Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 provides comprehensive security with a nicely organized interface and a lot of very useful (and, in our opinion, excessive) features. The Russian vendor's antivirus engine is used to power dozens of better-known viral crusaders, including the popular F-Secure Internet Security, Active Virus Shield (offered to AOL members as a result of OEM agreement with Kaspesky Lab) and others.

1. Installation and platform requirements

Supported OS:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional (Service Pack 4 or higher), Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (Service Pack 2 or Higher), Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Service Pack 2 or higher), Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Vista x64.

Hardware and Software Requirements:

50 MB free space on the hard disk, CD-ROM (for installation), Internet connection (for activation and updates), Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher (for updating signatures and the program), Microsoft Windows Installer 2.0.

Optimized for mobile PCs with Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology.

Technology Includes:

• One year subscription to anti-virus updates and free upgrades to new software versions
• Free technical support

Installation

The installation process gives you the option to choose between express and custom installation. The procedure takes around 5 min and results in a dialog where user can simply accept all program's defaults (Basic Protection - for most users) or choose expert-option setting, that allows to enable or disable protection modules (firewall training mode, registry guard, application integrity control and extended proactive defense).

Installation package is very flexible; this is the user who decides which components should be installed.

Registration

Trial version could be activated from dialog box during the installation; In this case activation key is provided automatically, from activation server. However, the key can be obtained as well on the Kaspersky official website or by mail.

2. Interface

Interface KIS 7.0 has not been changed radically if compared to the previous one(version 6.0); Its very clean and easy-to-use; however, developers have changed a little its external part and improved the menu structure, making it more logical and comfortable.

The program is divided with six tabs- protection, scan, update, reports and data files, activation and support. Within each tab, you can choose from several other functions

3. Parental Control

Beside standard components, like the antivirus module, the internetworking screen, the anti-spam and antispyware filter, Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 comprises also a completely new element- "Parental control", which is disable buy default.

As it can be concluded from the name, its mission is to help parents protect their children from violence, pornography, drug propaganda and other dangers that can be encountered inside the World Wide Web.

Thanks to the fact that besides tabs like "Pornography", "Drugs", "Violence" and other dangerous information for children, as well as "Chat" и "Internet mail", this module can be used as an instrument that limits the improper usage of the internet by the corporate users. This is especially pressing within the activity of small business, where, in a way or another, expensive server products are not to be used, but confidentiality and economical internet circulation is very important.

All you have to do is mark the necessary rubrics and the correspondent sites will not open. The user can see the page which says that the access to the source is forbidden, and the information about the attempt to open a harmful or offensive site will be sent to the module's "Parental Control" log-file.

In addition, there are two lists – the “white” and “the black” one – where the sites that are allowed and forbidden can be registered manually. Unfortunately, as experience shows, "Parental control" does not always function effectively. For example, when “Internet mail” is clicked, the site Mail.ru does not open; however, the mail services provided by Rambler and Gmail sites do not fall under this ban. As for the sites “for adults”, they do not always effectively get blocked as well. The white and black lists do not function very well either.

4. Antispyware Module

Antispyware module was upgraded to the protection against confidential data leakage. The way it works is the following: let us assume that some malicious code, which somehow was unidentified by the antivirus module, starts some entrusted application, Internet Explorer for example... In this case, the browser is just a transmitting agent that sends sensitive data, extracted from the proper file, using http-protocol.

Besides, the malware can apply to "windows protected storage" (where user passwords and other sensitive information are stored by the system). Everything here is simple and clear - Kaspersky Internet Security will inform the user about the attempt to read data from this storage by any program without Microsoft digital signature.

5. Anti-Virus Scanner

One of the most important elements of KIS 7.0 is the antivirus scanner. In its 5^th and 6^th versions, there have been used technologies enabling an increasing scanning speed  due to the fact that repeated scans ignored those files that have already been verified.

The 7^th version has also acquired the mechanism of redistribution of system resources which activate when Internet security suite is on. Indeed, as the file antivirus starts initially, it take a couple of minutes for him to check system "critical areas" that can be customized by the user and typically include: system memory, startup objects, disk boot sectors and other user-defined areas (my documents folder... etc.)  Further on, though, it will never check them again, unless user decides to star their scan manually;  that is why there will be no delays in loading the system.

As we have already mentioned, the file antivirus functioning is based on three defense methods- signature, heuristic and behavioral.

The most resource-intensive is the heuristic analysis because it initially requires the program loading in a special safe environment, and only after that the program can be loaded in normal conditions.

This method makes it possible to analyze all the program actions and to conclude with high probabilities about its potential danger. By default the analyzer is deactivated, but you have a fairly weak system, it is recommended, at least rarely, to perform/carry out a total check-up of the system with heuristic on, which can be deactivated again.

To sum-up we can say that when a scan is running, Kaspersky tracks the estimated completion time; and when it finishes, you receive a well-presented, tabbed scan report that even identifies the settings used during the scan. The suite's only design drawback is that it doesn't schedule any scans by default--and the process for setting them up yourself is somewhat clunky.