Trend Micro Internet Security v11 review

28 May 2004 11:04 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Working on the internet as we do, we like to think it's a great place to meet people, share ideas and have fun. Sadly there's is a dark and seedier side to our favourite research tool. Preying on this fear and then trying to find a solution to protect you is Trend Micro PC-cillin with its Internet Security Version 11 software that offers Virus Protection, a Personal Firewall and a Network Virus Emergency Centre.

Rather similar to Norton's interface for its Antivirus and Internet Security software the package is controlled from a central window offering you quick access to the relevant sections of the program. While simple, the program is effective at giving you the information is a straight forward in an easy to read manner. Within six clicks of the mouse you can get a quick overview of your system, use the emergency block key if you feel you are under attack from a hacker or even set up URL filtering to stop users accessing certain sites.

On the email side of things you can opt to use the spam filter or scan mail and their attachments for viruses before they get in your machine. If they do manage to get in (a strange oxymoron surely) you can set a number of options in the firewall section and Network Virus Emergency Center to run through a number of quarantine procedures as to try and contain the virus as best it can.

Verdict

Only £10 cheaper than Norton Internet Security 2004 which includes Norton AntiVirus, Firewall, AntiSpam, Privacy, Parental Control you have to question whether or not you feel more comfortably with Trend Micro or The Symantec Family. For us while the Trend Micro package does have the features is doesn't have the shine, breath and depth of Norton's offering once you start adding in the extra compatibility options of Systemworks, although admittedly it is less hungry on the resource side of things so people without XP still need to consider it.

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Review Recap

Made by: Trend
Price as reviewed: £40
The good: Less resource hungry and cheaper than Norton
The bad: …though that means less features
Quick verdict: However you get what you pay for and anyone who swore never to download 20-40Mb of Norton updates from shrinkwrap again should consider this.
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