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Trend Micro Antivirus 2009
CNET Review & Rating
The good: Good Web-history-cleaning
and cookie-management features; extensive real-time
monitoring; intuitive interface; especially good at
stopping CoolWebSearch spyware variants.
The bad: Comparatively expensive;
doesn't find quite as much spyware as some of the
popular free options.
The bottom line: Trend Micro Anti-Spyware
3 is a solid and easy-to-use choice for your antispyware
protection.
Trend Micro's Anti-Spyware 3 (formerly
known as InterMute SpySubtract) is the established
security vendor's latest entry into the PC spyware
wars, bolstered by its recent acquisition of leading
antispyware developer InterMute. The home version
retails for $29.95, with an annual renewal fee of
$14.95, and it features better scanning, faster definition
updates, and more efficient memory and CPU usage than
Trend Micro's previous antispyware products. Trend
Micro offers a fully functional online antispyware
scan and is the only antispyware vendor in our survey
to provide free telephone technical support. However,
based on testing done by CNET Download.com, Trend
Micro Anti-Spyware 3 finished near the bottom of the
list for removing known spyware and near the bottom
in overall performance.
Installation and setup are as simple
as can be; however, during installation of this program,
we were required to give an e-mail address for future
updates--this was the only program in our tests to
require this. Accept the default choices, and without
even the need for a reboot, Trend Micro Anti-Spyware
3 is ready to perform an initial scan of your system
for known adware and spyware. The Venus Spy Trap real-time
monitoring feature will automatically kick in and
pay attention to an impressive list of system indicators
that can reveal spyware-related problems.
Trend Micro Anti-Spyware 3 is easy
to use and control. The main display window gives
direct access to the key functions of scanning for
spyware, cleaning your history tracks, restoring your
system, and viewing log files of the program's activity.
Along the top are tabs that offer quick views of your
system status, statistics, and any blacklists or white
lists you have defined. The History Clean Up screen
is especially nice and offers a finely grained and
clear way to remove history tracks.
Trend Micro Anti-Spyware 3 packs
a lot of useful features into its friendly and intuitive
interface. In addition to the expected range of system
spyware scans and monitoring, there is an excellent
history-tracking cleaner, a simple cookie manager,
a restore utility, and a secure file-delete function
that will wipe your files in accordance with DOD standards.
Trend Micro Anti-Spyware 3 also includes a rudimentary
scheduler that allows you to configure Trend Micro
Anti-Spyware 3 to perform a system scan or delete
your history items on start-up.
In testing done by CNET Download.com,
Trend Micro Anti-Spyware finished scanning in slightly
more than 11 minutes. Thanks to the integration of
InterMute's highly regarded CWShredder program, Trend
Micro Anti-Spyware 3 does a better job of finding
and deleting all traces of the notorious CoolWebSearch
family of browser-hijacking spyware than most competing
products; however, a confusing removal process requires
that you first blacklist all found spyware threats.
After two scans, the program turned up different numbers
of spyware threats and included false-positive spyware
traces that were independently found not to be on
the test system. When Trend Micro Anti-Spyware finished
its removal process, we were disappointed to find
that it had left Bookedspace, Search Exe, and 180
Search Assistant, as well as other minor traces.
The integrated help system is adequate
to handle basic questions, but Trend Micro's online
FAQs weren't exactly helpful when it came to Anti-Spyware
3. The searchable knowledge base wasn't any better;
it was confusing and seemed to contain very little
information about the Anti-Spyware product. Luckily,
technical support is available at no extra charge
by both telephone and e-mail, with a guaranteed response
time of 48 hours.
This review was written by CNET.
To read more of this review or to read other reviews
about other pieces of software visit: www.cnet.com
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