Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 3-User

I own a 3-year-old Dell XPS 410 with an Intel Core 2 6700 CPU @ 2.66GHz, equipped with a RAID 0 650 GB dual hard drive, 4 GB DDR2 RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB "Direct X 10"-compatible graphics card; for the most part, I have been displeased with the performance of my computer ever since my initial purchase... and this disappointment extended to the performance of my chosen internet security suite, KIS 2007-2010.

After several years of using the miserably sluggish, sporadically buggy Vista Ultimate 32-bit OS, I have recently upgraded my computer to Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit (all I can say is WHAT A DIFFERENCE... for those interested, upgrade ASAP). After a clean install, I reluctantly decided to reinstall KIS 2010 and see how well it would perform with my new OS. I wasn't too impressed with KIS 2010's overall performance when I ran it on Vista Ultimate 32-bit (although it was improved over KIS 2009), but running it on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit is another story altogether.

The Good:

A newly-streamlined interface makes it far more user friendly than previous editions;

There's lots of smart configuration tweaks for experienced users;

It uses a lot less system resources to run than the last few versions;

It works extremely well with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit (which I have just upgraded to), with no slowdown or start-up hangs;

Firewall, malware and virus protection is among the best of any current security suite;

The "safe run" sandbox virtual environment is a nice new feature;

Viral/malware/spyware/trojan scanning has little impact on the speed of your computer, meaning you can run a scan simultaneously while doing other tasks on your computer with no problems;

The free software upgrades means you only have to continue renewing your subscription, as opposed to shelling out twice as much for annual software upgrades.

However, there are a few cons:

My experience with KIS 2010 on Vista Ultimate 32-bit was erratic, as most of the time it would work well, but on occasion would tremendously slow down my computer's start-up time, sometimes to the point where I would have no choice but to re-boot the computer;

The spam filter needs work;

The interface could still stand to become a bit more user-friendly for novices in the settings section;

There is an issue with KIS 2010 that blocks the "Windows Experience Index" from completing in Windows 7 (UPDATE: a recent patch finally seems to have corrected the issue);

Scanning is fairly slow with large hard drives.

Still, for the several weeks that I have been using KIS 2010 with Windows 7 64-bit, I must say I am quite pleased with the smooth, quick and reliable performance it has exhibited, as none of the issues that marred KIS 2009 and 2010 while using Vista Ultimate 32-bit are occurring with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

UPDATE, 5/29/10: It has now been well over seven months since I installed KIS 2010, and it is working better than ever.

Overall, my recommendation is if you are using Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, I'd give Norton Internet Security 2010 a shot before KIS 2010. However, if you have a comparable (or superior) PC setup to mine and are using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, Kaspersky 2010 Internet Security Suite does its job excellently and I would strongly encourage those in need to give it a try.

I've used just about every security system in the world over the years and a year ago settled on Kaspersky 2009, which is easy to use, runs well, and does everything perfectly.

Then, in September, it came time to renew my annual license. I paid my money, and, instead of just renewing me, Kaspersky sent me their new program, 2010. I installed it with no problem. The interface is more complicated but not *really* hard to figure out. After a while, however, I started noticing that there were various sites that I couldn't get to on the Internet (I use Chrome as my browser). Then I discovered that some programs, such as Eudora and Agent were taking longer and longer and longer to shut down when I clicked the X in the corner. And that almost *all* programs I opened or *all* websites that I went to were *much* slower in starting up than they had been before. I tried getting help for various issues at the online Forum where various people send in their problems and other people, including, I guess, some types hired by Kaspersky, try to help them. I got various answers but not very good ones.

I finally discovered by reading a number of anguished threads in the Forum that *lots* of people were having terrible slow-down problems with Kaspersky 2010, even though 2009 had run smoothly. A few people said that the only way they fixed their problems was to uninstall 2010 completely and to reinstall 2009. Finally, after 2010 suddenly vanished from my screen and disappeared *entirely*, I used "Revo Uninstaller" (a *great, free* program, by the way, that everyone should have) to uninstall 2010 and then, using my CD that I had bought a year earlier, finally managed to reinstall 2009. It was hard, though, and took me several hours, countless reboots, and various clean-ups that hadn't been necessary when I first installed it a year ago. Now my system is once again humming along with 2009 and all the problems that I experienced with 2010 are gone.

