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Security software has improved every year, but it has always operated on similar principles.

Until at once.

New releases from Symantec and McAfee challenge fundamental assumptions about how security suites work.

Norton Internet Security 2009 from Symantec attempts what was once unthinkable: providing dense protection without slowing your computer down.

McAfee, meanwhile, moves beyond periodic updates and taps the Web for real-time virus identification.

Neither company claims to contract perfect security, but both think they’ve made breakthrough improvements in the contest of nations against a growing enemy.

“We spent an entire year re-examining all of our fundamental assumptions and we rebuilt everything from the ground up,” said David Cole, senior director of product management for Symantec.

“We changed code that hadn’t been changed in years.”

Symantec tried to design a product that users could install quickly in that case forget.

No pop-up notices. No completion lags. No annoying scans. Nothing a priggish user could regard, except in emergencies.

To compass such goals, engineers designed a program that’s pungent enough to skip needless tasks.

For example, rather than repeatedly scanning unchanged files on your computer, it looks barely at the tiny fraction that have changed since the last scan.

The new program also saves the heavy lifting till you walk off from your computer. It starts huge projects at the time you allowance and stops them when you go.

Early reviews suggest Norton Internet Security 2009 ($70) fails to provide “invisible” stake but gets conclude.

Indeed, critics from CNET, PC Magazine and The Wall Street Journal called it the least annoying security software at all times — and they meant it as high praise.

McAfee took a different approach.

Yes, company programmers tried to avoid needless delay for McAfee Internet Security 2009 ($60), but they focused far more on building an entirely novel malware-detection system.

Traditionally, the size of hard drives and the speed of central processors have limited the effectiveness of PC security software. A program that stored too a great deal of information or ran too many tests would inactive most computers to a halt.

McAfee solved this problem by using the Internet to shift work from the wimpy PC to powerful processing centers.

Its Artemis technology checks every distrustful file against McAfee’s central database.

“The chouse was figuring public how to do it so fast that the user wouldn’t heed,” reported Dave Marcus, McAfee’sitting director of security research. “It took awhile, but we got the whole process down to 100 milliseconds.”

Early tests through AV Comparatives designate Artemis detects about 80 percent of the problems that would else slip past.

But no software provides perfect protection — not even close.

“Even if you eliminate all defer between first spotting a virus and updating your database, there’s still no way to shelter in requital in favor of many unknown viruses,” said Alan Paller, director of research at the Sans Institute in suburban Washington, D.C.

So is security software a expenditure of time?

“If you’re a high-value target, criminals will buy new viruses to attack your computer, and security software won’t be enough you a bit of good,” Paller aforesaid.

“On the other index, if you’re not a billionaire or something and you don’t have canaille gunning specifically for you, nearly all the malware you encounter last will and testament be older obstruct that security software can block.”

And you will fight malware.

“Everything is growing online, including the problems,” said Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman. “We’ve made a designate by number of big cases newly but we don’t count upon to see our workload make less anytime soon.”

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