Overview

Trend Micro Anti-Virus plus AntiSpyware is a security program to protect your PC against viruses and other malicious software.  This will prevent unauthorized changes, worms, and Trojans from attacking your computer.  Trend Micro AntiVirus plus AntiSpyware is compatible with Windows  XP and Vista.

Walk Through Review

Installation – 7

Installing Trend Micro AntiVirus is a relatively  simple procedure when following the Install Wizard.  For our test we went with the simplest set up method which automatically disables Windows’ security components to prevent conflicts.

That is all there is to it.  You will get a progress screen while Trend Micro AntiVirus sets up to protect your PC.

Features – 7

As with other AntiVirus programs Trend allows you to control everything from the Main Console.  Other key features are a software history cleaner, web browser cookie management, customizable security warning and reports.

One of the nicer features is Trend’s security reports where the history of scans can be brought up for as long as it is installed.  After every manual scan a report is also generated for immediate viewing.

Updates to the virus database can be scheduled or manually done.

There are three types of scans which are Quick, Full, and Custom.  Creating custom scans might be the best for the more experience user.

There is also the ability to customize the amount of security warnings that pop up.  Here you can also select how often to generate a Security Activity Report.

Performance – 6

If you are running Trend Micro AntiVirus on an older PC you will probably notice a hit on performance.  We ran tests on an older Pentium 4 laptop with 1GB of RAM and running XP Professional SP3.  Other AntiVirus programs like Sunbelt’s Vipre work much more efficiently when it comes to system resources.  Virus scans are actually pretty fast but this will vary on different systems depending on the amount of files on the hard drive.

Product Support – 8

Accessing customer and technical support can be directly from the Main Console.  Here you can get any help you would need from Virus information to contacting support online.

Conclusion

Trend Micro AntiVirus and AntiSpyware is solid protection against potential threats to your PC.  Virus and malware scans are quick and effective.  There is plenty of custom reporting abilities as well.  Trend may impede performance on older machines however which is definitely something to keep in mind.  Overall it is not the most impressive security protection out there but it will certainly do the job.

Rating

• Installation: 7
• Ease of Use: 7
• Features: 7
• Performance: 6
• Product Support: 8