Thursday, September 1, 2011

In Full Test Mode

Last week I was testing Chatelaine recipes, and  this week I'm testing Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security.  I'm not only an official recipe tester for Chatelaine magazine, but also a Bzz Agent.  The best advertising is always word of mouth so I have been supplied with this new security product so that I can try it for myself, and let the rest of you know what I think.  I don't have to convince anyone to like a product. I just give my honest impressions. 



The first thing I notice is that the links are now all highlighted on every page I go to.  Green means it's been checked and is safe.  Grey means it's questionable, though that might just mean Trend Micro hasn't actually checked that link yet.  I did see one Orange link so far, which seemed to be a caution.  I imagine a truly dangerous link would be Red, but I don't know for sure as I have not come across any of those yet (and hope I don't).
I find this rating system especially helpful when in Google, Facebook, Twitter, newsletters or any other place where there are numerous links to to the unknown.
I installed the program earlier this week, after uninstalling my Spybot, ZoneAlarm and Avast programs. When I tried to get rid of Spybot, I saw this.
Hmmmm......Blog spot is making some changes and I'm currently unable to enlarge that to the point where you could read it.  Here's what it says:
"We were  not able to reproduce the alleged incompatibility, and Trend Micro was not able to produce an explanation either.  We therefore have to assume it's request to uninstall Spybot-S&D is just unfair competition.
The Anti-Spyware Coalition defines software that uninstalls other security software as possible malware. Do you really want to trust software that reduces your system's security to improve their shareholder value?

You can reinstall Spybot-S&D after installing Trend Micro should you tolerate their patronizing and want to continue uninstalling Spybot-S&D."

I'd like to point out that Trend Micro did NOT attempt to uninstall anything. I uninstalled all previous protection myself before installing the new product.  It is my experience that these things do not always work in tandem and I wanted to give it a fair chance.  Mind you, I don't know if it would have tried to remove it if I hadn't done it first.

I don't know if I'll reinstall Spybot yet or not.  We'll see....

This morning I had a notice that there was a monthly report ready.  Well, since I haven't had this thing for a full month, I reduced it down to the past week (even though I haven't had it that long either).  It showed I had a Web Threat at some point.






I investigated that further, and found that this report shows me the URL the treat originated from, and that it was blocked.  I don't recognize it, though I do remember an unexpected pop up at some point.


Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security also has a lot of other functions too, including Parental Control.  That might come in handy when my grandsons visit. 

So far, I'm liking it.
I'm going to do a full scan later today.  I wonder what that will find.









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