Thousands of new malicious programs emerge every day causing us to become more and more paranoid concerning the safety of sensitive or personal data stored on our computers. Fortunately the antivirus software industry adapts rapidly and supplies us with an increasing number of internet security suites based on cloud computing that mark a new era for antimalware programs.
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security is currently among the top cloud-based commercial antiviruses and strives to deliver a high level of protection against a countless range of threats wrapped up in a manageable interface.
Installation & Requirements
The Trend Micro TIS installation is not the swiftest possible, but it does remain within reasonable limits when compared with similar antivirus products. After the installer downloads the program you will have to opt for the trial installation or input the registration key (if you purchased one) and from there the program will complete the process on its own.
One of the main benefits of a cloud-based antivirus is that most of the program’s processes run on the cloud-network so it has a minimal impact on your system’s performance. Even so, system requirements do exist and are somewhat lower than the ones imposed by the operating systems: for 32-bit Windows XP SP3 or higher you will need at least a 350 MHz CPU (800 MHz recommended), 256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended) and 400 MB free disk space; for 32 and 64-bit Windows Vista you should have at least 800 MHz CPU ( 1 GHz recommended), 512 MB RAM ( 1 GB recommended) and 400 MB disk space; for both 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 you need at least a 800 MHz CPU ( 1 GHz recommended), 1 GB RAM and 400 MB free disk space.
Interface
Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security comes with a “micro” interface: a small window with a red top area with an easily noticeable green checkmark, showing that your antivirus program is 100% functional. Right below you can see a security summary showing the number of threats stopped in the past month and when clicked it reveals a detailed security report with graphic representations. Even lower we can access the “Parental Controls” feature that provides very specific filters and time-limits allowing you full control over your children’s online sessions.
What could be called a main menu, resides at the bottom of the interface displaying buttons from where you can access the Tools, namely settings for Parental Controls, Data Theft Prevention and Rescue Disk, which sends you to the web address from where you can download Trend Micro Rescue Disk a very useful tool for analyzing infected systems outside the Windows environment and removing persistent threats; the Scan button immediately deploys a quick, full or custom scan, selectable from the neighboring Scan Options menu; the Settings menu allows you to adjust levels of protection and other security aspects; last but not least the Security Report button is another way to access detailed information about threat statistics. Worth mentioning is also the fact that you can password protect the settings of Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security and block access for other people.
The developers of Trend Micro TIS tried to keep things simple and succeeded in a large extent. However the terminology is a bit different than within most antiviruses and might puzzle new users.
Pros
– Lightweight application with minimal impact on the system performance.
– Clean and simple interface with easily accessible features and customizable with built-in skins.
– Provides protection against a large array of malware.
– The program receives updates on the cloud-network, eliminating the need for you to perform them on your system.
Cons
– The non-standard terminology used within the program’s settings can be troublesome for new users.
– In spite of good malware detection rates the program also shows a high rate of false positives.
– Contrary to most internet security suites, Trend Micro Titanium does not come with a built-in firewall, instead it contains a set of tools to optimize the default Windows firewall.
Alternatives
The list of internet security suites is abundant and gives you plenty of good alternatives to Trend Micro Titanium. From the cloud-based antivirus family a rival worth mentioning is F-Secure Internet Security, mostly known for the capable set of security tools it comprises and an interface equipped with a more advanced collection of settings than the one of Trend Micro TIS.
If you wish to opt for a traditional antivirus product, Kaspersky Internet Security and BitDefender Internet Security are some of the most renowned ones, successfully remaining among the industry leaders for quite some time now.
Conclusion
Equipped with the revolutionary cloud-based technology, but also with traditional real-time protection and signature-based security, Trend Micro Internet Security aims to keep a low memory footprint and provides a straightforward accessible interface to make your computer-related activities safer than ever.
