Go away ZoneAlarm, goodbye Norton…

And hello Panda Platinum Internet Security Suite. This is an unintrusive security suite that does everything. Installing it was a pleasure compared to Norton, which immediately hogs enormous amounts of system resources, or ZoneAlarm, which pops up zillions of warnings alerting you that, for example, Internet Explorer might be dangerous.

Nope, none of that. Panda installs easily, has a small footprint, sips resources, and has no ominpresent warnings. It just works. ZoneAlarm actually once reported to me that ZoneAlarm was acting suspiciously (but apparently did not try to kill itself.) Norton is bloated, pokey, and flakey. On one of our PCs, the task bar for Norton said the antivirus features were not working, but when you opened the program, it said AV was working. If two parts of the same program can't even agree if a crucial third part is working, then it's worse than useless.

Some of the reviews for Panda said the interface was too simple. Au contraire. There are just a few options. This is a feature not a bug! It's easy to use, and what's wrong with that? Those who have spent too long drilling down through ZoneAlarm trying to find how to turn off something it defaulted to being on, which then blocked you from doing something on the Net, will understand. I've had to turn off ZoneAlarm twice in hotels because it blocked access to the wireless.

PC Mag said all features but the antispam, which only works with Outlook, are excellent. I use Thunderbird for email, so this isn't an issue for me.

Before installing, here's a tip. Clean out your browser cache and temporary files first to avoid Panda scanning them after it installs. To clean up temp files do, Start/ All Programs/ Accessories/ System Tools/ Disk Cleanup.

Panda includes a firewall, has antivirus, antiphising, antispyware, and antispam capabilities, as well as wifi security, daily updates, and more. In other words, it may be the only security program you need.