KASPERSKY ANTI-VIRUS PERSONAL 4.5

Although Kaspersky sounds like a Russian chess player, it's actually a software house that was founded in Russia in 1997, which has since moved to California.

We chose to look at its Anti-Virus Personal version 4.5, as it is rather cheaper at £28 (inc. VAT) than the Professional version, which costs £35 (inc. VAT). The Pro-version has two extra modules, which include holistic functions that control macros and also detect file changes that may be the result of a virus attack. Frankly, we can't see why these functions are limited to professional users. After all, most of us run spreadsheets and similar applications at one time or another, and those are prime targets for macro attacks.

Once Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal 4.5 is installed, it pretty much sits there and looks at you. There's an icon in the System Tray to show the software is running, but you don't get a configuration wizard asking how you want to protect your laptop, and the software doesn't run a scan by default to check that the environment is safe and clean. This is a strange oversight, and it is worrying as we installed the software on a laptop with four resident test viruses, and after installation none had been flagged up.

In fact there's plenty going on behind the scenes, but Kaspersky doesn't hold your hand and make your life easy. It seems to have aimed for a position between the simple and clean interface used by McAfee, and the huge control panel that you get with Symantec's Norton AntiVirus. Unfortunately, it ends up failing to satisfy either the knowledgeable or the inexperienced user.

Every tool or function that you could want is buried somewhere in the software, but you have to find it first, and then configure it. The 'Scan Now' button in the Control Panel seems to have no effect, and as a result you can have little confidence that your laptop has permanent, live protection from attack.

The easiest way to scan your PC is to right click on a hard drive and then select the scanner that Kaspersky adds to Windows Explorer, but the whole process should be transparent to the user, instead of a laborious chore.

RATING: 5

PRICE: £24/£28 (EX/INC. VAT)
KEY FEATURES: ANTI VIRUS SOFTWARE FOR WINDOWS 95/98/ME/NT4 (SP6)/2000/XP
CONTACT: 0870 011 3461 WWW.KASPERSKYLAB.CO.UK