 "Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 2011")
Although, some free antivirus programs are good at detecting and cleaning viruses and Trojans, you need a good internet security suite that has additional features. Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 2011 is a comprehensive suite that features parental controls, system tuning utility, data theft prevention, spam blocker, and protection against suspicious links in IM and email, in addition to an antivirus program.
Features
All features are accessible from the notification area. The main console displays the protection status and a brief security summary. The scan button lets you perform a full, custom or a quick scan. The tools button brings up a grid of icons for accessing the important components of the suite, such as Parental Controls, Data Theft Prevention, System Tuner, Secure Erase and Trend Micro Vault. The access to more critical functions like Parental Control, Data Theft Prevention and Trend Micro Vault is password-protected. The Parental Controls allow you to create a separate Windows user account for children and block inappropriate content. The types of content you can block are categorized into four categories - adult or sexual, communications or media, controversial, and shopping and entertainment. You can either choose the type of content you wish to block, or let the program do it automatically based on the age bracket you select from the drop-down list. The days and the time of the day at which you want the filter active can also be specified.
The main functions of this security suite lie in the Tools section. The UI is neat but when you select a function you can configure it in great detail.
Data Theft Prevention prevents hackers and spy ware from stealing sensitive data like credit card numbers, passwords and email addresses. It can also be used to prevent children from sending out critical data via email or IM. Simply create a list of phone numbers, email addresses, and credit card numbers that you wish to protect. To be safe, even putting a part of the word or number in the list is fine. System Tuner is a small utility that helps improve the PC’s performance by freeing up disk space and optimizing the registry. It also protects privacy by deleting browser history and cookies, list of recently opened files, and IM chat logs. Trend Micro Vault comes in very handy for protecting critical files from unauthorized access. On activating it, an icon appears on the desktop on which you can drag-and-drop files that you wish to secure. The data can then only be accessed by keying in the correct password.
Secure Erase is a data shredding tool that deletes unwanted files by overwriting them so that they cannot be recovered. Simply right-click on a file and select ‘Delete with Secure Erase’.
Parental Controls are useful if you have children using your PC. Either select the age group or manually select the type of content you wish to block.
Performance
We installed this suite on a typical home PC powered by a Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB hard drive. It took 10 minutes to completely install and activate the product. The software utilizes 135 MB of memory in idle state and around 300 MB during scanning, which is slightly on the higher side. We found the scanning speed a bit sluggish; it took 19 minutes to scan 22 GB of data on the boot partition. The scan speed would be quicker on faster hard drives and SSDs. Unlike its competitors, Titanium Maximum Security 2011 doesn’t maintain a database of trusted files (white list), so instead of taking less time, it takes the same amount of time, each time you perform a full scan. If you wish to save time, you can use the quick scan function, which is significantly quicker because it only scans for file types that are most prone to infections.
The system tuner actually does a good job. It cleared a few hundred megabytes on our test PC.
Final Words
Brands like Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky, F-secure, AVG, and BitDefender are rated among the highest by independent antivirus test labs like AV-Comparatives on the basis of virus detection, virus removal and system performance. Hence, our recommendation would be one of these. Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 2011, does its job well and offers an extensive feature set for a good price, but we suggest you try it before buying.
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 "Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty")
 "Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched")
 "Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?")
 "Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House")
