Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Here was my review from 11-2-04: -------------------------------- After using the 2005 30-day demo posted on the Trend Micro site, I'm a believer and I am ordering this great product. I am a long-time Norton Internet Security user, but after learning of the inclusion of product activation in the 2004 package, I just couldn't bring myself to upgrade to NIS 2004 or 2005. NIS has worked well for me but occasional Gibson Research diagnostics revealed the firewall was leaving ports open and the program did slow things down a bit. Trend Micro's PC-cillin had every feature that I found useful and then some. Based on the demo, PC-cillin is fast (bootup and scanning), solid (no weird quirks or crashes) and highly configurable. Every time I identified a feature that I wanted to customize whether it be alerts, scheduled scans, updating or general operations, there was an easy and straightforward way to change it. The user interface is simple yet powerful and the interface / feature set have been significantly upgraded from 2004-2005 for an even better product. If anything changes, I'll communicate it but, for now, I'm sold. -------------------------------- This was my opinion last year and I still stand by my positive experience with this product. The only weaknesses of this product are the default firewall level (only a problem for expert users) and the spyware detection. By default, the firewall monitors only outgoing data, but if you want added security, simply go into the profile of the firewall you're using (direct connection for me) and up the security level to 'high'. PC-cillin will then start monitoring outgoing data and the number of popup boxes is minimal. As for the spyware detection, I leave the "real-time" spyware monitoring turned off and run a separate product like Webroot Spy Sweeper or the free Microsoft Antispyware Beta. This is really not a knock on this product; from my research, none of the 'internet security' products from any company are good at cleaning up spyware, but they are getting better every year. Spyware/adware is such a major problem today that it deserves it's own solution. Besides these two minor points, PC-cillin still continues to impress me. My immediate family and friends whose computers I'm called into help out with bought and are totally happy with this product. It will not slow down your computer and it updates/scans without user intervention (to the few users in these reviews that were bothered by constant update popups, check the setting to have the program update without user intervention). I've evaluated and used products from Norton, McAfee and Zone Labs and PC-cillin is still my internet security application of choice.