Warning – this post is a rant (sorry).
I’ve had it with Trend Micro. For several years I have been a fan of this often overlooked player in the anti-virus and security space.
Like a lot of techies, I often get to play the role of family or neighborhood tech support guy. Usually, these episodes begin with a friend saying something like this: “man my (our) computer is really slow. It’s got a bad virus and I can’t get rid of it.”
My typical response is to tell them to bring the offending PC over for the weekend. I usually purchase a new hard drive and install the old drive as a secondary – re-install Windows – then my favorite and recommended anti-virus software (formerly Trend Micro) and then proceed to copy files, desktop settings and other user profile preferences to the new OS. In the past, every machine that I’ve performed surgery on has gone back to the owner with a copy of Trend Micro PCcillian or more lately, Trend Micro Internet Security with instructions to activate the software and maintain the subscription. Again – in the past – accompanied by my recommendation of Trend Micro as the best value in anti-virus and internet security.
Never Again!
After 5 years of being a fan of Trend and their products - I’m done.
The latest incarnation of Trend’s software – well – it just sucks. It takes too long to load and update and Trend has become too hard to do business with.
My machines (6 at home) can take as much as 20 minutes to load the latest Trend software after log in. And the machine is unusable during this time. Who knows what it’s doing? For the most part there is no drive activity, but I am entertained by the groovy animated icon in my system tray with the little grey Trend logo spinning and spinning. Doing nothing that I can determine. Just spinning. 20 minutes to load. Really?
That’s not all. Since I have so many PCs at home, each year (in the past) I have purchased a multi-user license from Trend. The price has been economical and the products (until this one) good. But this year, when my subscription expired and it came time to re-up. Guess what! The link on the pop-up box from Trend’s product took me to a page where I was NOT ABLE to purchase the product or renew my subscription. I got only cryptic errors about my software key being invalid.
Took me about two weeks and multiple calls to Trend to figure out that they had changed their business model and that Trend would not longer condescend to sell a multi-user license to me directly. It must have been too much trouble for them to update their software to not offer me the link! It turns out Trend decided to stop selling multi-user licenses (not single user licenses, just the multi-user ones), directly. I had to purchase from a re-seller. Okay…
In hindsight, I should have stopped right there. But purchasing from reseller was not such a big deal for me because – at the time – I was till convinced that this was the security package for me and couple of dozen people I’ve recommended it to since 2005.
Never Again!
After making my purchase I waited, then waited, and then waited some more. In fairness, the reseller told me when I made my purchase that “it sometimes takes Trend a while to ship orders.” How long could it take I thought. All I need is some download instructions and a key. Just wait for the email. Right!
Never Again!
After two weeks of waiting (without current virus protection on my PC), I called the reseller back and insisted that I get my product or a refund. After a few calls, an apology, and a reminder about the aformentioned warning about Trend’s responsiveness to paying customers – the reseller was able to get Trend to respond and I finally got my download info and keys.
The the fun really began.
Installing Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 required a manual uninstall of the previous Trend product (you remember the one that was offering me an upgrade link in a pop-up window), followed by an install of the new product – which – incredibily enough – requried tech support. Ever heard of InstallShield there at Trend?
But I’m still optomistic, I guess because of the 4-5 years of history I have with this product. Read On.
After installation my, PC pretty much stopped being a useful tool. Trend Micro Internet Security slows down a re-boot so much that I’m afraid to reboot my laptop and have to use Standby as my default mode of transportation. A re-boot requires at least 30 minutes of waiting (after log in) for the crappy Trend software to finish loading. The PC is unusable during this mystery process. But that’s not all.
Once the software has finally gotten it’s act together, I get 4-5 prompts to download updates each day. Usually in the middle of something important or with a critical deadline. I guess I can’t blame Trend for that. Keeping updates current when it comes to virus software is key. I have to say however that for the last several years, 1 update per day seemed to keep my PCs safe enough.
The really frustrating part is that everytime I get an update prompt, my hope is that this update will be the one that cures the 30 minute delay in using my PC after login. No such luck. It’s good to have a dream I guess.
My conclusion from all of this is that Trend has completely lost sight of what their product is for and what their former customers wanted. A good, reasonably priced security suite that does not render their PC a paper weight.
My recommendation to anyone considering purchasing Trend Micro Internet Security 2008.
RUN AWAY!!!
Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 is apparently a poorly architected product from an company that has lost sight of the purpose of it’s products.
Never Again
PS. I bet they went offshore.
Glenn Carney
Former Trend Micro customer and endorser.
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