On the back end, the product has numerous controls for packet filtering, cookie blocking, web site filtering, advertisement blocking, and so on. NIS2000 has an excellent statistics monitor window. The window shows all active network connections, as well as summaries for network activity, web filtering, ad blocking, and firewall rule-matching results. The statistics window updates automatically and can be customized. Another plus is the ad-blocking feature.
Ad blocking is a great way to optimize network performance on slower connections.
For example, if you're a dialin modem user, turning on ad blocking can reduce the amount of data your computer downloads by skipping advertisement banners. Finally, Symantec has done a good job of integrating Norton AntiVirus and NIS2000, so the two products work well together. On the minus side, NIS2000 can be fairly complicated to work with due to its large number of features. Working on rules definition in the firewall section, for example, might intimidate some. But overall, NIS2000 is a solid product, and the feature set is more than enough for the average user.