Worried that your PC, notebook or tablet has been infected with a virus? Get a second opinion using Trend Micro HouseCall, one small and free program that you download and run without installation, and let is scan your system for viruses, worms, Trojans, or spyware.
Of course, any computer should be protected by an updated and always running anti-virus or security suite. There are a lot of options here, including completely free and paid solutions. However, there are many cases in which a product like Trend Micro HouseCall is a great solution.
First of all, you may want to get a second opinion from time to time. Maybe you want to make sure your primary anti-virus solution is not misbehaving and leave malware sneak in into your computer. Or you have been asked by friends or family members to diagnose a computer, and they don’t have any installed security software.
Using Trend Micro HouseCall is very simple: you download a small, 2 MB executable program, and run it. No installation is required. The program first downloads all the latest security components, stores them in your TEMP folder, and starts scanning. There is almost no configuration, but you have the liberty to choose between a quick scan, a full scan, or a custom scan.
HouseCall uses a cloud-based threat database to deliver updated protection while reducing download times. Its developer, Trend Micro, founded in 1988 in United States and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is an experienced provider of cloud security. The product is able to detect and clean all kinds of malware, including rootkits and other sophisticated threats.
We have tested Trend Micro HouseCall on a PC running the free trial version of Windows 8 Enterprise. You can also run it on Windows 7, Vista, or XP, and there are separate downloads for the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows. On our test system with numerous drives and over 1 million files (not counting the files in thousands of ZIP archives), the full system scan took more than 5 hours, but the software and the PC remained responsive during all this time. However, the quick scan takes only a few minutes, but only targets critical system areas, so you’ll have to decide if you choose security, speed, or something in between.
Finally, please remember that HouseCall isn’t a complete solution, and you shouldn’t use it to replace your primary installed anti-virus solution. But feel free to call on it for a second opinion anytime you want to feel safer.
Ask Trend Micro HouseCall for a second opinion.