Buying 2010 is like buying Microsoft Vista and installing it if you had previously been running XP -- a big mistake, and don't do it! It's nothing but a piece of over-priced bloatware that is full of bugs and should never have been released. Users of Internet Explorer 8, particularly: take warning! According to the Forum threads, it's *really* a problem with that browser!

PS -- For the Teckies: My computer is a Compaq Presario, with XP Home Edition, Service Pack 3, Pentium 4 CPU, 2.80 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM, running Google Chrome as the *only* browser on the system.

Count me as a convert. Aside from the fact that both Norton and McAfee are bloated and intrusive, Kaspersky has some really nice features.

One thing that's a big win for me is how the protection coverage works. Buying this package gives you a license to run the software, and virus database updates for a year for 3 PCs. At the end of that year, the updates stop but the protection level you had when it expired continues as long as you like. With the others (esp. Norton and AVG), your protection stops after the license expires, which is of course a total ripoff that you don't find out until you're 'hooked'. Then your protection turns into 'nagware', bugging you every five minutes until you renew. Up until my switch, I always cursed them under my breath then coughed up money to them (bad). In this game, Kaspersky comes off as the good guys.

You get standard virus coverage, along with some extras that should keep you safe against most malicious websites/emails/downloads/environments. Database updates happen automatically, and you can do all the scanning you might need to.

I'm a big fan of the "Vulnerability Scan" feature. It looks at your base Windows configuration and software versions, and suggests updates for software with known exploits, and config changes that make your system safer (like turning off CD/DVD autorun; you don't still have that on, I hope).

Downsides are that it's a little on the slow side. Even the 2010 version is lacking a little in the maturity department, as I've seen it get wedged a few times for no good reason. Still, I installed it on a machine I knew was infected with something fairly bad, and it was able to clean off the system and get it running again (saving a Windows reinstall). That alone made the software worth the price.

I first used the trialware version of this software just to see if it would work with my system when a competitor's internet security suite would not launch due to malware that shut it down completely. I run Vista. My major problem with Kaspersky was installation. It does not like other security software to be on the system--on my system, it specifically didn't like McAfee or SUPERantiSpyware. I must say, this initially put me off to Kaspersky. Unfortunately, even using regedit, I couldn't find any McAfee product to remove. I eventually solved my problem with the McAfee entries running the free McAfee Consumer Product Removal tool (MCPR.exe). It was an easy download and then a couple of minutes to run. I uninstalled the other product easily from the uninstall programs menu. After resolving these issues, Kaspersky installed easily. It has a very nice looking interface that I personally don't find hard to use. I did have to do an internet search on how to get the product to shut itself down after its first scan, as that didn't seem intuitive to me. It was actually quite easy to do, also. Everything else makes good sense to me, but then I did own a previous version of the software once upon a time.

I have used the software for a few weeks now, and it seems to be doing a very good job. It did find the multiple offenders the other suite had let in--supposedly the best suite on the market--and got rid of these. Kaspersky will let me run the free, on-demand Malwarebytes program, which I use to supplement Kaspersky. So far, Malwarebytes has not found anything. My first system scan with Kaspersky did take almost two hours to run. However, after that it has scanned very quickly, with Quick Scan taking about a minute. The spam filter on KIS could be better, but my email software and isp are efficient enough that this is of minor concern to me. I do not use the parental controls, since I have no youngsters in the house. So far, I am impressed with the price of the software here on Amazon and with the performance of the product on my computer. I do not notice an impact on browsing, etc. If you run Vista and are looking for an inexpensive internet security suite, you might want to try Kaspersky 2010. I liked it so much, I ended up buying it. Activating the software I bought directly from Amazon was a snap--it took longer to unwrap the boxed version than it did to activate the key.

Have been using Kaspersky on my computers for the past several years without a problem...BOTH are Vista machines...I DO NOT consider the 2010 version an upgrade however, the scanning takes MUCH longer!! Other than that, it seems to work fine and I have never had a virus or spyware issue since using Kaspersky products...The installs have always been EASY too, although I do personally prefer doing a clean install of any software product!!

