Trend Micro Internet Security 2008
Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 is an affordable, full featured security package that protects against viruses, hackers and other internet threats such as phishing, pharming, malware and Trojans. It's one of the few security suites that offer Wi-Fi intrusion detection and makes it possible to halt internet traffic immediately if you receive warning of a threat (notification is in the form of popup window).
If the aforementioned wasn't enough, Trend Micro has free telephone (via toll free number) support; very rare even with more expensive products. Support hours are 5 AM-5 PM PST, Mon-Fri. Email support is also available. Another worthwhile feature gives automatic updates of virus threats. It can be set to check for new components every 3,6,9 or 12 hours as you choose. The firewall is bidirectional and monitors your incoming and outgoing internet traffic.
Antivirus Features
- Detects and removes virus from emails, internet downloads, removable media and your pc
- Outbreak Warning System alerts you to new threats
- Security updates as soon as they are available
- Automatically checks for new components every 3, 6, 9 or 12 hours as selected by user
Firewall Features
- Prevents hacker intrusion
- Blocks network viruses
- Blocks fraudulent websites
- Blocks spyware and greyware
- Blocks phishing emails
- Blocks pharming attacks
Other Features
- Wi-Fi intrusion detection
- Advanced spam filtering
All in all, It's moderately priced, full featured, easy to setup and as noted, has free telephone support. All positives and it probably would have scored higher in our ratings were it not for the terrible "feature" where a popup window opens whenever a threat has been detected or quarantined. In-and-of itself, that would be fine: it alerts you-you know right away that Internet Security is doing it's job. You may think that closing the popup ends the threat, and Internet Security has stopped the virus / worm in its tracks. The reality is you're just beginning the process, as the pop up opens again and again- Every Five Minutes.
And it will go on with this pestering 'til the threat is:
- manually located in your Windows Explorer
- deleted *and*
- the recycle bin is emptied
Mind you, if you just send it to the recycle bin without emptying you still get the warning! Quite an irritant especially if you don't always want to dump the Recycle Bin on queue. We watched a couple of semi-novice users working with the application and to a person they were all puzzled by the process of locating the stored threats so as to delete them in the first place and shut the program warnings off. Like we said, this can be a real pain. Worst of all though is this: how many times have you been extremely busy and not wanted to deal with something on the spot? If you're like us: tons. Dealing with something nagging at you is just too much--we worry that even experienced users may disable the software altogether, "just to get it to stop," as one of our testers put it. Stop the threat and let the user deal with it later. It would be preferable to be able set a time frequency to be reminded, say, every thirty minutes or sixty minutes, or so on. Don't browbeat the user over it. One other minus is the user interface; we found it among the most time consuming to navigate the various options. Internet Security has decent features for the money but taking the aforementioned detractions into account, we would consider looking elsewhere
