CA Internet Security Suite 2007
Manufacturer: Computer Associates International Inc. Part number: ISS2007LEC03
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Product series
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- CA Internet Security Suite 2007 feels like a pasted-together trial version of what CA offers in terms of consumer protection. The suite fails to integrate and lacks antiphishing, antirootkit, and basic IM protection found elsewhere.
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CNET editors' review
CA Internet Security Suite 2007 price range: $5.99
- Reviewed by: Robert Vamosi
- Reviewed on: 03/02/2007
- Released on: 08/01/2006
The good: CA Internet Security Suite 2007 includes a personal firewall and antivirus, antispyware, and antispam protection; runs under Windows 98 through Windows Vista; supports up to three PCs under one license.
The bad: CA Internet Security Suite 2007 does not include antiphishing and antirootkit protection; parental controls are a separate utility; too many open windows on the desktop; status reports are easily spoofed into displaying Protected after incomplete antivirus and antispyware scans.
The bottom line: CA Internet Security Suite 2007 feels like a pasted-together trial version of what CA offers in terms of consumer protection. The suite fails to integrate and lacks antiphishing, antirootkit, and basic IM protection found elsewhere.
CA, formerly Computer Associates, redesigned its product line for 2007 and repackaged its Internet security suite as CA Internet Security Security 2007. It provides antivirus, antispyware, antispam, and personal firewall protection, but there are many omissions, such as antiphsihing and antirootkit protection. Online parental controls are available from an optional download.
Despite a clever advertising gimmick promising up to $6,500 in total Internet protection, $5,000 in identity-theft protection, and $1,500 in antivirus protection (see the CA site for all the disclaimers and the very fine print), we're not convinced CA Internet Security is the best protection on the market today. We found it too easy to get the protection status screen to display "Protected" after aborting our antivirus and antispyware scans. We still recommend ZoneAlarm Internet Security 7 for the best all-around protection.
Installation and setup
We downloaded and installed CA Internet Security 2007 in a matter of minutes, but there are a few gotchas along the way. First, you must accept the CA end user license agreement, then a Lesser General Public License agreement for two open-source libraries; failure to accept one or both will not allow you to continue. In order to qualify for the advertised insurance guarantees from CA, you must also submit a detailed registration form to both CA and Mobile Lifeline, which handles the security insurance, requests an e-mail address as well as a physical address.
For $69.99, CA allows you to install the product on up to three PCs. CA Internet Security runs on Windows 98 through XP, requires 60MB to install and 256MB of RAM to run. Parental Controls, which is a separate feature, requires an additional 25MB of hard drive space to install and only runs on Windows 2000 and XP.
The new interface is more a table of contents, giving you updated status reports on four areas: antivirus, antispyware, firewall, and antispam. If you purchase any of the individual products, you'll realize that CA Internet Security 2007 has slapped an overview window on top of, say, the CA Antivirus application. By clicking individual topics, you are taken to a new window with more specifics about the topic selected. This seems very old school--even McAfee has updated its interface to contain all activities within one window--and shows that the security tools are not integrated well. The downsides are that the suite as a whole takes up more system resources and that you have several open windows on your desktop.
As with Trend Micro Internet Security 2007, we had too much trouble engaging the CA Personal Firewall out of the box. We could not update the product because we could not connect to the Internet; we needed to reboot first. Only then did CA recognize that our laptop was connected to a new network and asked us to declare this network as safe or not. This should have happened upon installation. Once we marked our network as safe, we were able to update our program.
Should you want to remove CA Internet Security 2007, CA does not provide an uninstall icon. Using the Windows Control Panel Add or Remove Programs tool, you have to remove only one product (assuming all the check boxes are marked). Oddly, during uninstall, CA denied Firefox access to the Internet; only after telling it to allow Firefox did the uninstall process complete. After a reboot, we found that CA left behind no traces.
Features
Of all the Internet security suites we installed and tested, CA Internet Security 2007 took the longest to get rid of the Attention Needed flags on the overview page. Unfortunately, we found that we could cheat the process by canceling our antivirus and antispyware scans prematurely. And we found many security protections to be missing.
