You can now grab and stress-test Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security 2011 public betas. These free testers are partially baked previews of the consumer products Symantec will release later this year.

They continue the course that Symantec set for Norton with the 2009 version and appear to retain the fast scan benchmarks of the 2010 version. There's not much that's dramatically new; however, there's a lot more Norton Insight and Quorum data that gets exposed than before. This makes the programs feel more connected to both the Norton Quorum community-sourced protection data and to your own computer's performance and behavior.

Archival stalwart WinZip introduces a new look and some new features in version 14.5. The interface is big news for two reasons: it finally gets a lot of WinZip's advanced features out from the menubar and into the open where users can actually see them, and it's WinZip's first design redo in years.

The new features are fairly sharp, too, introducing extensive Windows 7 support and archiving tools to make getting into and closing up your ZIPs easier than before. Take a quick tour of WinZip 14.5 in this First Look video.

The Google Docs Web-based productivity suite blossomed thanks to its virtue of efficiency. We recently got to know a tool that layers on the convenience by giving you ways to manage Google Docs from a desktop app you already use--your Outlook in-box.  By installing the free Harmony for Google Docs beta Outlook add-on, your Google Docs show up in a sidebar, from which they can be opened and edited right in Outlook's reading pane. Clicking the Harmony button in the navigation ribbon surfaces your Google Docs in new messages as well.

Harmony is essentially inserting a browser into Outlook's main window, which will only slow you down if you've got a weak Internet connection or are attempting to work in offline mode. Otherwise, you'll be able to manage Google Docs through Outlook much as you would through a separate browser tab--sharing, editing, renaming, deleting, and creating new documents until you drop. 

There are other benefits, like being able to turn desktop files into new Google Docs by way of Outlook, and dragging and dropping a Google Doc from the Harmony sidebar into an email as either a link (the regular drag) or as a physical attachment (by pressing the Alt key while dragging.) Harmony also adroitly uses the built-in Google Docs conversion engine to save the files you drag from the Harmony sidebar to the desktop in your preferred format.

Harmony still has its moments of discord, however. Creating new documents wasn't instantaneous, and only some but not all of our Google and Microsoft Exchange contacts populated the recipient suggestions box when we went to share a document, even though Harmony uses each service's APIs (it's possible you may have more luck).

We're all for add-ons that simplify our workflow, and Harmony's beta scored high points for keeping our work centered in one location--the Outlook in-box. Anyone who frequently works with Google Docs on a professional and personal basis has lost some time clicking back and forth between the browser tab and e-mail.

Harmony's publisher, Mainsoft, says it's working on a version that's compatible for Office 2010--right now only Office 2007 is supported. Microsoft SharePoint users can also download the free Harmony for SharePoint.

It's been a long, strange trip, but qStatus has finally come to Windows users. For those unaware, the status updating application for Facebook and Twitter began as a paid app for users with jailbroken iPhones. It later appeared on the App Store, albeit with fewer features than its jailbroken sibling (most notably a lack of being able to run in the background).

At $2.95, the new Windows app is a smidgen pricier than the iPhone version, but is packing some extra features. The nicest one being a keyboard shortcut (the Windows key + s) which brings up the app in widget form no matter what other app you're using. Here you can update your status, then dismiss it just as quickly.

As with other desktop Twitter apps, qStatus supports drag-and-drop file sharing; in our testing this worked great with photos and videos. The app lets you pick which hosting service you prefer, although it offers noticeably fewer options than rivals. You can, for instance, only choose between TwitPic and YFrog for photos, and TwitVid and YFrog for videos.

Just like the iPhone version, qStatus handles multiple accounts without a whole lot of effort on the user's part. It also adds in support for groups, which lets you select more than one account between Facebook and Twitter to update at the same time. This would be useful if you wanted to send the same message out to say three or four different Twitter accounts. Otherwise, it seems like a feature that's been built for the inevitable support for other services.

One of my favorite features is actually the status update shortener. This takes tweets that are too long and crunches them down, taking out letters where needed, and converting written numbers into digits. Normally you have to do this with a service like TweetShrink or 140it, so it's nice to simply have this built into the app instead.

Along with the paid version, which is currently on sale (as opposed to the normal price of $4.95), users can download a free version with all the features. This trial version is limited to 40 status updates before you have to upgrade. There is, however, an inventive option to include a "#qstatus" hashtag in 15 of your outgoing status updates, which provides for a year's worth of full use.

If there's anything to be said about this software, it's that it's useful--but not nearly as useful as services like TweetDeck (download), Seesmic Desktop (download), and Skimmer (download), which let you keep an eye on what your Twitter pals are up to in an organized stream. And all of those pieces of software are free of charge and cross-platform to boot. Still, if you're in the market for a very fast and lean Twitter and Facebook updater, this one's off to a promising start.

The company's demo video can be found after the break.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

Though we're only a few months into 2010, Symantec is already offering a preview of its 2011 security lineup.

The company launched on Monday beta releases of its 2011 Norton Internet Security suite and Norton AntiVirus, along with new, free security tools. They are all available for download.

Norton Internet Security 2011 is the company's full suite, offering antivirus, antispyware, firewall, and antispam tools. In past years, Norton's security software has been dinged by some for being slow and chewing up too much memory. But Symantec said it is sought to improve its 2011 versions to coax them to install and scan faster and use up less memory.

The company added that it's moving beyond security by offering a new feature called System Insight 2.0, which can alert users when other applications are grabbing too much memory and system resources. Also new to the 2011 Internet Security and AntiVirus products is Download Insight 2.0, which will scan downloads delivered through your browser, e-mail, or instant messaging program.

Features revamped for 2011 include Norton Identity Safe, which is designed to help create and manage all of your passwords, and Norton Safe Web, which analyzes and rates search results from Google, Yahoo, and Bing to make sure sites are free of malware.

Symantec is also debuting a few free security tools. Norton Safe Web Lite is a free version of the aforementioned tool designed to alert people to unsafe Web sites among search results. Norton Safe Web for Facebook is geared toward combating Koobface and other malware specifically targeted toward social-networking sites.

The free Norton Rescue Tools provides two individual utilities designed to clean up malware, according to Symantec. Cybercriminals are increasingly employing one popular scam: sending people phony messages telling them they've caught a virus and then offering to install antivirus software. Of course, the "antivirus software" is actually malware that itself infects PCs.

The Norton Power Eraser attempts to remove malware that conventional security software may not be able to eliminate. And the Norton Bootable Recovery Tool helps you create a rescue disc that you can use in the event your system is so badly compromised that it's unusable.

Norton Internet Security 2011 (download beta), Norton AntiVirus 2011 (download beta), and Norton Safe Web Lite can be downloaded from the company's beta site.

Originally posted at News - Security