Why TrendMicro Sucks
A few years back when I was looking for anti-virus software, I read a review that put Trend Micro's PC-cillin as the best available. I bought it and have used it on all of my ever dwindling number of Windows computers ever since. When I got computers for my parents, I put PC-cillin on them. I've always found it to be a good, non-intrusive, non-resource hungry Windows anti-virus product. My last purchase was a three license package that had a rebate that never came. Whatever.
However, their recent shenanigans have me insanely pissed off. I get a particularly spammy looking piece of e-mail on Monday with the subject of "Your Subscription will be renewed in 2 days." The email explains that my 1 year subscription is going to expire but that it'll auto-renew 7 days before expiration at a 10% discount. Yay! While the email does include my name it lacks any other identifying information. As I mouse over one of the links I see that it's pointed to dr.bluehornet.com. In fact, the email has no links pointing to any Trend Micro site. The email even came from trendmicro.cs@digitalriver.com. Surely this is spam so I ignore it.
On Wednesday I get an email saying I've been billed for the renewal. This time the email actually has more personal (and accurate) information, including a serial number. It's still from digitalriver.com but at least it has one link that points to the Trend Micro site. I begin to get very unhappy. Since when is billing my credit card for software an opt out situation? I follow the link (to digitalriver.com) to cancel the order to find that the order number isn't in that system yet. I cancel it using the email and am told that although they managed to bill me very quickly, it may take up to a week to cancel the order. I also use the original email to go to the same site to opt out of the auto-renewal program. Of course, I make sure that I don't have to provide any additional personal information on any of these sites since I'm still somewhat suspicious of things. We'll see if this manages to actually cancel the order. If not I'll take it up with the credit card company.
A wee bit of research shows that this is not a new situation. I'm still pretty pissed not only about the opt out notion of charging me for shit I didn't request but also by the fact that my information has been shared/sold/whatever to a third party. I'm pissed that an email sent on behalf of an anti-virus, anti-phishing, anti-bullshit software company is made to look so goddamn spammy that I don't want to acknowledge it.
Fuck Trend Micro. I won't buy their products any more. I won't recommend their products. I will, as much as I can, campaign against the use of their products. I'll use an inferior product from another company just out of spite. We are no longer happy customer and vendor. Fuck you, your questionable business practices, your sharing of my information, your opt out auto-renewal program, your inability to instantly cancel my unsolicited order, and your choice of partners. Did I mention fuck Trend Micro and PC-cillin? Eat shit, go fuck yourself, rot in hell. There's no fixing the situation, I will not be "talked down", I cannot be recovered as a customer. Good job, assholes.
June 21st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Yeah and they quarantine parts of application files rendering them useless to the point you can't use the applications whatsoever… I installed it for a total of 10 hours after paying 30 bucks for their crap software and it is now no longer on my system. It wouldn't let me restore the quarantined files it decided were virus infected (must be false positives) and when I went to uninstall the stupid program it deleted the quarantine files with it… good job pc-cillin after using you for 5 years I will never use you again!
August 12th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Trend was recommended to me at Best Buy. Today, I wanted to go to a website to block my IP address. Trend identifited it as dangerous and I followed the instructions to place it on the approved list. 70 minutes with a complete idiot from India on chat who asked me to do the same thing over and over - then decided the parental controls s/w was "corrupted" - I hadn't even turned on parental controls. Then 50 minutes with a guy on the phone who decided the firewall was "corrupted". I had to uninstall and reinstall that. And then the dolt of dolts - this annoying woman on the phone who had a frustrated voice who finally left me hanging after an hour. She had me retype the URL 7 different ways - I finally did the smart thing after wasting 3 hours. I returned this s/w and bought Norton.
What a mistake. I would never deal with this company again.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
What I Hate about Trend Micro PC-Cillin is that it detects trojans but cannot get rid of them.
I get a pop-up message saying it detected trojans and viruses, but then I can only click OK. I cannot ask PC-Cillin to get rid of the virus, I cannot ask it to delete the files, get rid of it, quarantine it. Those buttons are grayed out.
FUCK YOU trend micro. You are worthless.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I work in tech support and just helped a lady uninstall Trend so her computer would work properly and update our products. After trying everything to disable it I just had to get her to remove Trend.
Best part was after it removed and before it restarted her Vista updates started running. It downloaded 22 updates from Vista from as far back as 6 months ago. I think its genius that a antivirus/security program would block the OS's antivirus/security updates. This program is a POS
September 15th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Well,I find trend micro 2008 the best!!!
Fuck everything else…
trend micro 2008 does a good job of looking after the pc…and itself!!!
CA security is the worst package i have worked with…
maybe you guys should read a manual…
September 24th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Same deal with me today. They sent the email about I have 2 days before it's billed… AGAIN! We did the same f&** thing a year ago! At that time we had to tell AMEX to cancel the charge as we could NEVER get to a live voice or even an email about this scam. On footnote: if you use amex, they can put a block on any future charges from a billing company. We did send an email to the FTC about the issue and will again today.
As the other person said about uninstalling… Trend Micro IS a virus. I had to go into the registry to dig all the crap out of there.
Btw, I've been using Panda since then with a MUCH smaller footprint and less system resources.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I agree with Jason G I have had a similar problem using Trend Micro, I have also noticed this in some other antivirus programs I particularly avoid packages that make use of network and firewall protection. All though it may seem neat at first glance, software that is overly complex is riddled with problems. As we speak I am testing BitDefender under Vista it can't seem to update itself without a reboot, makes me wonder what sort of antivirus company would design a package that requires a software user to reboot their system. If it were a real epidemic and lets say I had malware running around my system, then suddenly I get a reboot message from BitDefender so my natural response is to reboot and on reboot find myself locked out of my own system.
Real smart idea makes you wonder if they even bother testing the software they built to begin with!!
November 5th, 2008 at 5:45 am
i have been trying to uninstall trend micro 2008 for the past 2 days no real help from support team . i get down to two items and then i cant remove them says i need authority to do so . anybody got any answers
November 8th, 2008 at 12:31 am
I boutht this peace of crap software this past summer also. The week I install it, I get infected with a nasty maleware type virus. Something that looks like another anti virus program trying to warn me of my system not being protected…I had very limited access to my computer and no ability to restore. Finally re-imaged. Tried in September to reinstall the Trend Micro Internet Security (my ass) but could not, don't really remember why, I just didn't have time to deal with it. Tried to install the product again tonight, three hours later and I am still not able to install it. I called the 1800 number but they are not available, searched their site, tried the chat option, even wrote them with my problem, now I have to wait 48 hours for a response.
I am however, thankful I bought it in the store, after reading all your comments, I dont see this program working on my system, or me ever buying it again. It's too bad that I can't return this garbage back. Oh by the way, I had that rebate deal also, sent it in and never received my $10.
Lesson learned here; Never feel bad for companies when I hear they are going out of business again…these type of business practices put them out. I own 5 computers in my house, there was a great opportunity for trend micro for years to come.
Norten is crap too though. I've been using Panda on one of my other systems and it seems to be holding tight and not bother me with all the crap other anti virus products pop up.
Thanks for letting me vent.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Same thing happens here. I notice a charge for $45.90 USD twice on my AMEX within two days of each other from a company http://www.digitalriver.com. I thought after reading several articles that it was Norton only to find out it's Trend. I called Amex - 'we can't help you'. Well, you can cancel my card for one since you just issued me a new number not 3 months ago and there's a charge on it? How did they get my new number ?? Currently typing with the phone to my ear listening to shit music attempting to talk to someone at digitalriver. Better get answers. Filing a report with City Police this afternoon.