We recently reviewed the 2008 version of the security suite from TrendMicro. Is this latest release worth the upgrade? Read on to find out.

Features

When it comes to Internet security, this package actually works well to protect you from the online cyber crime underworld. This includes antiphishing tools, scanning links and email attachments, and protecting the user against malicious scripts on unknown and dangerous web pages. There is also a parental control tool to monitor your child's online activity and curtail their time spent surfing. An':added bonus to this product is the PC .optimization tool that cleans up the Registry and deletes temporary files and also manages startup programs. Mobile Security is the perfect topping to this suite since it also protects against viruses, SMS text message spam and other malware attacks for Microsoft Windows Mobile and Symbian OS-based smart phones.

It also prevents data theft and service disruptions by monitoring inbound and outbound data activity, blocking unauthorized activity with built-in adjustable protection, firewall, automatic real-time virus and spyware protection. Updates to the virus database are automatic once the phone is connected to the Internet.

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Performance

As with most other security suites, before installing, you will need to make sure that any other protection programs are disabled or uninstalled from the system due to compatibility issues. A first run of the application includes a system wide scan of your PC which may take any time from a few minutes to a few hours depending on the size of your hard disk and speed of the processor.

Thankfully, TrendMicro still has the same intuitive main console window that it had in version 2008. We dug a little deeper to find out whether there were any changes to its innards and were pleased with the results we found at the AV-Tests Lab Their on demand test dated August 2008 put it at 91.3 percent for malware and 88.5 percent for other spyware and adware, not a bad figure.

Next, we loaded it onto a PC running a Windows XP SP3 operating system with 1.73 GHz dual-core processor and 512 MB RAM. While version 2008 consumed 50 MB of the physical resources, 2009 fared a little better with only around 38 MB of exclusively occupied RAM. We then ran a full scan test of a hard disk sized at 5 GB, which was clean. The entire process took around a half hour, after we played with the settings.