Before getting this, I was using Zone Alarm firewall and AVG anti-virus on Vista, and my partner was using McAfee on XP. I didn't have any particular problems with my antivirus setup, because I don't download things from- ahem- disreputable sources, but my partner does, and he was having all sorts of problems with McAfee. It simply did not stop him getting viruses. He was downloading all sorts of extra programs to scan things that McAfee missed, and it was a complete faff.
As you can see this is a comprehensively-featured security program with firewall, anti-virus, email spamblocker, and all sorts of tools you wouldn't even think of. The password protect function creates strong (ie not memorable) passwords and remembers them for you. It's great if you only log into password protected sites on your home computer- and of course you should never log into your bank from a public place. I wouldn't use it for day-to-day web email though, because you may need to log into that elsewhere and have no way of remembering the password. Another neat feature is the virtual keyboard, which pops up on your screen and you can use it to type in passwords so your keystrokes cannot be logged. The software will even analyse the way you use your computer to see if there are any vulnerabilities or insecurities you should fix, eg an out of date flash player or browser.Then there's parental control, data backup...more than you could possibly imagine. It's interesting that Kaspersky even found viruses in some legitimate PDFs on Mr XP's computer, a format which McAfee has obviously never checked.The full scan takes about two hours, and there is a quickscan mode which takes more like two minutes.
We both found the program easy to install. It's pretty much just a matter of uninstalling your old programs, putting in the disk and you're away. I'm not a computer expert but there was no point at which I was wondering what to do next. However, the first couple of times I tried to do a full scan, my computer crashed. Somebody more knowledgeable than me suggested there were bits of AVG still left on my computer, and that I needed a specific tool to completely remove it. After I found the removal tool on the AVG website and ran it, Kaspersky scanned my computer without a hitch. I canot blame this issue on Kaspersky, so will not take points off for this, but just recommend people beware of their pre-existing antivirus programs. Mr XP did not have any of these kinds of issues, though. He's back to his old downloading ways and has had numerous viruses, worms and so on, that have been successfully blocked by Kaspersky.
Although I will update this review if either of us have any problems, we are both extremely pleased with this software. This is a little bit more expensive than other stuff out there, but I reckon you get what you pay for.