Our antivirus scans took forever to run. After aborting an antivirus scan three-quarters of the way through, we were surprised to see the CA Internet Security window indicate that we had finished our antivirus scan and certify us as protected. We decided to test this on other machines and found that we could fool the antivirus status to report Protected after aborted scans on other installations. We consider this a serious design flaw.
In the past, CA has partnered with ZoneLabs for use of their award-winning ZoneAlarm firewall; not so this year. CA has created its own personal firewall, and we could not enable it after installation.
As for antispyware protection, CA renamed PestPatrol, which it purchased a few years ago, to CA Antispyware. After running a scan, we immediately disagreed with some of its findings. In particular, we found LogMeIn, a commercial remote access tool, marked as a low threat to our system, in league with Difisim, a CA-identified Trojan horse. If we accepted CA antispyware's findings, we would lose the ability to connect to our laptop remotely and might not realize that until after the fact. Oddly, by not accepting CA's findings--by not removing or quarantining any of the potential spyware items CA found--we found that the CA Internet Security overview window said our system was now fully protected. Clearly the products are not integrated well if they produce such easy false positives.
CA's antispam protection consists of a toolbar add-on for Outlook and Outlook Express. There is no support for either Eudora or Thunderbird, and we found no way to tweak the antispam settings. In general, we found the configuration options to be minimal.
Missing are several tools found in other Internet security suites. There is no protection against IM-launched virus attacks, no antiphishing protection provided, nor did we find mention of any antirootkit protection. In our opinion, these are serious omissions.
Performance
In terms of antivirus protection, CA Antivirus offered a mixed bag, ultimately scoring in the middle range, falling behind Norton and McAfee in most tests and far short of our best performer, Kaspersky Anti-Virus. On our iTunes test, CA Antivirus gained ground compared with last year, taking 206 seconds as opposed to 310 seconds last year. On our Sorensen Squeeze test, CA Antivirus worsened, taking 335 seconds compared to 330 seconds last year. CA Antivirus showed the most improvement with individual file scans, taking only 112 seconds this year as opposed to 221 seconds last year. And with boot speed, CA Antivirus improved, taking 63 seconds over 67 seconds last year. To find out how we test, visit CNET Labs' How we test antivirus software page.
To determine how well a product will protect your PC, we refer to test results from two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. CheckVir.com ranked CA Antivirus as one of six products to earn its Standard rating, which means the product was tested on finding but not removing antivirus threats. CA Antivirus was not reviewed by AV-Comparatives.org.
Support
CA provides support online with access to detailed knowledge base, e-mail support, and live chat support in selected markets. CA also provides telephone support, but with a fee of $29.99 per incident.
Conclusion
CA Internet Security 2007 is a cobbled-together assemblage of existing CA consumer products that fail to integrate into one unified suite. Missing are IM protection, antiphishing, and antirootkit tools, security tools common in other suites we've seen this year. We also found that it was easy to fool CA into thinking our machine was protected, when we knew we had prematurely ended our antivirus and antispyware scans.
User reviews
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Bad Company and Product
by riquny on May 9, 2008
Pros: anti virus seemed to work okay
Cons: If you cancel it locks you out of internet until program is renewed or removed
Summary: Due to my office glitch the subscription was canceled without me knowing it. When the computer was rebooted an error message said subscription needed to be renewed but another message ...
Summary: Due to my office glitch the subscription was canceled without me knowing it. When the computer was rebooted an error message said subscription needed to be renewed but another message said subscription couldn't be verified because the internet couldn't be accessed. I assumed the when the internet connected the program would log on and verify so I went about discovering the log on problem. After a couple of hours checking the cable connection, the router, modem, etc., and the usual time on hold and being transferred it was suggested the firewall in CA Internet might be blocking access. The program only gave me the same error messages and wouldn't open. I called CA and more hold and transfers lead to the discovery the subscription had been cancelled and that until the program was renewed or completly removed from the computer, it would prevent access to the internet. Of course nothing in the program or error messages told you that. Needless to say, I won't reload or renew this program
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Easy to get- hard to get rid of
by zlinguist on February 21, 2008
Pros: easy to install
Cons: NOOOO customer support and poorly designed self help pages
Summary: Tried the free download of the firewall. "About" does not tell you which version (2007/2008) you have. Tried to uninstall and they offer an uninstaller for 2007 "only". Could ...
