The exact components that go into a security suite vary, but most include antivirus, firewall, spam filtering, and parental control. To those core components, Kaspersky Internet Security (2015) ($79.95 for three licenses) adds accurate phishing detection, a hardened browser for financial transactions, useful tuneup tools, and more. It's a solid suite.
Like Kaspersky's stand-alone antivirus, this suite's main window is divided into four large panels. In the suite, these panels let you launch an antivirus scan, check for updates, configure the Safe Money hardened browser, or dig into parental control settings.
Clicking the link for "Additional tools" brings up the same collection of bonus tools found in the antivirus. The suite adds real-time reporting from the firewall's application- and network-control modules, as well as a summary of recent protective activity. Overall, the user interface is coherent and easy to navigate.
Shared Antivirus
The antivirus component in this suite is precisely what you get from Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015). Do read that review for full details. I'll summarize here.
Kaspersky Internet Security (2015) Lab Tests Chart
The independent testing labs absolutely adore Kaspersky's antivirus technology. It earned the highest possible ratings in tough, real-world tests from AV-Test Institute, AV-Comparatives, and Dennis Technology Labs in particular.
See How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests
Kaspersky also excelled at detecting fraudulent (phishing) websites, both blacklisting known phishing sites and using heuristic analysis to detect brand-new ones. Norton Internet Security (2014) is a consistent antiphishing champion, beating 90 percent of the competition, but Kapsersky eked out a detection rate 1 percent better than Norton.
Kaspersky Internet Security (2015) Antiphishing Chart
Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus (2014) and Bitdefender Internet Security 2015 also beat Norton, by 2 and 5 percentage points respectively.
See How We Test Antiphishing
In my own hands-on testing, Kaspersky didn't earn the same stellar scores it got from the independent labs. Its Web protection prevented access to 10 percent of the 100 very new malicious URLs I used to test it. That's quite a bit below the current average of 33 percent.
Kaspersky Internet Security (2015) Malware Blocking Chart
When I challenged it with a collection of malware samples that I had previously analyzed, it wiped out the majority on sight and eliminated several of those remaining when I tried to launch them. Its overall score of 7.9 points doesn't compare well with the best products tested using my previous malware collection, but then, that was a different collection. Bitdefender, the only other product tested using my current collection, managed 8.4 points. In any case, I give quite a bit more weight to the independent labs, and they've proclaimed Kaspersky to be top-notch.
See How We Test Malware Blocking
Other Shared Tools
Kaspersky's standalone antivirus comes with a number of useful bonus tools; naturally these also appear in the suite. An attractive semi-transparent virtual keyboard both foils keyloggers and prevents screen-scraping attacks. You can have Kaspersky find and fix vulnerabilities in the operating system and in applications. Several tune-up scanners eliminate junk from your system and wipe out traces of your computer and browsing history.
You'll want to create a Rescue Disk as soon as you've installed the product. That way if ransomware or other vicious malware manages to get past Kaspersky's protection, you can boot from the Rescue Disk (CD, DVD, or USB) and clean things up.
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