Norton AntiVirus 2003 is one of the best anti-virus packages on the market; Norton Firewall is a powerful tool too, and Internet Security 2003 combines them with other useful tools, plus a foolproof setup that protects you without making what you do want to do online too difficult.--Mary Branscombe

Norton Utilities 2002 Another year, another upgrade. The 2002 Norton Utilities isnt radically different from the 2001 version, except for a mildly cleaned up interface and added support for Windows XP. Norton Utilities has three main tasks in life, to:--Find and fix computer problems--Improve hard-drive performance--Monitor your PC for potential problems Norton Utilities features Disk Doctor, which works like Windows Scandisk, to hunt down and if possible repair disk defects. WinDoctor fixes problems that slip into the Windows Registry, and the System Information program lays out all your computers specs, including information on installed drivers, printers, multimedia support, input devices as well as which programs are currently running in your memory. It features Speed Disk, a defrag application that reorganizes and repositions the clusters of information on your hard drive to help programs load faster and run better. Speed Disk works in much the same way as Windows own defragmenter tool. It uses Windows application logs to restructure your drive for quicker application loading, and its a bit faster than the Windows version, a nice touch, since defragging your drive is a time-intensive process. One old favourite is still there, the Protected Recycle Bin. This allows you to recover deleted files no matter how they we! re deleted. Finally, monitoring is taken care of by the System Doctor which presents a dashboard-like array of status indicators.