Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2013 review

Trend Micro’s 2012 internet security suite was our Labs winner last year, and it remains a persuasive contender. In this year's test, against both brand-new and older malware, it delivered flawless protection – a feat unequalled by any other package.

It excelled in AV-Test’s repair tests, too, with a 90% success rate bettered only by Bitdefender Internet Security.

In terms of features there isn’t much new, but you do get tools to help keep you safe on social networks. Links on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and various other services are now scanned and flagged if they lead to a dodgy destination.

There’s also a new Check My Privacy button that pops up within Facebook. Click it and Trend Micro scans your settings and warns if you’re sharing more than you may intend to.

All of last year’s features remain, too, including a rescue-disc builder, a secure file deletion tool, a parental control system, a simple set of system tune-up tools and a graphical reports module. The interface, meanwhile, has been overhauled.

A tabbed front-end – in bold black and white – replaces the red and grey design of previous editions. We think it’s an improvement, both in terms of aesthetics and accessibility.

As before, there’s no firewall. Trend Micro evidently considers the built-in Windows one to be adequate, and we’ve no reason to disagree. This parsimonious approach appears to help keep system load low.

Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security was one of the quickest suites to start up, adding a mere nine seconds to boot time, and its memory footprint of 84MB is one of the lightest here.

When we tested the suite's reflexes by accessing a malicious file from the web, Trend Micro severed the network connection before the file had even finished downloading.

This year we’ve chosen Bitdefender for our A-List, because it has a small edge over Trend Micro on features, and is, at the time of writing, available at a lower price. But Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security is still an excellent piece of security software that deserves a place on your shortlist.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith