Customer Reviews

PC-cillin Internet Security 2004

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Changed to PC cillin from Norton because of price/value and my old software's generally a complicated and difficult renewal process. In contrast, PC cillin was clear, easy and competitively priced. It was very easy to install PC-cillin just as advertised.

Everything works nicely including email filtering, antispam, automatic updates and etc. I remember reading a review saying that automatic update was not automatic. Not true. PCcillin update is automatic but you must set your preferences to auto.

The only con so far is that I would like having the firewall more obviously working with an indicator or something; That would be nice but is unnecessary.

After using this software for several weeks I am very happy with it and would choose it again.

I am writing this review because I have benefited from user reviews so much myself. As long as I am passing kudos, Amazon has been very good to work with and I have found they usually offer comparable or better prices for very reliable service and good followup if there is a problem. This is especially true when you factor in shipping (...).

Technical support answers your e-mails about 99% of the time, and usually pretty quickly. The firewall is very customizable, and there are many useful features like the option to automatically halt all Internet traffic when your computer encounters a network virus, to block your credit card numbers and other private information from being sent over the internet, etc.

The Customer Care service is pretty nifty, too and lets you get more spcialized help. Most importantly, Trend Micro updates the program very often, and informs you which new viruses you're immune to.

So why 4 stars? Well, it's the best (as of now), but it's not perfect. The technical support is always polite and respectful, but it's clear that some of the people who work there don't understand what they are talking about. In my experience, a couple of people there are plain lazy and don't give you a very helpful answer. It might take you a few e-mails to get a good answer if you're not lucky and you strike on one of the idiots there.

Also, the firewall is a pain for less technical people. If you don't know what DNS, SSH, what TCP protocol is, etc then you're going to have a helluva time getting the firewall just the way you want it. On the flip side, of course it's not impossible for laymen to figure out how to work it, but you're going to have to spend time on google, the "Help" file, and e-mailing Trend Micro on what the terms mean. In other words, you're going to have to put in some time. (Gasp!) (Or, if you're lazy, you could just leave the Firewall on its default settings, but it's not as strong that way.)

Last but not least, I took one star off of Trend Micro's rating in part because of its cruddy anti-Spyware scans. The reason I don't deduct more is because Norton & friends are even worse at getting spyware away from my computer. IF YOU WALK AWAY FROM MY REVIEW REMEMBERING ANYTHING, MAKE IT BE THIS: PC-Cillin, Norton, etc are mainly ANTI-VIRUS programs. Not spyware. Sure they'll kill off a few of the ones hitting your computer, but the vast majority will slip by. There is simply too much spyware out there for Trend Micro to research and protect against since they're so busy concentrating on viruses. If you want to keep both spyware and viruses completely off your computer, I recommend you download Ad-aware 6 (shareware, sort of) and Spybot (free) which have more comprehensive databases on spyware. Shredder also is pretty good, but the creator has sort of retired.

Miscellaneous notes: I believe this program won some awards in PC World or some other magazines. The anti-Spam algorithm usually works but needs some help still... It labeled my e-mail from comcast as "spam."

Conclusion: If you don't mind putting some time in, and you understand that that this program does not really protect you against spyware, then this program is probably a good choice for your anti-virus/firewall package.

I've gone the Norton and McAffee route for over 10 years the most recent of which have been with Norton's bloated memory busting System Works 2005. Since the 2003 version I have noticed a significant slowing of my computing but have been unable to identify the source.

I ran four different anti-spyware programs, I "cleansed" the system using all of Norton's utilities and still my computer was painfully slow hanging up on startup and shutdown. My problems grew progressively worse until I read somewhere that Norton might well be causing my problems.

At first I discounted this possibility out of hand - I mean, after all, this was a premier program that had been around for years! Surely, IT couldn't be the source of my problems. But out of frustration I took Norton off of my computer and VOILÀ my problems went away! I couldn't believe it. No more computer crashes, no more slovenly performance, no more hanging up on shutdown and interminable startup times.

