Trend Micro is a global security company founded in Los Angeles in 1988, giving the company almost 30 years of experience in the field. The global headquarters are based in Tokyo, Japan and the company was founded by Steve Chang, his wife, Jenny Chang and her sister Eva Chen. Not long after being established Trend Micro made an agreement with Intel to produce an antivirus product for Local Area Networks under the Intel branding. More recently, they made an agreement with TippingPoint, a network and security developer from Hewlett Packard, but can they stay in the future market?
Features
As explained above, the basic entry level suites come with limited features, but for as little as $5 more you can get the full featured suite, which is packed full of handy tools. So both Premium and Maximum Security 10 have the same 19 features, but what do these include? Our favourites are; ransomware protection, a secure browser for internet banking, system optimization and they’ve also added in the ability to scan OneDrive for any nasty files. Obviously Trend Micro have a lot more features, along with the standard ones you’d expect with a security package.
Security
Installation was a breeze, and it even gave you the option to start a free trial instead of fully registering. This isn’t something Trend Micro actively advertise so keep that in mind! The interface is very simple, we wouldn’t say the design is groundbreaking or that modern but it does the job nicely. Scans were quick and to be honest, you didn’t even know it was running, it’s very unintrusive to say the least! Overall we think their years of experience do reflect in the product and it’s a really well optimized piece of software, but we wouldn’t suggest paying for any of their support packages, we haven’t actually tried them out but there’s so much information on the internet with the likes of Google and Youtube.
Support
Online support is pretty poor, you get the usual topics that don’t really answer your questions exactly how you need them answered. If you manage to find live chat and email support it is readily available for you to use but not until a lengthy form has been completed first.
Trend Micro also offer 24x7 Emergency support which comes in various different price plans and doesn’t just support technical help for their product, for instance they have a Windows 10 upgrade plan which lets one of their support technicians log on and assist you with upgrading from 7 or 8/8.1 to 10. This costs $79.95 per PC/Incident (so one upgrade essentially) which we feel is ridiculous and probably targets computer illiterate computer users who are lacking in confidence when using their PC. You could contact Microsoft for free for this kind of help!
Affordability
Depending on what operating system you are looking to protect the price varies and package varies. For instance, if you’ve got a mac to protect you’ll looking at Antivirus for Mac, this comes in at a $39.95 per year for 3 devices, which you’d initially think is a pretty good deal, or is it? It only comes with 5 features, yes you heard correctly, 5! But then again this is better value than the starter PC suite, which comes in at $34.95 per PC per year and again, only comes with 5 features.
If we compare this to the higher end of the scale, you can purchase Trend Micro’s top product, Premium Security 10 for $49.95 per 5 devices (Yes devices, this doesn’t only support PC or Mac but Android and iOS too!) per year or Maximum Security 10 for $39.95 which covers 3 devices. Both of three suites include 19 identical features, which is awesome!
