Product Reviews

Security

Woolworths Computer Protect & Antivirus [Computer Buyer]
COMPANY: Woolworths	PRICE: £10 inc VAT
RATING:	ISSUE: 195 DATE: Aug 07

Verdict: Easy to use and not too demanding of your PC's resources, this survived most of our tests but let through a Trojan in a zip file.

Kitting out your PC with all the software required to make it useful can be expensive. The cheapest version of Microsoft Office costs around £300. A good photo editor will set you back around £70, while anti-virus and other vital security software can cost £30-50. Before you know it, you've spent more on software than it cost

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you to buy the PC. It's barmy - or so Woolworths seems to think. The venerable vendor of unnecessary plastic objects has brought out a range of own-brand software, including such essentials as an office suite and an anti-virus program. No title costs more than £25, and most are much cheaper. We filled our basket and tried them all.

This is just an anti-virus program, without any extras, but it's easy to use thanks to a simple interface. This is a welcome change from many anti-virus programs, which are far too complicated. We tested it with a range of infected files and executables (programs), plain and compressed in .ZIP files, and it found them all. When we downloaded the old and well known Trojan Subseven virus in a zip file, the program allowed us to unpack it, but did catch it and stop it when it was being run. But it let us download and run the more recent Trojan troj_start.in without doing anything - not good.

By Karl Wright