Customer Reviews

Trend Micro Internet Security [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

As an IT professional with years of experience in consumer support I feel it's almost a duty to review security software such as TrendMicro's Internet Security suite. But in order to properly understand my review I need to explain that I have some pretty strict criteria for my evaluation.

1. Ease of use, installation and maintenance: the application suite must be easy for the average user to install maintain, and use. Ideally the product should be out of sight out of mind as much as possible, simply performing its job in the background.
2. Lack of interference in daily use of the PC: the application suite should not slow down a modern PC with reasonable hardware specifications; it should not bother the user with pop-ups about what it is doing nor with minor "threats" such as cookies.
3. Level of threat protection : the user's PC should be protected against network (attacks used by worms), web (attacks used by hackers on the web) and file system attacks (malicious file downloads).
4. Ease of customization when required: if something is blocked that should not be, a reasonably proficient user should not need to seek professional help configuring the application.

ThrendMicro is, in my opinion, one of the best producers of security software available. In "ease of use and maintenance" they score very highly. Any user who is able to install software and actually understand the process will be able to install a consumer product produced by Trend. ***** so five stars for category one.

However they still only score three stars for lack of interference. The software does NOT slow down the PC (Pentium D, with 2GB RAM, not a high end machine) but companies like Trend, Symantec, and McAfee need to understand that if I can manually put the window from a scan to run invisibly in the background, maybe it should just run there anyway. I also don't care that Trend has deleted the cookies from my computer. I don't want to be told about the removal of threats of the most minimal risk level. I have also found several legit sites that were blocked that annoyed me. For example, I tried to watch streaming video from FOX's web site and it was blocked. ***-- for category two.

Five stars, though, for threat protection. If your system is up-to-date, Trend is up-to-date and you do not disable it you will almost certainly not get infected. The problem arises when the user participates in high-risk behaviors like file sharing (bit-torrent, eMule, etc) and then disables the software to access something they shouldn't. This is the surest way to 0wn3d, to use a technical term. *****

I have to give them credit on ease of customization. Unlike Symantec's Endpoint Protection (which was a nightmare for nearly all categories) Trend's products have always had a simple, easy to understand interface. They use intuitive names like "web protection" for their services enabling even unsophisticated users to understand where to click when they need to find something.

4 ½ overall score. Not bad! I highly recommend this software to protect your PC.

I've read reviews where users have stated that Trend Micro has slowed their computer down etc.......
I think we all need to keep in mind that depending if you've already maxed out your computers RAM & HD........yeah sure, it won't work as well (FAST) as if you have plenty of space for it to do it's job!
I have it installed currently on an older computer & a newer one (both however are using windows XP Home & while th older computer is close to 80% maxed out, it works perfectly, without a hitch, just as it should!
So when evaluating IF this is the protection software that is best for you, please remember to compare "apples to apples"!
IF someone says it is GREAT, or a lemon, find out what type of a computer they installed it on & the operating system, RAM, HD & whether or not it was already topped out!
As for our family, we could not be more pleased, we have had Norton & others in the past & prefer Trend Micro much more, it has all the bells & whistles we need & want!
Hope this helps you decide what will be best for your needs! Good Luck!!

After 3 installation attempts, following directions carefully regarding uninstalling previous programs, etc., I get the blue screen of death each time. Can't get computer to run long enough to uninstall it so I have had to restore the system settings from safe mode after each attempt. I am disappointed since I have been a Trend Micro user for several years and liked their products but this is unacceptable. Installation proceeded normally, and I even was able to register and activate software before it goes blue. I finally gave up and installed Norton Internet Security as a demo and it worked perfectly. Given the software return policy, I will never buy before I test a security package again. This package may work great for some, but unless you want to spend a lot of time working on problems yourself or with tech support (only available M-F), I would highly recommend doing a demo first BEFORE you buy. I am prepared for a few installation difficulties but this is absurd. I guess I will be a Norton user for the next year at least.

This little package did all that I wanted it to. It isn't a bloated product as I would expect from the 2 powerhouses of anti-virus software. It was easy to install. it even uninstalled a security program that I forgot about before it installed itself. The updating process was quick and the choice of features was all that I ever will really need.

Subjectively, it did appear to make my PC boot faster. Since this was on a single PC, I had nothing to compare it to. For the price I find it hard to beat.

I get this software for free through my university and find it does a good job providing protection from phishing and viruses. I have used Norton, McAfee, and Zone Alarm in the past and find the Trend Micro interface the most efficient and easy to use. I have it installed on two PCs, both running XP. One system is pretty spartan in applications installed and the other system has tons of apps and lots of extra hardware. Trend Micro plays well on both systems.

However, there are three things I have come across that bring the rating down to three stars.

1. This is a really slow scanner. It takes the better part of an HOUR to scan my hard drive with only 12 gigs of data on it.

2. It really slows down a wireless connection. I liked the fact that it uses a higher level of security for wireless connections but was not too happy with the subsequent performance degradation.

3. If you set it up to prompt you for permission before sending your identified personal information over the internet - a great feature - it always asks twice and requires you to put your password in twice (a small annoyance). But, it also puts a warning page in your browser window which requires one to use the back button to get to the previous web page. Some HTTPS pages do not allow this action and once I had to shut down the program to complete a transaction because Trend Micro would not allow it even after clicking the "allow" button.

