If ever there was a struggle to gain ground in the anti-malware world, the battle for Mac OS users is one of the most heated. In the midst of this struggle is the recently released Trend Micro product, Smart Surfing for Mac.
Overview
If ever there was a struggle to gain ground in the anti-malware world, the battle for Mac OS users is one of the most heated. In the midst of this struggle is the recently released Trend Micro product, Smart Surfing for Mac. Will it prove a useful piece of software to protect you from the looming online dangers, or be cast aside as an unnecessary addition to the already beefy Mac security?
Product Page
Rating 
Our first stop is the SSM product page at TrendMicro.com. According to the description, it offers protection against phishing, email and IM links, malicious websites and spyware. It also comes bundled with parental controls and Smart Surfing Diagnostic Toolkit. Some of it's claim-to-fame is a long list of features not offered by "Other Products", whose names they refuse to allude to. This list is non-conclusive and contains some disputable evidence when compared with competitor websites. The only legitimately distinctive feature from it's competitors seems to be the parental controls.
Product Page
Installing
Rating 
The app is approximately twenty-five megabytes in size and is quick to download on a high-speed connection. However, much to the discontent of many Mac users, it utilizes a package installer. This is not as quick and easy as the much loved "drag n' drop" installing that is much adored in the Mac community, but it is not unexpected for this type of application. Unlike "drag n' drop" installations, when a package installer is used, an unwanted application cannot merely be dropped in the trash can. Despite this apparent drawback, the install process is fast and painless with minimal user interaction needed. The whole process was done in about five minutes with no errors. Another highlight of this installer package situation is the inclusion of an uninstaller. Although this would seem like a obvious pair, there are many popular Mac apps that do not include this feature and therefore require a third-party uninstaller.
User Interface
Rating 
The user interface is fairly easy to navigate and is not bad looking either. A user can gain access to scans, settings, updates and parental controls in just a few steps by clicking the TM icon installed to the menu bar and selecting an option from the drop-down menu. There are, however, several drawbacks to the UI. The first is the inclusion of a separate preference menu exclusive to auto-update and select scan settings. These could have easily been included with the rest of the controls and would have made navigation much easier. To further complicate the issue, there are several different ways to navigate to this renegade menu and neither are labeled correctly. From the drop down menu a user can click on "Open Prefrences" which seems to hint falsely that all preferences can be managed there. The other method is clicking on the "change settings" button in the Scan pane of the main application window. Neither way alludes to the fact that the auto-update settings can also be managed here. The third and final UI drawback is the Dock icon which appears during preference changes, scans and updates. Not only is it annoying to have two TM icons polluting my screen, but I also have to quit the application to remedy the problem.
User Interface
