Trend Micro Maximum Security review: Better alternatives exist

Price When Reviewed

5 gadgets: $49.95/yr

Best Prices Today: Trend Micro Maximum Security

When we final checked out Trend Micro Maximum Security, it gained our favor with a easy interface and robust options. But within the years which have since handed, this antivirus suite has misplaced its capability to compete with rivals like Avast, AVG, and Norton.

It presents fewer options from equally priced competing software program, with a number of notable ones that disappoint. Its capability to catch offline threats ranks almost lifeless final in benchmark outcomes. And it may be buggy — to the purpose of not working.

Where this app as soon as shone for its beginner-friendly vibe, you now have motive to significantly think about alternate options as a substitute.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best antivirus software for Windows PCs to find out about competing merchandise.

What does Trend Micro Maximum Security embrace?

As you’d anticipate, Trend Micro’s important options are its protections towards malware and net threats. By default, its antivirus engine scans constantly for real-time risks, together with phishing websites, malicious downloads, suspicious functions, and ransomware. And to assist preserve your extra weak family members protected, you get parental controls that filter or restrict system utilization as wanted.

In addition, the Maximum Security plan features a restricted password supervisor to spice up your on-line safety, in addition to darkish net monitoring to maintain you abreast of information leaks and breaches that you might have gotten caught in. You additionally get instruments to make sure your PC stays updated (and thus much less weak to assaults), preserve a few of your native information protected, and likewise protect your privateness.

Trend Micro Maximum Security doesn’t provide a firewall or VPN. For community safety, it depends on Windows’ default firewall. As for VPN entry, you need to improve to Trend Micro’s Premium Security Suite subscription.

How a lot does Trend Micro Maximum Security value?

Trend Micro / PCWorld

Trend Micro / PCWorld

Trend Micro / PCWorld

If you buy Trend Micro Maximum Security straight from its web site, it prices $50 for the primary yr, then will increase to $100 afterward. A free 30-day trial exists — and it’s the uncommon one which doesn’t require cost information upfront.

Plans include a 30-day refund policy. Be conscious that Trend Micro mechanically enrolls subscribers into auto-renewal at enroll.

Trend Micro Maximum Security (5-devices)

1-year plan

• $50 for the primary yr
• $100 per yr thereafter

2-year plan

• $100 for the primary yr
• $160 per yr thereafter

Trend Micro Maximum Security will be bought in one- or two-year increments — although the preliminary low cost lasts longer if you happen to go for the two-year plan. Your system restrict covers Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and even ChromeOS.

For a bit of extra financial savings, you should purchase Trend Micro Maximum Security subscription codes from Best Buy. At the time of this text’s publishing, it can save you one other $10 on a one-year subscription, and one other $5 on a two-year subscription, as in comparison with the first-year introductory costs.

Key options of Trend Micro Maximum Security

Installation expertise

Installation went easily on my secondary Windows 10 machine — however not my major check laptop computer, which runs Windows 11. The app refused to open, although different instructions by way of the system tray icon labored. After a number of troubleshooting makes an attempt, which included uninstalling and reinstalling the software program, working Trend Micro’s diagnostic instrument, and attempting an older model of the set up file, I reset the laptop computer…but nonetheless didn’t get the app to run.

For my efficiency testing (detailed additional beneath), I ended up putting in Trend Micro Maximum Security on a unique Windows 11 PC.

User interface

When the app does set up efficiently, you’ll be welcomed by the dashboard. The interface has light-themed coloring, although you may apply themes to the look. Doing so provides a picture to the higher a part of the display screen.

In the middle of this important display screen sits a big scan button, with smaller icons for settings and a safety report back to its proper. Above are 4 icons that group associated options. On the far left is Device, the place you’ll configure scans, optimize your PC efficiency, silence non-critical notifications, and entry downloads for Trend Micro (in case you need to set up it on different gadgets). Privacy homes a safety and privateness extension for social media and your browser, settings for the Pay Guard safe browser characteristic, and a data-theft prevention instrument. Data allows you to defend particular folders towards ransomware, securely erase information, and entry the password supervisor. Finally, Family is the place you’ll configure the parental controls.

One quirk in Trend Micro’s interface is the layering of settings — opening them first drops you into settings for app options. To get to normal settings (together with the themes talked about above), you need to click on on the Other Settings button within the left navbar.

