NORTON INTERNET SECURITY
Norton still has it all: excellent blocking of malicious and fraudulent websites; and intelligent firewall that sets permissions for known good programs and monitors unknowns for risky behaviors, without ever popping up a confusing query; multilayered antivirus protection for fending off new threats and rooting out those already present; and antispam tools that keep your inbox clean and protect valid mail. Plus, Norton won’t trample your system’s performance. —NEIL J. RUBENKING
PASSWORDS
DASHLANE 2.0
Dashlane generates, manages, and protects all of your passwords, and version 2.0 is better than ever, with automatic form field capture, security breach alerts, secure sharing of login credentials, and a new browser extension for Firefox and Chrome. —NJR
STANDALONE ANTIVIRUS
BITDEFENDER ANTIVIRUS PLUS
Bitdefender's antivirus technology routinely takes top scores in tests by independent antivirus labs and also scored well in our hands-on testing. Antivirus Plus is one of a very few products that detects phishing sites better than Norton, and it can optionally prevent transmission of private data out of your computer. The new Wallet stores passwords and personal data, the SafePay secure browser protects financial transactions, and SafeGo flags
dangerous links in your Facebook profile. It even finds unpatched security vulnerabilities. —NJR
PARENTAL CONTROL
OME-KIDS
Setting up OME-Kids email accounts for your children gives them access to spam-free email while letting you keep an eye on their correspondence. Each OME-Kids account gets the same extremely accurate spam filtering as OnlyMyEmail Personal. You can control the child's email activity at different levels: Hold all incoming mail pending parental approval, review received mail, or just get a BCC of all messages the child sends. As the child gets older, you can step down the monitoring level and allow more privacy. —NJR
MOBILE SECURITY
BITDEFENDER MOBILE SECURITY AND ANTIVIRUS 1.2.3 (ANDROID)
To fully protect your phone, a security app needs to bring together protection from malicious software as well as tools to keep your phone safe from loss and theft. Bitdefender for Android does both gracefully, and for a reasonable $9.99 per year—far less than many other big-name competitors. With it, you can also use SMS commands to take control of your phone when it's missing, and evaluate how much of your private information each app accesses. It's lightweight and laser-focused on security. —ME