I was then confronted with finding another program to supplant Norton. I searched Cnet and came up with PC-Cillin! This program works great. I does not degrade performance one iota! No hanging up on shutdown or interminable startup times. This program works silently in the background and is literally updated daily in 3 - 5 seconds. I couldn't possibly be more pleased.

For the life of me I cannot understand how a company as distinguished as Symantec could fritter away all their goodwill and reputation by putting out a program that is quite simply awful.

Do yourself a favor. Forget Norton and McAffee. PC-Cillin is incomparably better. My computer, for the first time in 18 months, works like it was brand new.

I am running Windows XP Home Edition on 2GHz machine, and I have been debating for months whether to switch from McAffee 7.0 to PC-Cillin. Well, I finally did and I wish I had done it sooner. The list of positives goes on and on. Competitively low price, extremely easy install, light on system resources, and no annoying pop-ups. I also have a laptop that came pre-intalled with McAffee 8.0 and I hated the annoying pop-ups. There was no way to turn off the "Your virus definitions have not been updated recently" pop-up even though I had specified that I would manually update the virus definitions when I felt they were need (It's a laptop without a wireless connection and when I am not connected to the internet I do not plan on updating my definitions, a concept that McAffee doesn't seem to understand). But enough ranting about McAffee, if you are looking for a straight forward anti-vius program than this is the product for you.

I have been a PC-cillin user since 2000 except for 2003 (compatiability problem with Netscape browser) and am happy with it. The program catches or warns virus for me every time before it enters my computer. I have used McAfee in the past and it did nothing for me. So, I decided to try PC-cillin which made a difference. I just purchased a new Dell computer recently that had Norton Internet Security in it that was already part of the deal. I uninstalled it before installing Micro Trend Internet Security which work fine.

The nice thing about it is that it keeps up with regularly updates I get for free for a year.

One thing I don't like about this program is its interface which is not as great as the previous one. I hope they will change the interface and make it look a lot better in 2005.

I read how the buyers of Norton 2004 Internet Security watched their computers turn into processing sloths, bought a copy and watched my 2.4 Gig XP Pro processor slow down below the level of my 750 Meg 2000Pro laptop! At the same time I bought PC-Cillin for the laptop and what a slick product! My laptop actually sped up from Norton 2003. Seems to me that Norton has added so much feature content that it dominates your computer.

So now, when we type, half the time the Norton XP Pro 2.4 Gig PC lags behind the input, sometime by 10 characters!

Symantec should give us all a refund and apology! I will NEVER buy their product again at this rate, and neither should you.

GET PC CILLIN AND BE HAPPY you didn't spend what I did to see the difference!

I recently switched from Norton Internet Security to PC-Cillin after having been a NIS customer for several years. I made the switch for a variety of reasons, mostly because of memory footprint and speed issues. Overall, it has been a smooth and painless transition, although there have been a couple of small surprises.

I had used Trend's antivirus several years ago, and I remember it as one of the fastest scanners on the market. It is still very fast, much faster than Norton and McAfee (which I have also used), and the coverage of viruses is top-notch. It takes less memory and is done in a quarter of the time on my present system, which is a huge plus for me. I have encountered no compatibility issues at all, which was a small concern I had when I started using it but has since been proven to be no issue at all.

The firewall that comes with the suite is more simplistic than Norton's firewall, and it takes a little getting used to after having had to tweak and fiddle every little setting over the last several years. The major settings are accessed through a simple slider - the protection level can be set to low, medium or high. Once you have made your choice, it works quietly in the background for all intents and purposes, only alerting you where there is a major issue requiring attention or when the level is set to high and a port access is made that you have not yet approved. There is also facility for setting ranges of IP addresses to ensure that you can play nicely on the network in the office, which is a very important feature present in most firewalls.

