Labs

The PC-cillin anti-virus program is part of Trend Micro's Internet Security suite, which also includes anti-spam software and a firewall. We concentrated on its anti-virus capabilities and were pleased with the results.

Previous tests have found PC-cillin is good at detecting viruses but patchy at discovering Trojans. For the first time in four years we can report that the program has decent Trojan detection. It missed one, and missed the rootkit, but outperformed five of the programs tested here and is as effective as two of the others.

PC-cillin scans incoming and outgoing email, as

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well as messages downloaded from webmail accounts such as Hotmail. The real-time and on-demand scanners are accompanied by real-time anti-spyware protection and an interesting feature called Vulnerability Check. This looks for updates to Windows and Microsoft Office, alerting you when it's time to patch your computer.

Scan scheduling options are comprehensive, and you can create specific rules such as 'Scan all Word files'. Infected files can be saved automatically before being treated. A quarantine feature is available to hold files that can't be cleaned. Sadly, there's no facility to create a bootable CD, and the disc containing the software isn't bootable, either.

Although it is the most expensive package on test, it's worth remembering that this is a security suite rather than a standalone anti-virus program. Considering its full range of features, it is good value. The annual renewal fee is high, though, and unless you want to use its firewall and anti-spam modules, we'd consider it too expensive just as an anti-virus program. We know from in-depth tests that the firewall is an excellent choice, so with that in mind we'd be happy to run this software on our PCs.