Overall, regardless of its simplistic format, Trend Micro’s app feels disorganized in comparison with rivals’ extra fashionable interfaces. While not illogical, it has related ease-of-use as software program from 10 to 15 years in the past.

Virus, malware, and risk safety

Real-time safety

Trend Micro Maximum Security consistently watches for on-line and offline threats to your PC. Whenever you’re on the internet, it scans for websites resulting in phishing hyperlinks and malware. It additionally screens your community site visitors for any uncommon exercise. You can select to dam particular web sites in this system’s settings.

On your laptop, the app checks over information you open or add, in addition to downloaded e mail attachments. It additionally offers the once-over to your entire system at startup, blocks packages on exterior drives from auto-running, and shuts down software program performing oddly. By default, Maximum Security doesn’t examine archive information (like zipped archives) as a part of real-time scanning.

In addition to plain safety towards malware (which incorporates ransomware), Trend Micro additionally protects any folders you designate towards unauthorized entry — a trademark conduct of ransomware.

Included with the Maximum Security subscription is darkish net monitoring and social media monitoring. For darkish net monitoring, Trend Micro will preserve tabs on as much as 5 e mail addresses — and for one e mail deal with I linked for this overview, it surfaced extra breaches than I’d seen by way of different providers. It’ll additionally observe your telephone quantity, full title, deal with, social safety quantity, passport quantity, and driver’s license quantity. You can even add as much as 10 bank card numbers and 5 financial institution accounts.

For social media monitoring, you may hyperlink your Trend Micro account with a Facebook, Google, and Instagram account. (Note: We don’t advocate leaving delicate accounts linked with third-party providers, within the occasion that the linked account is compromised — on this situation, Trend Micro.)

Scheduled and handbook scans

Scheduled scans run on a “smart schedule” by default, the place Trend Micro adjusts the frequency primarily based in your laptop utilization. You can as a substitute change to a selected schedule, selecting between day by day, month-to-month, or weekly intervals at a selected time, and the scan depth. You can’t create customized scans, nor add extra scheduled scans. All adjustments should be made throughout the app settings.

Manual scans will be run by clicking on the scan button within the app dashboard. Clicking the small down arrow on the button allows you to select between a Quick Scan (examines generally focused areas in your laptop), Full Scan (investigates all areas of your PC and hooked up exterior drives, however not community drives), and Custom Scan. Custom Scans allow you to select the precise folders and/or drives you need to scan.

You can regulate the scan parameters beneath Security & Tuneup Controls in settings, together with the sensitivity stage of scans and if suspicious software program is instantly deleted.

Additional options

Browser extension

To get probably the most out of Trend Micro Maximum Security, you’ll want to put in the Trend Micro Toolbar (generally often known as Trend Micro Security) browser extension for Chrome, Edge, and/or Firefox. It bundles collectively a number of useful protections for net shopping.

Web Threat Protection lets you already know if a web page you’re on is protected or dangerous. Email Defender will scan by way of your e mail in Gmail, Outlook.com, and Yahoo Mail for any dangerous messages. Ad Block nukes ads, which lessens each threat and nuisance. Privacy scanner will consider your settings on Facebook, X/Twitter, and LinkedIn if you happen to’re logged in, and likewise notify you of any browser settings you might tighten up. And Pay Guard allows you to open web sites in a safe shopping session.

This extension can even mark search leads to Google and Bing as protected or harmful, along with your selection of full hyperlink highlights or small icons as visible cues. (The full hyperlink highlighting seems greatest with light-themed browsers.) I did discover a slight delay earlier than outcomes would get their badging, not like with rival extensions.

Of all the additional options that include Trend Micro, this set labored the smoothest.

Folder Shield

Trend Micro presents a further safety towards ransomware — the flexibility to limit app entry to specified folders. This characteristic serves as a backup defend in case ransomware makes it previous Trend Micro’s antivirus engine. However, I bumped into bugs with Folder Shield throughout testing, which decreased its utility. Attempts to configure the characteristic after setup would freeze the complete program. A reboot would restore entry to different options however not clear up this subject, stopping any adjustment (or disabling) to Folder Shield.

Pay Guard

If you put in the Trend Micro Toolbar extension for Chrome, Firefox, or Edge, you may sandbox your browser tabs, which prevents different apps on the system from spying in your net exercise. Trend Micro promotes this characteristic for banking and different delicate transactions, however you may sandbox any web site you select.