Summary: Tried the free download of the firewall. "About" does not tell you which version (2007/2008) you have. Tried to uninstall and they offer an uninstaller for 2007 "only". Could not find the 2008 uninstaller or help to uninstall. I will keep looking...but I just wanted to tell anyone thinking about this download to stop now...while you can!!!!
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Worse than any virus I've ever had
by Wings42 on November 5, 2007
Pros: Beautiful interface
Cons: Takes over and wreaks havoc
Summary: Immediately after installying CA Security Suite 2007:
- my internet connection became flaky, requiring cold reboots hourly.
- many essential cookies are gone from my PC, like logins for Outlook ...Summary: Immediately after installying CA Security Suite 2007:
- my internet connection became flaky, requiring cold reboots hourly.
- many essential cookies are gone from my PC, like logins for Outlook Express as an example. If you reestablish the cookie, the CA suite deletes it without asking. Maybe there's a setting to stop this, but I haven't found it, and have stopped looking.
- my PC is slooooow and thrashes a lot, with 95+% CPU usage on Task Manager
- Rhapsody and other apps. hang, requiring a hardware reset.
- none of the above was a problem until the moment of install of CA Security Suite. My PC has been very stable for a long time.
- worst of all, I can't uninstall the CA Suite. There is no uninstall button, and uninstalling from the Control Panel results in an E9011 error: that I should log in as Administrator, which I am in my stand-alone PC.
- I've turned off all CA Suite functions while trying to repair damage and get things working again (three days so far). Still, the Task Manager shows two CA apps running, eating up resources, and doing I know not what.
- I can't get through to CA for help.
- it seems to work OK as virus etc. protection, other than trashing my PC, hence the "2" rating. Maybe it's only been tested on Vista, and not Windows XP Pro which I run?
- PLEASE, if anybody reading this knows how to uninstall this monster, please email me at dcolton@san.rr.com (assuming I can get my email working again).1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Poor. Nothing but problems with firewall.
by Ten_ton on March 6, 2007
Pros: Computer store recomended it. Cheap. (now I know why)
Cons: Computer was useless. Had to uninstall.
Summary: Firewall kept giving system errors. Had a hard time uninstalling it. Complete waste of money! Don't buy this software.
Summary: Firewall kept giving system errors. Had a hard time uninstalling it. Complete waste of money! Don't buy this software.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Stay Away - Total Nightmare
by mittalcnet on January 20, 2007
Pros: LOOKS GOOD AND COMPREHENSIVE
Cons: WILL RUIN YOUR COMPUTER AND YOUR LIFE
Summary: It will load up and everything but you will be never be able to use your computer ever again like you have been prior to installing it. Its a headache ...
Summary: It will load up and everything but you will be never be able to use your computer ever again like you have been prior to installing it. Its a headache and nightmare to work with the settings. Menus and Options are written in like Greek / Latin coded language. Please Please Stay Away.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Disaster!!!!
by blueaz on January 17, 2007
Pros: It loaded...........
Cons: It's been a nightmare ever since!
Summary: This program has already given me more trouble than any virus or spyware I've dealt with. Really messed up my email access. I turn off the troublesome Firewall, but ...
Summary: This program has already given me more trouble than any virus or spyware I've dealt with. Really messed up my email access. I turn off the troublesome Firewall, but it comes back on every time I boot up. Emailed for help 3 days ago; no response. Called & was on hold for over one hour, still got no one. AAaaaagggghhh!!