If these things are not a hindrance for you, give Trend Micro a try. For me, it is more of "the price is right" issue.

I've been using Trend Micro for two years now. It used to be all I recommended for friends and family. Recently, this program has become inept, for the second time in a year, allowing my computer to become infected with very hard-to-remove Trojan Viruses.

This virus wouldn't allow windows updates, redirected my browsers, wiped out every restore point I ever had, and even deleted the administrator's email account. They suggested I download and use their system cleaner, but that even failed to initialize.

Trend Micro's chat support was completely useless, and so was there phone support. One phone support tech told me, "oh that's a window's problem", and refused to help me. I downloaded Microsoft Windows Defender for free, which immediately quarantined the "Vundo" out of my system32 folder. It has finally been removed. I've written Trend Micro, who has refused to respond to me.

This was ok but it slowed my computer down really slow. It did warn me however firsthand so I guess its my own fault. I didn't think it would be that bad though. I'm going to try on a different computer and see how it works however. OK I tried it on my desktop and it is great. First thing it did was knock off a spyware and several nasty little things didn't know I had. I would definitley recomend this to anyone.

I did a lot of research before buying this program and found that it had good reviews. I ordered TrendMicro and then downloaded the trial version so I would have protection while I waited for the disk to be delivered. The trial version worked fine. Installed fine, scanned fine, etc. When I got the disk, I uninstalled the trial (which was advised) and then was never able to install the disk. From then on I was getting blue screens, unrelated programs not working, etc. I spent over 4 hours on the phone with TrendMicro and they were unable to help me. After sending them some type of log, I am still waiting over 2 weeks for a call back. So I assume some of the issues I have now may be that I got a virus in the time its taking them to call me back.

I finally called Dell today and after 2 hours on the phone they determined that it did so much damage to my computer that I have to do a reformat. So now I'm out $45 for the program and $50 for the Dell support to get my computer fixed.

So don't be fooled by the trial version. I hope they fix whatever issues they have with this program so no one else has to go through what I have been through.

Personal computers are under constant attack and users nowadays need a product that will keep their pc protected 24/7 without fail. Trend Micro Internet Security is a product designed to act as a watchdog for your computer; keeping unwanted spyware, dangerous viruses, and identity thieves away from your personal computer so that it maintains the integrity of your personal information and runs smoothly without errors.

I haven't had many issues with computer viruses, but I have had problems with Spyware and I am always wary of internet identity theft. These latter two problems are the main reasons I decided to give Trend Micro Internet Security a try. I like that Trend Micro Internet Security is there, protecting my computer and I like that I can schedule it to run updates and a full scan at the time of my choosing. It will run in the background on its own regardless, but scheduling it to run at regular intervals is best because you have control over when it will run and when you will get updates. This provides greater peace of mind, in my opinion, and it lets me control when it runs to better ensure that it won't run when I have important internet work to complete.

The most important quality of any internet security product is its ability to protect from viruses, spyware, cookies, and other potential hazards. From my use so far, I can honestly say that this protect is flawless in this regard. It quarantines spyware, viruses, and other harmful intruders and it displays them on a report that is available for view at any time. Just a few minutes ago, I opened up my Trend Micro Internet Security and looked at my latest stats. It tells me that a full scan was conducted earlier today and no instances of any threats were discovered. It also tells me that, in the past seven days, my computer has been protected against 31 incidents. I can also look at a log that will tell me exactly what problems were prevented. I like this statistical report because it lets me see, at a glance, what viruses, spyware, etc., have tried to attack my computer. I like keeping a step up on these things because, considering the amount of time I spend on my computer, infections are something I cannot afford to have.

One common complaint that consumers have with internet security software is that they slow down computers and/or interfere with the usage of certain web sites or features. I have had some bad luck with other brands with slowness, but Trend Micro Internet Security causes no such problems. Of course, I schedule the scans for those times of day when I won't be using my computer, but even if a scan starts while I'm using the internet, the interference is minimal. There is an ever-so-slight slowdown, but it is too insignificant to matter. And with interference with web sites, I have only experienced one small problem thus far: The tendency of Trend Micro Internet Security to block certain features in web sites. Sometimes, it will prevent me from watching a video and I am forced to lower the protection level temporarily to get past this interference.

Taken as a whole, however, Trend Micro Internet Security is a very useful product and I am happy to report that it has held down all forms of spyware, viruses, and other problems while keeping my peace of mind at a record high level. It is a nice, all-in-one package that offers multiple levels of protection and multiple features in a single package. I like it better than Norton and some of the other brands and it has plenty of positive qualities to earn it an easy recommendation.

Over the last week I've been on the phone with Trend Micro totaling almost 4 hours. I've been given 5 different phone numbers to call and the 5th one has been ringing and ringing for 15 minutes now... I'm writing this while I wait for their 'support'.

Avoid Trend Micro products.

Updated:

It is now 2 hours later... three more 'support' people and another phone number (which goes to voicemail). I'm writing this while on hold once again... 28 minutes and counting...

Trend Micro SUCKS!!!

Update2:

After 30 minutes I gave up on the last call and called another 'support' number. It took a while but I finally got a hold of someone. He put me on hold to check with another department. I've now been on hold 49+ minutes and he has not gotten back to me...

I've been in IT for almost 30 years and Trend Micro is by far THE WORST COMPANY I've ever dealt with.