Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2013 certainly lives up to its
name. This “titanium” security suite doesn’t let anything get
through—in our tests, it earned excellent marks in just about every
category. It also has a fairly user-friendly interface and a quick
installation process, which makes it an all-around great pick.
In our real-world attack tests, which indicate how well an antivirus
program will be able to block new malware attacks as it encounters them
in the wild, Trend Micro’s suite completely blocked every threat that
it faced. Needless to say, this means that the program will likely be
able to keep you very secure, even when new malware programs are
introduced in the future.
Trend Micro nabbed high marks in most of our other security tests. In
our malware-zoo detection test, which exposes the program to a
collection of malware that had been introduced in the preceding four
months, Trend Micro’s package detected 100 percent of known malware
samples. In our false-positive test, which checks to see whether a
product mistakenly flags a known safe file as being dangerous, Trend
Micro identified just one safe file (out of over 250,000) as malicious.
In addition, the suite did very well in our system cleanup test: It
detected and disabled 100 percent of infections, and it managed to
fully purge the system of 80 percent of those infections. This result
puts it in second place, tied with G Data and Kaspersky, for total
cleanup rate.
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2013 is also a fairly speedy and
lightweight program—most of the time. In our performance tests, the
program added just 0.3 second to startup time (compared to a system
that had no antivirus program installed), and 3 seconds to shutdown
time. However, we found that it dragged down file copy operations more
than most of its competition did.
The suite’s scan times were on the slow side, too, with an on-demand
(manual) scan taking 1 minute, 50 seconds (as compared to the average
time of 1 minute, 33 seconds), and an on-access scan requiring 5
minutes, 41 seconds (as compared to the average time of 4 minutes, 50
seconds).
Installing the Trend Micro package is a breeze—you have just three
screens to click through and an optional registration screen (which
asks only for your email address). Note, however, that the program does
try to install three separate Firefox add-ons: a browser exploit
prevention add-on, which blocks malicious code from running; a
certificate add-on, which checks the safety of websites, links, and
wireless network connections; and a toolbar add-on, which also
apparently checks the safety of links.
Trend Micro’s user interface is relatively easy to understand, though
it’s not as polished or attractive as AVG’s, F-Secure’s, or Norton’s.
The main window has five tabs along the top: an Overview tab, and
others for PC/Mobile, Privacy, Data, and Family. The Overview tab shows
your protection status, along with some additional stats (such as how
many threats have been stopped). This screen also has a scan button, a
settings button, and a security-report button.
The PC/Mobile tab shows PC- and mobile-related security features, such
as the system tuner and the rescue-disk creator, as well as links to
get Trend Micro’s apps for your Android devices and Mac systems. The
Privacy tab deals with social networking, the Data tab covers data
security along with Trend Micro’s secure erase feature, and the Family
tab holds parental controls.
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