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Very very dissapointing
by gregeaton on April 29, 2007
Pros: absolutely none
Cons: destroys everything
Summary: I have used EZ products (armor - firewall and anti-virus) for many many years. I have five full licences - all used on XP pro machines from laptops to servers. ...
Summary: I have used EZ products (armor - firewall and anti-virus) for many many years. I have five full licences - all used on XP pro machines from laptops to servers. As usual, I upgraded my core engine when CA advised that they has a new and "better" core process.
This could be no further from the truth.
Every machine had immedaite problems including incessant "windows violation warnings" - utter and complete slowdown to a crawl on all machines even 2Ghz dual processor machines.
Worst still, CA said that the problem was someone elses software and to fix I had to uninstall everything else and reinstall one at a time to find the culprit. They then sent me a satisfaction survey to fill in since they claimed that they had solved my problem !!!
Fortunately I still had an archive copy of the old r2 program and I unistalled the 2007 (very very difficult as Windows protests severely and almost stops the process by literally dozens of violation dialogs) and reinstalled the old program - on all machines and now no more problems.
If that is not proof that the new CA Internet Security Suite is rubbish, I don't know what is !
I now need to look for new protection software since after years of giving CA hundreds of dollars a year, I have entirely lost faith in that company and any of its products.1 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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DON'T GET IT ,EVEN ITS FREE!!
by garilko on October 22, 2009
Pros: USER FRIENDLY,OFFERS BASIC PROTECTION FOR PC.
Cons: WILL DISABLE MOST OF THE INTERNET FEATURES,AS A RESULT,YOU'D NOT BE ABLE TO ACCESS MOST OF THE FEATURES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING,MOVIE ETC SITES.
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BEWARE OF THIS
by evilkitty35 on October 12, 2008
Pros: DO NOT GET
Cons: I got this program and it total wrecked havoc on my pc totaled my hard drive and i had so many viruses it was nto funny and i just BOUGHT my pc so i would suggest NOT to get it
Summary: The company needs to be sued !!!
Summary: The company needs to be sued !!!
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absolute rubbish, i have been ripped off by this company
by theplod on August 12, 2008
Pros: you THINK YOUR SAFE
Cons: was up and running and didnt protect my PC
Summary: i have been with CA since '98, had vet and the spyware programs, always updated and always running, i bought the security suite because i thought it was good, 3 ...
Summary: i have been with CA since '98, had vet and the spyware programs, always updated and always running, i bought the security suite because i thought it was good, 3 license, my machine became infected with antivirus XP08, totally destroyed all my bits, had to isolate HDD and run as slave to inspect, lucky i had KASPERSKY on my new drive this found and cleaned the drive, but also found 69 other malware/spyware and trojans on this drive.
In short, it's a waste of money and you are not protected, also the customer support is slow and very hard to contact, don't even bother with the phone!!!
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Computer Associates International Inc.
- Part number: ISS2007LEC03
- Description: CA Internet Security Suite provides comprehensive protection against viruses, hackers, identity thieves, spyware, spam and other online threats that can jeopardize your privacy, your data, and your PC's performance.
General
- Category Security applications
- Subcategory Security - security suite
- License pricing Standard
Software
- License Type Complete package
- License Qty 1 user
- License Pricing Standard
- Distribution Media Download
- Package Type Retail
System Requirements
- Min Processor Type 300 MHz Intel Pentium
- Peripheral / Interface Devices CD-ROM
- System Requirements Details Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition - RAM 256 MB - HD 60 MB, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, Microsoft Windows 2000 SP 3+, Microsoft Windows XP SP 1+
Product series
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CA Internet Security Suite 2007
Manufacturer: Computer Associates International Inc.
Specs: 1 user, Complete package, 300 MHz Intel Pentium, CD-ROM
Manufacturer info
- Computer Associates International Inc.
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Computer Associates International Inc. products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.cai.com/
- Address:
One Computer Associates Plaza
Islandia, NY 11788 - Phone: 516/342-4100
- Email: info@cai.com
