Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A reasonable product - but could be better...
I bought PC-cillin 2003 to replace a McAfee product which was worse than useless (it took *forever* to initialise each time my Windows 2000 system was rebooted and locked up many processes while you were waiting for it to decide - after many minutes - to continue.) PC-cillin 2003 doesn't have that problem, at least. It appears to be quite a competent product and has a few features which may or may not be useful to you (my mid-level rating is partly because I will not need some of the included features.) Included among these are a personal firewall (I use the excellent free version of ZoneAlarm instead) and protection for WiFi setups (which I don't yet have) and PDAs (which I do).Installation was touted as easy but in fact it caused confusion by taking *several minutes* to start the Windows Installer the first time I tried. After uninstalling and deleting the newly created directory (and two from previous trials of the product), it worked normally. The program requires registration over the web before you can use the Intelligent Update feature - allowing you to download new virus-recognition (pattern) files and updates to the scanning engine. This registration process will also apparently *disable* multiple copies of PC-cillin: if, for example, you try and install it on two different machines using the same serial number. I can't confirm whether or not this is the case. Also, be advised that you should *disable* your existing firewall and browser pop-up killer *before* installing this product or it will fail to contact its remote server for program and pattern file updates and will also have trouble completing the registration process, as browser screens that it pops up will be suppressed. If you do make this mistake, the update screen of the program makes it look as if you still have a step to do to complete the registration when in fact it is already done. Confusing, and a sign of careless programming. The auto-update feature also appears to have some bugs. On my system it successfully updated the pattern file but did not automatically update the engine to the latest version. Following the instructions on the Trend Micro website that supposedly tells you how to manually update the engine did not work either. Their technical support has not yet responded to my queries about this... Overall this program is probably OK - I don't know how competently it detects and handles viruses as I haven't had one recently. It is way too expensive at its normal retail price, but the current rebate running (as of January 2003) puts it under ten bucks and therefore it becomes reasonable. However it has some confusing behaviour in some areas and ties you in to future expense with the yearly requirement to fork over more cash to keep the ability to download new pattern files and updates. If you are aware of the above issues and requirements, I can recommend it - but if what I describe above seems like too much hassle, steer clear.
Rating:  - Bloat-Free, Top Perfomance
I knew choosing between Norton 2003 and PC-Cillin 2003 was always going to be difficult. I decided to download the demo versions of both for a week just to see how they will fair. In the end it was clear that PC-Cillin was the right antivirus for me. It had the edge over Norton on 3 issues.1. PC-Cillin uses far little CPU compared to Norton. 2. Norton flunked the Eicar virus file test ... when it came to downloading an infected zip file. This is because of Norton's inability to detect viruses in an archived file. Only after downloading and manually scanning did it detect the virus test file. PC-Cillin, no problems, it detected the virus in the archive at download time. 3. I was unable to download Norton's antivirus definitions through their LiveWire service. I had to manually download and install the updates. With PC-Cillin, the automated update worked flawlessly. It detected that the server hosted newer components and requested to proceed with the update. With these key issues in mind, I opted for PC-Cillin 2003 and I'm yet to be disappointed.
Rating:  - Too Buggy. Going back to Norton
... Where do I begin?.....
OK:First, (and most annoying), it totally destroys my web access on a daily basis. IE, Netscape, even Outlook are killed by some kind of bug in this software (possible glitch with the integrated firewall?). The funny thing is, I didn't even install the firewall portion. (I have a hardware firewall). In a nutshell, my browser goes haywire. If I don't lose access completely (to both the web and e-mail), I get misdirected all over the web, based on my history. For example: if I click to go to Google, I'll be re-directed to ESPN. Most times, the pages just refuse to load. However, I can ping and trace from a command prompt just fine. A reboot usually clears the problem, but it's still very annoying. I have never experienced anything like this until switching to PC-Cillin. My other computer, (on the same network and going through the same firewall), has no Internet access problems whatsoever. ...P>Another thing I noticed is that my computer takes much longer to start up and shutdown. Last but not least, I don't see a significant improvement in resource use ... Now, a review wouldn't be fair without at least touching upon the positives. Although I'm not crazy about the activation process (I'm just an activation hater, period), I do prefer PC-Cillin's update process .... PC-Cillin scans my computer in 5 minutes... However as good as these pluses are, they don't outweigh the negatives. I noticed these same problems with the trial version, but excused them as possible side-effects of uninstalling ...without reformatting. (There were some troublesome ... files still lurking after the "uninstall" that were wreaking havoc until I manually uninstalled them) However, the full version was installed on a totally clean, newly-formatted drive, so there are no excuses. Disabling all real-time scanning tasks is not an option, because my computer is constantly exposed to disks from school, work, or wherever. I plan on just giving it away (probably to someone who ticked me off lately...
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