Trend Micro Quick Stats:

Pricing:	1 Year:  $35.95 protection for one computer
Free Trial	Yes – you can Try it NOW for 30 Days Try NOW for 30 Days Free!
Virus Definition Updates:	Every three hours
Proactive Detection Effectiveness:	Good
On Demand Detection Effectiveness:	Very Good
Over-all System Performance:	Good
Customer Service:	Free phone, e-mail and chat support
More Info:	Make Sure to Compare Anti-Virus Software Providers for Additional Plan Statistics

Detailed Trend Micro Review:

Trend Micro is an award-winning anti-virus engine that protects your computer against viruses, worms, Trojan programs, and related security threats. With its automatic scans, updates and outbreak alerts, you can rest easy knowing you have systematic, ongoing protection against the latest malicious spyware.

Trend Micro Likes:

Effective Anti-Malware: The newest version of the Trend Micro antivirus product has very effective protection against malware. Trend is capable of detecting any malware that may be present in your computer. It will also remove executables associated with that malware. Another new feature offered by Trend Micro is its system check for vulnerabilities with every full scan of your computer. The software lists any critical Microsoft patches that you’ve missed, with an option to view details on Microsoft’s Web site or go straight to Windows Update online.

Effective malware blocking: Aside from removing all the malwares present in your computer, Trend also offers to keep malwares away from your pc. The first line of defense blocks access to malicious Web sites. As Windows Explorer accessed the files to display their detail information, your Trend antivirus will start silently wiping them out. It didn’t display any ostentatious pop-ups; it just eliminated the malware that it recognized on sight. Changing the filenames, sizes and editing a few non-executable bytes weren’t enough to fool the system. Trend Micro antivirus still caught all but a handful of the malwares, and the rest that it didn’t catch did not manage to install or launch.

Fewer pop-ups: A very noticeable change in the neweset version of Trend Micro’s antivirus is their unobtrusive approach to pc protection. They have greatly reduced the number of security pop-ups and queries generated by the suite. When it detects a serious threat it just wipes out the file; it will sometimes announce that it has done so. The downside of this new feature is that you have to dig deep into the program logs, to find out what actions were taken by the software.

Reliable antiphising: This feature of Trend Micro relies on a page’s reputation based on history and browsing frequency. A long-established domain will have a better reputation than one created yesterday, a domain that stays with the same host gets a better rating than one that jumps around, and so on. A low reputation score can get a page marked with a yellow “suspicious” icon. Furthermore, you will quickly notice that Trend Micro’s antiphishing mechanisms blend well with the antiphishing features of your standard browsers. Trend works well with both Firefox and Internet Explorer’s exsiting antiphishing efforts. Unlike other antivirus programs, the antiphishing feature of Trend is very useful, especially when used together with your browser’s built-in antiphishing engine.

Best Over-all Parental Control: Trend’s parental control is more complete and more effective than what you find in most of its competitors products. It operates at the protocol level, so it’s browser-independent. Trend’s parental control can block Web sites matching almost 30 categories. Moreover, private data protection keeps registered private information from leaving your computer. For each child, you can register a name, home address, phone number, school name, and password, plus any user-defined data you like. The data is safely stored using one-way encryption to keep this security feature from becoming a security liability. If your kids try to share any of this private information in a Web form, Trend’s parental control will block it. A great addition to Trend’s feature set.

Good system performance during internet browsing: Compared to other antivirus programs, opening dozens of big, busy Web pages took a very short time for the pages to load completely. Even with parental filtering and page rating active, Trend didn’t slow browsing by much. Trend Micro also barely slowed the process of moving and copying a large number of files.

Trend Micro DisLikes:

Minimal change to their user interface: There is a very minimal change in the user interface of Trend Micro’s main window. It looks almost the same, except that the familiar controls are now on a tab Dashboard.

Troublesome installation and initial update: Trend Micro was reported to have problems installing in malware-infested computers. Users reported a blank window in place of the activation window during installation. Users also complained about the different parts of the suite that crashed on some infested systems. In every case rebooting into Safe Mode and running a full scan cured the problem. But despite this solution, the software is supposed to install without any problems. Furthermore, there is an initial update that can take up to thirty minutes or more after you install. This can be an issue with a computer that is not able to connect to the internet.

Longer boot duration: Users were complaining about the boot duration of their computers after installing Trend Micro antivirus. Trend more than doubled the boot time. You will have to wait an unusually long time before the suite’s user interface comes up.

Poor independent Test results: Trend Micro AntiVirus + AntiSpyware 2009 doesn’t do so well in independent testing. Results on overall effectiveness range from average to poor depending on the test. Independent testing showed Trend Micro AntiVirus + AntiSpyware 2009 to inconsistently catch dangerous spyware and viruses. Some tests showed promising protection results, while others showed very poor scores. In fact, some well known spyware wasn’t even fully removed. With such random results, it’s hard to put a high level of faith in this antivirus application.

System slowdown during scans: When the antivirus scan is in operation, you will definitely notice your system become slow and sluggish. In some cases, users have reported their computers completely freezing.

Trend Micro Bottom Line:

Trend Micro AntiVirus + AntiSpyware 2009 has a nice user interface which is both easy to use and intuitive. But the core protection is the real concern. It’s effectiveness is all over the board. At times it performs averagely, while other times leaving traces of spyware behind. This inconsistency in it’s primary purpose – malware protection – causes us to be concerned about the actual level of protection being received.

Buy Trend Micro Antivirus + AntiSpyware for only $35.95!
Get Trend Micro Antivirus for the Mac for only $69.95!