My biggest complaint with the firewall is more a matter of personal preference and habit - I would like more feedback from it, as I got from Norton's firewall. However, I can always check the logs and see what has happened, and I am confident that it provides the same coverage you get from Norton without all of the notifications of such.

A wonderful feature is the "Emergency Lock", which allows you to lock your system down - nothing comes in, nothing goes out. That can be extremely helpful if you are in a network environment and a security breach (such as a network virus) begins to spread. One click and you are isolated.

The suite also has a built-in antispam tool. I will confess that I do not use this feature, as I have something else I have used for a while that is very good. From the documentation, the standard operation for this feature is to flag a message as spam before delivering to your inbox, much like Norton does. Personally, I find this feature unhelpful. Better would be to capture the message and hold it for review before delivery. In my opinion, the objective should be to keep it from arriving in your mail client at all, not just flagging it.

The weak spot of the package is the URL filter list. The list is initially unpopulated, and you may add URLs in two ways - one at a time, or through the browser cache. This is not helpful as a parental control. Another issue is that this list will not work with the Opera Browser or with Mozilla/Firefox - it works ONLY with MS Internet Exporer - and when it blocks a page it tells you what to do to unblock it (although you can specify a password to block access to the list so that it cannot be changed). This feature could use some help.

One thing I had with Norton that does not come with the Trend product is an Ad blocker function. I got very spoiled with Norton's ability to silently block ads, and I took the feature for granted until I uninstalled NIS. Suddenly I got piles of ads that I had never seen on what I had assumed to be clean websites. Hopefully Trend will add this kind of feature to their suite in the future, but for now you either need to put up with ads or find an alternative method of eliminating them.

Updating the software is easy and painless. There is a section in the main window that allows you to select updats, and everything else is automatic once you have started the query process. Very clean, smooth, and effortless.

Overall, this is a very nice package and I can heartily recommend it. It does lack a little polish in a couple of areas, and there are a few things that I would like to see added or improved, but overall it's a good package for the money. It is definitely faster and smaller than the "big guys" while accomplishing the same primary objectives, and if that's important to you, this package is sure to please.

My Symantec anti virus/firewall was up to date. But a virus got through, and fouled up our PC. In checking, the Trend Micro-PC-cillin got such good reviews, I ordered it for my new lap top.

It installed so much easier than the Symantec 2004 version. I had no conflictions, and it was easy to customize for my needs.

I did have a question, got right through to their customer service, could understand the person, and answered my question without putting me on hold.

I am glad I changed. R. Holmes

When people think of antivirus software they often focus on Norton Antivirus or McAfee VirusScan. That's a big mistake. PC-cillin can match those two feature-for-feature, while offering a much cleaner and easy-to-use interface.

The software also includes a simple firewall and spam filtering, bonus features to be sure, but the most important feature is the antivirus capabilities. It features email scanning, so viruses will be removed before they reach your inbox, as well as sophisticated scheduling of system scans. Highly recommended.

Instead of offering anti-virus, firewall, spam, and spyware protection as separate products (as Norton and McAfee do), Trend Micro has combined them in one product. This approach has two advantages for the consumer: (1) it is significantly less expensive, since you're only buying one product instead of four, and (2) there are no program conflicts, unlike Norton and McAfee which have conflicts up the kazoo.

I've been running PC-cillin for more than 6 months now, and it functions so smoothly that I hardly notice it. Trend Micro, which is based in Tokyo, is a major provider of computer security software to large corporations (it recently signed a contract with Cisco). Perhaps because they're located in Asia (where a lot of viruses orginate), they seem to become aware of the new ones before their competitors and they get the word out fast. Normal anti-virus pattern updates appear almost daily, but take place in the background, so that you hardly notice them. In the case of serious virus outbreaks, which are rare, they send special messages which appear as pop-ups at the bottom of your screen so that you can take appropriate action.

I've only had occasion to use their telephone support once, but it was excellent. The phone was answered immediately and the guy on the other end was knowledgeable and helpful.

All in all, a great product.