Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus+ 2013

Most security vendors offer standalone antivirus as their entry-level product, occasionally adding some bonus features. Not Trend Micro. Their latest entry-level product includes almost everything you'd expect to find in a full suite. With Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus+ 2013 you get antivirus protection, spam filtering, a "firewall booster," and phishing protection, as well as security software for your Mac and Android devices. It will even check your Facebook privacy settings and help you correct any privacy errors.

The product's main window reports current security status and offers quick access to important security tasks. If you'd prefer a more lively appearance, just use your mouse to drag the turned-up corner at bottom right. Doing so lets you flip through a dozen-odd colorful backgrounds, from starry skies to flowery fields.

Installation Tribulation
Getting Trend Micro installed on my dozen malware-infested systems was a multi-day marathon of interaction with tech support. Fortunately, my tech support contacts had at their command a veritable arsenal of diagnostic and repair tools. Unfortunately, all of them were needed to complete installation on six of the twelve systems.

The Trend Micro Anti-Threat Toolkit (ATTK) helped out on several systems where the antivirus wouldn't install or run properly. They had me run Rootkit Buster on a couple other systems. I passed a variety of logs to the support agents. The built-in diagnostic tool supplied them with additional details about some problem systems. Some systems required the more advanced System Information Collector.

Among the other tweaks required to get all the systems going were a quick hotfix from Trend Micro and a Microsoft Knowledge Base "Fixit" to repair cryptographic services on one system. The most problematic system took three days to get to the point where it could run a full scan. Even after the scan finished, one threat couldn't be removed. It asked for a reboot to remove that threat over and over; I stopped after nine reboots.

Your computer probably isn't as badly infested as my test systems. Even if it is, you'll only have to go through the initial cleanup process once. Still, my life is a lot easier when security products just install and scan without any fuss.

Good Malware Cleanup
Trend Micro called on a host of different tools to clean up my infested test systems. Together, they managed to do a good job. The antivirus (and its army) detected 76 percent of the samples, which is a bit low. Norton AntiVirus (2013) and Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2013) detected 89 percent, while AVG Anti-Virus FREE 2013 and Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2013 were close behind with 87 percent.

However, the actual malware removal score takes into account both detection and effective cleanup, and Trend Micro's tools were more effective than most at cleaning up what they found. The antivirus scored 6.1 points for malware cleanup, not terribly far behind top-scorer Norton, which took 6.6 points.

Bitdefender, Norton, AVG, and Kaspersky all detected 100 percent of the samples that use rootkit technology to hide their actions, as did Daily Safety Check Home Edition . Trend Micro detected 80 percent and scored 7.4 points for rootkit cleanup. Kaspersky rules this category, with 9.4 points.

Note that this is a big improvement for Trend over my tests last year. The previous edition detected just 79 percent of last year's malware collection and scored a measly 4.7 points. Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus did best among products tested with the earlier collection, with 94 percent detection and 6.9 points for cleanup. To better understand how I derive these scores, please read How We Test Malware Removal.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/4LqgxHPq2CY/0,2817,2409578,00.asp

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