I purchased Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 because of great reviews I read. At first I was pleased, but I am now 100 days in with 266 days to go on my one year subscription and realized that over the last several months, whenever I was annoyed at my puter being slow, EVERY time I checked to see what the cause was - it was KASPERSKY slowing down my computer. I read reviews that Norton Internet Security 2010 won awards with its new innovations, so I upgraded to that abandoning the 266 days paid subscription at Kaspersky, and I am so glad I did. The last time I used Norton utilities was 2005 and I stopped then because Norton was a known resource hog but the reviews now say it is fixed. The interface is great and it hasn't bogged down my computer yet! I did get it with two $20 rebates and we will see if Norton makes good on that. In 2005, they did not give me my rebate money saying that I did not submit the UPC symbol and I needed to resubmit the UPC symbol ORIGINAL ONLY - NO COPIES ACCEPTED; so, of course, they ripped me off. Hopefully, they got that fixed as well; I will keep you posted.

I have KIS 2010 installed on about 25 ish computers about half are running windows xp home or pro, 2 media center edition 2005, 4 or 5 PC's with vista Home Premium 32bit, 2 computers with Vista Ult 64bit, 2 Asus Laptops with windows 7 Pro 64 bit, 2 computers running windows 7 pro 32 bit "only because of one piece of 32 bit only software that is not updated yet" or they would be 64 bit, and 2 other computers with windows 7 pro 64 bit..

Not One issue with any of the computer with this software .. unlike when they were running norton bloat ware on them.

I absolutely Love this Internet security software and would recommend it over any other software package being I have tryed countless other companies and always had issues with one other more computers. Only fun part is uninstalling the other antivirus software as that can be a pain to actually get rid of there bloat ware.


we have this running on Old and New computers and all run like champs with this on it and we are Protected unlike with other software solutions. I have worked with some people that told me that they could not get this to work on there computer without issues every time I was able to get it to work with issues.. Main issue my clients have is that they installed Norton or macafee and either did not uninstall the program or it did not get fully removed and there were firewall conflicts or other issues related to that.

Only thing I would say is that there scanning engine needs a beefing up on the scanning speeds :)



Just my 2 cents...

Thanks for reading!!

I have been using Kaspersky for 4 years now and am 100% satisfied. I have tried Norton, ESET, AVG, McAffee, G DATA and these all have only slowed my system down and/or crashed it at one point. Seriously, whoever else is making these comments that Kaspersky sucks or did this and did that, does not know what there talking about. Using my computers from work to play hours on end, and being all over the web Kaspersky has the best banner blocker for one. And the few viruses i have stumbles across, has managed to stop them before it was a disaster. Furthermore, there support forum is completely on there game to help you when you have questions and need answers in a timely fashion.

Kaspersky uses the least amount of computer resources, and does the best job !!!

And this is a super buy getting this KIS 2010 3-user for under $32. Dont pass this deal up if your out of protection.

(I could be using McAffee for free from my COX cable service...but McAffee is crap)

When this product works, it works great. I have used the recovery CD multiple times to recover computers that had been rendered completely useless by viruses.

However, when installed on my own desktop, after a month of operation, it started to destabilize my computer. First, it blue screened my XP computer. After reinstalling, it worked great for another month. Then it would cause the computer to hang on startup for at least 10--sometimes 20--minutes. I reinstalled it, everything worked fine. Then it would hang again.

Also, once when recovering a computer with the recovery disk, the computer was rendered useless (blue screen on every start up); I had to reinstall the OS. Perhaps it was an infected critical file that the tool removed. I feel that if critical OS files are found infected, the tool should warn me that system instability could result, and that the file should be reinstalled from the XP CD before continuing.

Like I said, when it works, it works well. However, I finally, reluctantly decided that I did not have the time to keep reinstalling this product, and I uninstalled it completly. I keep it around for making recovery disks.

I've been using Kaspersky for several years and have written many favorable reviews...that is, at least, until now. As you can see from the many reviews on Amazon, there is a pattern here - the new 2010 version slows down new and old systems alike (well, worse on older systems with less processing power). I also find the many settings and menus very confusing. They have strayed from what was a lean, mean anti-virus machine to "bloatware" that seems to run constantly. On my older system (XP Dell 1.6 ghz 6 years old) it sometimes takes 10 minutes to update the virus definitions and while it's doing this, it is consuming almost 100% of the system resources. I recently tried Norton 360 4.0 Norton 360 4.0 1 User (3 PC) and highly recommend that! (see my review on that product page).

On the positive side, Kaspersky HAS protected all three computers - but to me that's cost of entry for an anti-virus security product. They all better do that! The problem is, our computer has become a scanner that sometimes computes vs a computer that sometimes scans.

I hope Kaspersky reads these reviews and the numerous other discussions on the web and corrects this for their 2011 version. In the meantime, I advise you to steer clear of this software.