Some anti-virus and firewall products were deemed greatly superior than others in the protection they could offer to Internet security.
And, in general, the installation and deinstallation of these products were rated mediocre.
These were some of the key findings in a comprehensive test report of the Consumer Council in association with the International Consumer Research and Testing.
Amongst the 21 test samples were 8 personal firewall software (3 of them were free), 4 anti-virus software and 9 Internet security packages.
They were rated on their performance on protection as well as on management and resources, documentation, installation/deinstallation, ease of use and versatility.
The test results indicated considerable variations among the software in their protection against various types of computer viruses and hacking. Some were decidedly better than the others.
In general, the software samples were deemed mediocre in their installation/deinstallation function. Only a few software products could offer a possibility for checking the correct functioning of the installed software and, in most cases, files or registry entries were still left behind after deinstallation.
Nonetheless, most of the products gained high scores in respect of ease of use and versatility.
Consumers are advised to install anti-virus and firewall software to immunize their computers against virus threat and attack which appear to affect an increasing number of computer users these days.
Consumers should also bear in mind that anti-virus software is only as good as its last update. Keeping the virus signature files up-to-date is essential to ensure the virus checker works effectively.
Other measures to improve Internet security include:
- Download the updates from software manufacturers,
- Don't surf if you are the system administrator;
- Don't allow active contents such as ActiveX, JavaScript;
- Encrypt security relevant data;
- Make backups for important files.
The Consumer Council reserves all its right (including copyright) in respect of CHOICE Magazine and Online CHOICE( https://echoice.consumer.org.hk/ ).