Trend Micro PC-Cillin 2003

There was a time when you bought an antivirus program and got just that. But those days are long gone and now you seem to get the scanning engine and just about anything else the antivirus company can think of adding to the mix.

As long as it's actually of some use the more the merrier, we say. Thankfully, in the case of Trend Micro's PC-Cillin 2003 pretty much all of it hits the mark.

PC-Cillin has been around for a while and, although it's not as popular as the offerings from Norton and McAfee, it can definitely hold its own.

The interface has undergone yet another tweak with this latest version and is now so user friendly it's the software equivalent of a warm hug.

The interface is so simple it was probably tested on toddlers. But behind all this fluffiness lurks a wealth of virus killing potential.

As well as the usual scheduled scanning, the software can also monitor email and instant messaging clients for potentially harmful incoming files.

There's also a feature called Web Trap that can block malicious scripts on web pages. Bizarrely, though, it is turned off by default.

PC-Cillin also includes virus scanning for Palm, Microsoft and Epoc-based PDAs, and a website blocking module.

This can be a bit awkward to use as you have to enter each site you want to block manually.

However, in this age of always-on connections it's necessary to be protected from online threats and PC-Cillin's personal firewall does a decent job of blocking off vulnerable ports.

Contact: Trend Micro 01628 400 500
www.trendmicro-europe.com

System requirements:

• Windows 98SE, ME, NT4, 2000 and XP
• 166MHz Pentium or higher
• 32MB of Ram or higher
• 25MB disk space