Activating Pay Guard will be completed by firing up the Trend Micro Pay Guard app in Windows, which opens your default browser on this sandboxed mode. Or, you may click on on the Trend Micro Toolbar extension in your browser and select Pay Guard to open a sandboxed copy of the tab.

Parental management

Setting up parental controls in Trend Micro is easy, with easy-to-understand settings. (Some competing antivirus software program get deep into the weeds with configurations.) Website filtering, deadlines, and app restrictions will be shortly set, since they’re so clear. You can select preset filtering ranges for web sites primarily based on age ranges (youngster, pre-teen, teen) or create your personal standards. For deadlines, you’ll arrange both a easy or detailed schedule by highlighting the hours you need to block. (Tip: You can click on after which drag your mouse to pick or deselect a number of hours.)

But whereas the deadlines and app restrictions work, the web site filtering didn’t. Obvious websites that ought to have been blocked weren’t.

Trend Micro doesn’t provide cellular apps for its parental controls — you’ll solely have the ability to management web content material and system utilization on a PC.

PC Health Check

Trend Micro’s PC optimization instrument is without doubt one of the rarer ones that sticks to the fundamentals — in a great way. It avoids the registry and different areas on the PC that, if messed with, might trigger issues. 

Instead, this utility seems for safety vulnerabilities, apps doubtlessly incompatible along with your PC, software program slowing down your startup time, short-term information that might be deleted to clear area, and information that might be cleared to strengthen your privateness. Generally, the solutions are good, however as common, I like to recommend nonetheless ensuring you perceive what can be modified or deleted earlier than giving the app the inexperienced mild.

Trend Micro Password Manager

If you want a password supervisor, Maximum Security contains one — however the firm isn’t upfront about it being the free model.

As free password managers go, Trend Micro’s take is underwhelming in its utility, falling between bare-bones and rough-edged. The interface is sparse, with solely primary information entry for passwords, type information, and safe notes. You can even set up an extension on simply Chrome, in any other case you need to use the web site or the cellular app.

The format of the password display screen can be inefficient. Much of the display screen is an information show about password stats, pushing your listing of credentials out of view on a regular 1080p display screen. Most infuriating is the paywalling of sorting passwords. Upgrading to the professional model of the service prices $15 per yr or $25 for 2 years. If you place down this cash, limitless autofill for passwords additionally unlocks. Otherwise, you’re restricted to your first 5 created entries — all others are grayed out.

Even setup and login for the password supervisor really feel clunky. For starters, the password supervisor button throughout the desktop app sends you to the product web page for Trend Micro’s Password Manager subscription, moderately than an precise obtain web page. You should additionally move by way of a double login — as soon as along with your Trend Micro account credentials, after which a separate vault password that you need to create. 

To its credit score, Trend Micro captures passwords on web sites effectively. It additionally helps two-factor authentication, although that units it on your general account, and never simply the password supervisor.

Secure erase

Trend Micro allows you to securely delete information out of your PC — this characteristic overwrites information with extra information so nobody can get better the unique info. However, some of these instruments work greatest with information saved on hard-disk drives (HDD). Overwriting information on this method can shorten the lifetime of an SSD.

Since most laptops and even desktop PCs use SSDs, Secure Erase can be solely helpful for exterior HDDs. Trend Micro presents two choices: Quick Erase, which does a single overwrite move, and Permanent Erase, which overwrites seven instances. No info was out there for which protocol is used for wiping.

Customer help

Help with Trend Micro Maximum Security will be discovered within the firm’s data base, from the group boards, or by way of help crew. The best strategy to entry all three is by clicking the query mark icon within the app’s upper-right nook, then Product Support. Depending in your concern, you might be directed to talk, e mail, or telephone when connecting with buyer help.

Updates and upkeep

Updates for the Trend Micro Maximum Security app and its virus definitions ought to occur mechanically. If you like handbook checks, you may click on on the hamburger icon within the upper-right nook of the app, then select About the Software. Alternatively, you may right-click on the Trend Micro icon in your system tray, then select Check for Program Updates.

