One of the biggest burdens of being a Windows user is the responsibility of protecting yourself against viruses, spyware, and other threats–attacks which increasingly aim to steal personal information and money rather than just annoy you. And one of the biggest burdens of protecting yourself from these attacks has been the degree to which security software can be problematic itself. Symantec and Trend Micro are both announcing new versions of their software today with a focus on providing security that you can welcome onto your computer–and, better yet, largely ignore once it’s there–rather than stress over.
Symantec’s Norton products once had particularly bad reputations for being a resource-sapping, in-your-face hogs. The company has spent the past couple of years paying penance by reducing the load that new versions put on your system and the demands they place on your attention. It says that its 2011 editions are faster than both their predecessors and its competition, and that it’s reduced the number of alerts they’ll bother you with. They also snitch on other programs, via System Insight, a feature that monitors running applications and identifies ones which may be bogging you down.