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Vipre AntiVirus + AntiSpyware antivirus solution

MATRIX UAB is official dealer of Vipre AntiVirus + AntiSpyware antivirus solution.

Verdict: A very well designed package but it's simply not effective enough.

Vipre (pronounced 'viper') is a new antivirus package, designed from the ground up for maximum performance. There's even a splash on the box promising "does not slow down your PC!"

And it certainly is a low-impact package. After our Vista PC had booted, we saw less than 15 seconds of CPU activity as Vipre initialised - a very light touch for a security package. Even more impressively, RAM usage for the total system peaked at just 762MB during start-up and fell to 516MB within a minute.

Like Ad-Aware Pro it's not a comprehensive suite: Vipre focuses solely on detecting malware, with the normal combination of scans (both scheduled and on-demand), real-time detection and email integration. There's no firewall, nor such niceties as parental controls or web integration; but the developers emphasise the power of its 'next-generation' heuristic analysis, which aims to identify unknown threats by running through their code in a sandboxed environment.

Unfortunately, in our malware test this proved unsatisfactory. The software intercepted only 85% of this month's threats - nowhere near the 96% hit rate achieved by Ad-Aware Pro and our A-Listed Avira suite. It stood idly by as known malware opened network connections and accessed our registry. And we were particularly discouraged to note that, in the course of our testing, Sunbelt offered no new virus definitions for a period of over 48 hours.

It's a shame, because Vipre is a very usable package, with simple and intelligent configuration options. You can disable automatic internet access - a thoughtful touch in these days of capped mobile broadband; set it to wake up a sleeping computer for scheduled scans; and easily configure default behaviours, including different actions depending on the type of scan.

There's also a handy console from which you can manage startup items, browser plug-ins and other potentially dangerous settings; a secure file deletion tool; and a history eraser that doesn't just wipe your IE cache but knows about third-party applications including Office, Acrobat, Winzip and even Visual Studio. The unlimited home licence is a nice touch too.

All of that doesn't count for much, though, if the program doesn't excel at the basics. Since Vipre is a new arrival, it may mature in time, and we look forward to observing its future progress. For now, though, this slick package isn't a smart investment.

For prices ask sales@matrix.lt.