Today, the Norton team is excited to introduce Norton Labs, an online community where users can download new security technologies and share input directly with developers-- ultimately helping to shape our future products and features. 

We created Norton Labs to foster a dialogue with our customers and bring them into our development process.  It gives us an outlet to showcase technology under development and get valued feedback from our most sophisticated users.  Also, Norton Labs gives us the flexibility to introduce key functionality outside of our standard development cycle. 

Based on your testing and feedback, the technologies featured on Norton Labs may evolve, remain in test format or graduate from Norton Labs and become stand-alone offerings or features in future products.  The site will be available in English only. 

Right now in the lab, you’ll find the User Account Control Tool, a pilot technology that automatically manages the Windows® Vista User Account Control (UAC) security feature.  The Vista UAC presents users with multiple prompts when opening applications, disrupting your experience and causing many users to dismiss prompts without reading them.  The User Account Control Tool effectively replaces the Vista UAC by handling permissions in the background, once you’ve provided initial approval. 

Also in the lab is Norton Safe Web, a Web site rating service that makes it easy for users to identify whether Web sites are safe or suspicious.  This new search tool can currently be tested as part of the Norton Internet Security 2009 beta or via a standalone community site.  Norton Safe Web marks up search results for the most popular search engines as well as warns users about sites with malicious content before they navigate the site, protecting users from threats like drive-by downloads.  Norton Safe Web Report also provides detailed site safety information and user community reviews.

Check out Norton Labs here.  We’re looking forward to your feedback!

Laura Garcia-Manrique

Vice President, Consumer Division

Symantec