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Explaining terms related to Norton products

Jul 5, 2011

Reading the articles of Norton Internet Security unofficial blog, often the reader will encounter, terms less or more known — in one way or another related to Norton products and technologies used by them. For some readers, these terms have long been familiar, but for others, quite the contrary. That’s why I want to make a more complete list terms related to Norton products, which will include a brief description, useful links and other useful information.

1 Click Login
  When setup on Identity Safe, you can easily log-in to your favorite sites with a single click of the mouse.

AutoFill
  Many Web sites have forms to fill out. AutoFill (sometimes called Manual Fill) lets you complete most forms automatically saving you a lot of time and effort.

Cards
  Cards are used with Norton Identity Safe to establish the information that you want automatically entered on an online form. You can have multiple cards for multiple purposes.

CPU
  Is abbreviation for Central Processing Unit and is the part of a computer where most of the data processing takes place.

CPU Graph
  A real-time graph in System Insight that displays the breakdown of overall system CPU utilization and the Norton-specific CPU utilization. The CPU graph also displays a list of processes that consume maximum resources at any particular point. This graph appears when you click the CPU tab at the top of the Performance graph.

Download Insight
  Download Insight monitors when new files are downloaded and checks their safety. It provides reputation information to give you insight on the executable files you download from the Internet.

Events Graph
  The System Insight graph that provides information about important system activities that occurred over a period of the last three months, such as installations, downloads, optimizations, threat detections, and scans.

File Insight
  The window that provides important details about a file, such as what it is, when it was installed, how it got on the system and what actions it performed on the computer.

Form Fill
  Form fill gives you the ability to fill in the information in an online form that was previously saved on a Card, including name, address, and other details.

Green State
  This means no security risks detected on the site.

Good
  The files that Symantec analyzes as safe based on the statistical evaluation done on the files that are available within the Norton Community.

Identity Safe
  A powerful Norton feature that helps protect your personal information while searching, surfing, or shopping on the Internet.

Idle time
  The duration when your Norton product identifies your computer as idle to perform Norton-specific background tasks. Most of the Norton-specific background tasks are performed during idle time to maintain a high performance of your computer.

Insight Network
  Symantec’s new backend technology also known with the code-name Quorum. It provides additional protection by:

  1. Using the most recent definitions in the Cloud, apart from the definitions that are available locally to scan your computer for security risks;
  2. Whitelisting the known good applications so you don’t have to scan them everytime;
  3. provide the trust level and other reputation information for executable files so the safety of a file can be determined heuristically;

Log-in
  A Log-in consists of a username and password. Norton Identity Safe manages your log-ins and allows you to access your favorite sites easily.

Manual Fill
  Manual Fill (also known as AutoFill) lets you complete most Web site forms automatically saving you a lot of time and effort.

Memory Graph
  A real-time graph in System Insight that displays the breakdown of overall system memory utilization and the Norton-specific memory utilization. This graph appears when you click the Memory tab at the top of the Performance graph.

Norton Community
  The Norton security product users that use the Norton Community Watch feature to submit valuable security and application data to Symantec. The collective efforts from all Norton security product users help in quick identification of solutions for the security threats and security risks.

Norton Community Watch
  The Norton feature that lets you submit selected security and application data to Symantec for analysis. Symantec assesses the data to determine the new threats and their sources.

Norton Insight
  The Norton feature that improves the performance of scans by intelligently scanning the files on your computer. Norton Insight uses the trust level provided by Symantec to decide if a file needs repeated scanning or not.

Norton Authenticated State
  Web site authentication ensures that the Web page belongs to the company represented.

Notification Area
  The area that is found on the far right of the Windows taskbar. Norton products display most of their alerts on the notification area.

Norton Toolbar
  The toolbar shown in your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser window. It includes anti-phishing protection as well as password management and form fill.

Norton Trusted
  The files that Symantec analyzes as trusted. Symantec provides the confidence level of such files based on the file information (such as file name, file size, and hash key) that the Norton product sends to Symantec.

Not Trusted
  Symantec has many indications that the file is not trusted.

Norton Community Usage
  Shows how many people within the Norton Community use a particular file. In general, the more popular the file, the less chances that it is malicious. For example if you are one of the first people to use the file and you are not sure if this is a good file, you may decide not to run it on your system.

Optimization
  A process of rearranging file fragments on a disk into adjacent or contiguous clusters for easy access of files and improved performance of the system.

Performance Graph
  The System Insight graph that provides information about the overall system CPU and memory utilization and the Norton-specific CPU and memory utilization.

Phishing
  An illegal attempt to get your personal and sensitive information to be used for the purpose of stealing your identity and/or your credit information.

Profile
  A profile is first needed to setup Identity Safe so that you can choose a password to protect all of your personal information.

Quick Scan
  A scan that is performed on the vital areas of your computer that are often targeted by viruses and other security risks. This scan runs more often and takes less time to complete as compared to a full scan of your computer.

Red state
  A red state on the toolbar tells you that a security risk has been detected. Norton will block the page and we recommend that you do not visit the site.

Scan Performance Profiles
  The profiles to configure the type of scan to be performed, such as a comprehensive scan of your system or a scan based on the confidence level that Symantec provides for the files on your computer.

Secure Notes
  Notes are used with Norton Identity Safe to securely store personal information.

Security History
  A centralized location to monitor Norton-specific alerts and summaries, such as security alerts, results of scans, and background tasks.

Security Risk
  The programs that can compromise your personal information or privacy, such as a spyware or an adware.

Settings Page
  The window where you can access and configure most of the settings of Norton features.

Site Safety
  Lets you know when Web sites contain a security risk. The toolbar will show green or red depending on the state of the Web page.

System Insight
  Lets you view your system activities, CPU utilization, and memory utilization. You can also defragment your boot volume to improve the performance of your system.

Threat
  A program with a potential to cause damage to a computer by destruction, disclosure, modification of data, or denial of service.

Trust Level/Rating
  Shows a file’s trust level:
  • Norton Trusted:
    Norton has analyzed this file and found that this is a safe file.
  • Good:
    This file is found frequently in the Norton Community and has not been reported as infected.
  • User Trusted:
    You have marked the file as Trusted.
  • Not Trusted:
    The file is not trusted.
  • Unproven:
    The trust level of the file is unknown.

User Trusted
  The well-known files that you manually trust.

Unproven Trust or Unknown Trust
  The files for which Symantec does not have enough information to assign a trust level.

Web Forms
  These are forms that are found on many Web sites requiring that you fill them out. Forms normally require standard information including your name, address, and other personal information.


Note:
This page is updated constantly, and I will try to add as much useful information. That’s why, if you have questions or suggestions, please, leave a comment on this article.

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