Norton takes top honors in cleaning up malware infections, though it wasn't perfect. It got rid of 85 percent of the files and Registry changes that malware had put in place, but it failed to scrub all the files from two out of ten test infections. It produced similarly strong numbers for detecting and removing rootkits--stealth malware used to hide infections from PC users and security software alike. It successfully removed nine out of nine active rootkits.

Norton's antispam feature adds a toolbar to Outlook and Outlook Express, and its firewall will automatically allow known, trusted applications to access the Internet. And its wireless-security feature correctly warned us about a test network that used no encryption.

Another feature, Norton Insight, uses Internet-based elements to identify trusted applications that don't need to be scanned, which Symantec says can help improve scanning speed. The suite did prove the fastest of the group at scheduled or manual on-demand scans that survey entire files, but it was only the sixth fastest at the more-important on-access checks that occur every time your PC opens or accesses a file.