Firewall protection

Unfortunately, Trend Micro Maximum Security does not offer a firewall module of its own. Instead, it uses the default Windows Firewall, on top of which it adds its Firewall Booster. Trend Micro says that this piece of software can "enhance the protection given by the Windows Firewall and detect botnet programs that can hijack your computer by remote control."

We wanted to see if the Firewall Booster has any visible effect on how good your protection against network attacks is. So we ran a couple of tests with Nmap and Nessus, two well-known network vulnerability scanners. When we set our test laptop to use a private network profile, Nmap found 9 open ports, while Nessus found 7 open ports and vulnerability to man-in-the-middle attacks. On a public network profile, there were 3 ports left open. The only other interesting information both scanners could read in any scenario was the MAC address of our laptop. However, revealing this information is not a security risk.

Trend Micro Maximum Security has an impressive name, but the truth is that it does not offer you the "maximum" security you would expect from a complete security suite. For us, "maximum" would have meant that we would also have gotten a firewall module other than what is included in Windows, one that is better than the Windows Firewall.

Antivirus and antispyware protection

We started by checking whether Trend Micro Maximum Security protects you while browsing the web. The good news is that this security suite scans and filters all the internet traffic going on your computer, meaning that you should get the same protection in any web browser you use. However, to be sure, we tested it: we used Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Opera and tried to navigate on a series of dangerous websites. We could not land on those pages because Trend Micro Maximum Security stopped us each time we tried. That is an excellent result.

Trend Micro Maximum Security also offers a Trend Micro Toolbar for a few web browsers: Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. It is designed to provide you with additional information about the state of security of the websites that you are visiting, as well as that of the results you get in your web searches. Although you do not need it, if you happen to use one of the web browsers it supports, you might like the bits of information it offers.

Unfortunately, on our test computer, this browser extension was not available for Google Chrome, which is strange considering that the company says it should be. Considering that Internet Explorer is a deprecated browser, the end conclusion is that Trend Micro Toolbar is useful only if you are also a Firefox user.

Next, we wanted to see what Trend Micro Maximum Security does when you use removable drives. We took a USB memory stick, we copied a dozen viruses on it, and we plugged it into our test laptop. Unfortunately, Trend Micro Maximum Security did not automatically scan the USB memory stick for malware, nor did it ask if we wanted to. It just did not react. However, when we opened the malware folder from the USB memory stick in File Explorer, the security suite started to clean the infected files on its own. It is not the most proactive approach if you ask us.

Also, although we wished that the result was no viruses on the memory stick, the harsh reality is that three dangerous files were not identified by Trend Micro Maximum Security immediately. They were, however, blocked when we tried to execute them.

Then we installed Windows 10 on our test laptop, we infected it with a lot of viruses, including ransomware, and asked Trend Micro Maximum Security to install and clean it. The antivirus engine worked flawlessly and, in a couple of minutes, there was no virus left on our computer. It is an excellent result that shows that the antivirus engine offered by Trend Micro Maximum Security is efficient.

Although being efficient is mandatory, being reasonably fast is also an important aspect when you evaluate an antivirus engine. That is why we also measured how much time it takes for Trend Micro Maximum Security to scan our 126 GB system partition with 35 GB of data on it. On average, it took it 7 minutes to do a full system scan. This is an average scan time.

We also looked at what other independent security organizations had to say about Trend Micro:

• AV-TEST awarded Trend Micro Internet Security with their top score of 6 points out of 6 for protection, and 5.5 points for performance and usability.

• AV-Comparatives awarded Trend Micro with their Advanced badge in their "Real World Protection Test" and "Performance," and with the Standard badge in the "Malware Protection Test."

• Virus Bulletin did not test Trend Micro's security products.

Trend Micro Maximum Security is a security suite that has no problems in protecting you when both online and offline, thanks to its good web shield and efficient antivirus engine. However, the security suite does not have a proactive approach regarding removable drives, and the antivirus engine scanning speed is only average.

Extra features

Trend Micro Maximum Security bundles a series of additional tools that might prove useful to its customers:

• PC Health Checkup - optimizes your computer's performance by searching and repairing security vulnerabilities, cleaning your drives of unnecessary files, helping you configure which programs are allowed to run at Windows startup and so on.

• Privacy Scanner - includes Social Network Privacy and Web Browser Privacy. Social Network Privacy checks your privacy settings on social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn, and Web Browser Privacy checks the privacy settings of your browsers.

• Social Networking Protection - checks the links on social networks, and tells you which of them are safe and which are not. It works only if you have the Trend Micro Toolbar installed and it is available in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

• Data Theft Prevention - stops hackers and spyware from stealing sensitive data from you.

• Folder Shield - lets you specify a folder that contains personal sensitive files and blocks ransomware from stealing your data.

• Secure Erase - delete files permanently so that they cannot be recovered easily.

• Password Manager - stores your passwords in a securely encrypted wallet and automatically fills in the details of your online accounts. To be able to use Password Manager, you have to have a Trend Micro account. If you do not already use another password manager, such as LastPass, this could be useful to you.

• Cloud Storage Scanner - scans the files you have saved in the cloud by sending temporary copies of your files to Trend Micro. Although it seems like an interesting feature, unfortunately, we could not test it, because it is available only to customers who bought Trend Micro Maximum Security, not those using the trial version.

• Vault - encrypts and password protects a folder in which you can store sensitive files.

• Family - a Parental Controls tool that allows you to limit the time your children spend online, block inappropriate websites, images and so on. This feature works well and is easy to configure. If you are a parent, you will probably like this module.

Trend Micro Maximum Security bundles quite a few additional tools and some of them can be useful to their users.

Default settings you might want to adjust

Although Trend Micro Maximum Security is a security suite that is well configured by default, we found a few things that we believe you might want to adjust:

• If you use Outlook as your desktop email client, Trend Micro Maximum Security can "Filter out unsolicited advertisements and other unwanted email messages from your Outlook inbox" and "Check for threats in files attached to email messages." These options are not enabled by default, but you can enable them manually, in "Protection Settings ->Internet & Email Controls -> Spam & Emailed Files."

• Trend Micro Maximum Security does not have a firewall module, but it can warn you when you connect to potentially unsafe networks. Although it does not do it by default, if you want to enable this option, go to "Protection Settings -> Internet & Email Controls -> Network" and enable the setting that says "Display a warning when connected to potentially unsafe wireless networks or hotspots."

Trend Micro Maximum Security is a security suite that is configured well by default. The two recommendations we have for you are small improvements you can make.

What is your opinion about Trend Micro Maximum Security?

As you know by now, Trend Micro Maximum Security has a lot of good things to show off with, but it also has some negative aspects. We like its antivirus engine and its straightforward user interface, but we do not like the fact that it lacks a real firewall module. What do you think? Is Trend Micro Maximum Security worth buying? What is your experience with this product?