I’ve never been a computer builder particularly. Mind you, I like to specify what my computers have as far as configuration, but I like them built and ready to use when I get them. I don’t build computers for others either. But all that doesn’t mean I cannot build one, and to prove it to myself I recently bought all the necessary components to put a desktop computer together. And put it together I did.

Although that pet project did serve the purpose stated above, the real reason I got it was to have one dedicated machine just for testing purposes. So it’s completely rigged to be able to install test programs, reproduce problems clients might have with their computers, generally mess around with it and then bring it back to its initial state and start over.

With all the newly acquired latitude this new machine gave me, I set out to try a few security suites I’ve always wanted to test-drive. After trying a few, I had to stop for a moment and stare in awe at one of them: Kaspersky Internet Security 2012. Not a typo, it is 2012. I know you must be thinking, how can I test next year’s version? Well, for one, it is normally released before the end of the preceding year. But truth be told, it has actually not been released yet. It will be released in the US in about a month. But that didn’t stop me from getting a hold of a copy and taking it out for a spin.

So, back to KIS 2012.  I performed the standard test of visiting a dozen or so malicious websites (that if you’re not properly protected or don’t know what you’re doing will result in an infected computer). For the most part, KIS’ web filter component did not even allow the web browser to access the malicious links, and the one that the web filter did let go through, resulted in a download of a malicious program. Uh-oh.

Emulating a not-too-wise user, I opened the program and that program created another one and tried to plant itself in the computer (a trojan). I say tried, because then the active protection component stopped it, deleted the downloaded program, rolled back the actions the malicious program had done, and basically thwarted the infection attempt like it was nothing. So at the end the score was like KIS: 12, the bad guys of the Internet: 0. That’s pretty impressive.

KIS 2012 also comes with an anti-spam module that integrates with your email program. I tested it with a “honeypot” (spam trap) email address I have that catches dozens of spam emails every day. Without changing anything in the anti-spam default settings, KIS easily detected and correctly labeled most of the spam.

The only thing I was not able to test was how KIS 2012 behaves with an old, slow computer. Because the test machine is everything but. Otherwise I’d say as far as performance, interface simplicity and so forth, I didn’t have any complaints.

I’ll probably be writing more articles on reviews of other security products in the near future, while laughing at the hackers’ attempts to infect my test machine. So stay tuned for upcoming reviews.