Performance

Trend Micro’s antivirus engine typically offers good safety towards malware, however with a big caveat — as illustrated by its efficiency in exams performed by main safety analysis establishments. It blocked 100 % of the threats in AV-Test’s January and February 2024 zero-day assault and malware analysis (probably the most present as of this text’s publishing), catching all 15,362 samples for not too long ago found and widespread malware and 278 samples for zero-day assaults.

AV-Comparatives / PCWorld

AV-Comparatives / PCWorld

AV-Comparatives / PCWorld

When subjected to AV-Comparatives’ battery of exams, Trend Micro additionally carried out pretty effectively — not less than for on-line safety. In the real-world safety check for February through March 2024, which assesses an antivirus suite’s capability to cease malware throughout typical on-line actions (like net shopping), Trend Micro blocked 99.6 % of the 246 check instances. However, it had a notably increased variety of false positives — 20, or double the following highest competitor (Norton).

Meanwhile, within the March 2024 malware protection test, Trend Micro scored a 97.10 % in on-line safety — that’s, holding 10,053 malware samples from spreading by way of community, USB, or native drives. But its on-line detection and offline detection charges had been far decrease, coming in at 84.5 % and a staggeringly low 45.1 %, respectively. (It ranks almost lifeless final on that latter level, and a good quantity decrease than different well-known antivirus suites.) Translated: So lengthy as your PC’s linked to the web, its capability to speak with Trend Micro’s servers ought to preserve your system protected by truly stopping the threats. But it could not discover the presence of the malware if you’re offline…and infrequently even whereas on-line.

Trend Micro didn’t take part in AV-Comparison’s November 2023 advanced threat protection test, which evaluates how effectively an antivirus engine catches refined, focused threats like zero-day assaults, malicious scripts, and fileless exploits.

AV-Comparatives / PCWorld

AV-Comparatives / PCWorld

AV-Comparatives / PCWorld

To consider how antivirus software program impacts a PC’s system efficiency, we run a number of benchmarks earlier than and after the app is put in. Typically, these are completed on our laptop computer designated for this testing, however as talked about above, Trend Micro refused to open after set up. 

So for this overview, an Intel NUC11i5TN that includes an Intel i5-1135G7 processor was used for this a part of our efficiency benchmarks. While in the identical class as our testing laptop computer’s CPU, it has barely totally different strengths and weaknesses—so the outcomes can’t be in contrast on to our different current antivirus evaluations.

Trend Micro’s impact on a PC seems to be on the lighter facet. When working within the background, it had a light impact on the Intel NUC’s system assets. Scores in PCMark 10’s Extended benchmark, which simulates net shopping, video chatting, gaming, and picture and doc enhancing in free, open-source apps, didn’t budge after putting in Maximum Security. Similarly, the period of time wanted to finish our Handbrake encoding check, which transforms a big uncompressed video right into a smaller model, didn’t change both. Even in UL Procyon’s Office Productivity benchmark, which entails Microsoft Word, Excel, and different doc use, the real-time scanning brought on a tolerable 6 % lower for outcomes.

Even throughout a steady full scan, scores decreased comparatively reasonably—just below 11 % in PCMarokay 10, and about 13 % in Procyon. Meanwhile, the time wanted to finish the Handbrake encode elevated by nearly 14 %. Hard-hitting rivals like Avira Prime can tank efficiency by as a lot as 50 % beneath the identical circumstances.

These benchmark outcomes recommend that customers with newer mid-range laptops or higher ought to see a comparatively modest hit to efficiency. Those with older or extra price range computer systems ought to anticipate a bit deeper impact. As at all times, if you happen to’re involved about getting work completed in your laptop throughout a scan—you may bypass the problem by scheduling full scans for off-hours (like if you’re asleep).

Should you purchase Trend Micro Maximum Security?

Ultimately, the worst consequence for Trend Micro Maximum Security is trying to put in it on a PC you’ve already been utilizing — and have it refuse to open the principle console. (The precise situation I bumped into with my common testing laptop computer.)

But even when working, sufficient of the suite nonetheless feels underbaked, together with its major job of blocking malware. You can save a lot headache and frustration by selecting an analogous various, like Norton 360 Deluxe, which additionally features a VPN. 

Editor’s observe: Because on-line providers are sometimes iterative, gaining new options and efficiency enhancements over time, this overview is topic to alter in an effort to precisely mirror the present state of the service. Any adjustments to textual content or our last overview verdict can be famous on the high of this text.