Looking for a straightforward, customizable antivirus software application? TrustPort Antivirus is just that. Configuration of some of the settings can be a little tricky but once everything is in place, TrustPort works like a well-oiled machine.
For those unfamiliar with the company, TrustPort is a data security company that mostly specializes in the personal, end-user security software realm. The company is based in the Czech Republic.
TrustPort Antivirus is a bit of an enigma in the antivirus arena. The most interesting feature of the software is the ability to choose from different antivirus engines. A number are included but additional engine licenses can be purchased. As explained in the Product Features flier, "The engines excel thanks to their unique technologies. For example, heuristic analysis or the technology of virtual computer, are able to identify unknown viruses which have yet to be included in virus signature databases." This could, in theory, prevent the spread of a new variant before the virus has a chance to take hold of a system or network.
Other features included with TrustPort are typical of most antivirus packages: spyware and spam scanners, internet scanner, comprehensive activity logs, and scheduling ability. These will be covered in more depth under the Feature Set section of this review.
Installation was fairly straightforward and was complete within 5-10 minutes. The installation file is a single executable at roughly 120MB. Keep in mind this was the trial version as I was unable to obtain a licensed copy from TrustPort for review. Once installation was complete, the system automatically performed a search for updates. A few were located, downloaded, and installed which took another 5-10 minutes. All things considered a very painless, typical process.Test system specs are as follows: - Dell XPS 410
- Intel Core2 DUO 6600 (2.40GHz)
- 2.00GB RAM
- 250GB Hard Drive
- Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition (SP3)
Configuration options are great but documentation was a bit cumbersome. This may simply be a result of using the trial version. I elected to keep most settings at their defaults but was forced to track down one particular setting to prevent myself from going mad. By default, there is a system tray message pop up that is displayed every time an application is launched. The same pop up is displayed when sending (uploading) and receiving (downloading) data from within an internet browser. This as you can imagine became very annoying very quickly. However, with a little persistence I was able to locate the setting under the Internet Scanner configuration menu and uncheck the "Display a balloon tip above the tray icon" check box. This was the only setting I changed and the software performed wonderfully under the defaults.