Agnitum Outpost Antivirus Pro 2008 review

You may not have heard of the Russian company Agnitum, but they're the authors of one of the most highly respected firewall products.

This is their standalone anti-virus package. The program showed no signs of conflict with our existing security suite, unlike many other anti-virus programs. Outpost even provided instructions on how to disable Norton's background virus scanner so that it could seamlessly take over, leaving the firewall to continue doing its job. Installation was quick.

It's clear from Outpost's interface that its makers have concentrated on functionality rather than form. There's a pleasing absence of oversized ticks and crosses and brightly coloured alerts. The main control panel is sparse but clear, allowing you to enable important features like continuous background scanning or heuristic protection (scanning for suspicious activity by viruses that have yet to be identified) with one click. Outpost did increase our Windows startup time, but not too much.

Outpost Security Suite Pro - which contains Outpost Antivirus - passed the independent VB100 certification test in December 2007, though oddly it failed the same test more recently. During our own tests, using a mixture of spyware and recent viruses, Outpost detected and removed them all. The full scan of around 25GB took over an hour, but subsequent scans were much quicker, since only files that had changed were scanned.

The program has some useful extra features, one of which prevents a specified string of numerals or characters leaving your PC without your permission. You could enter your credit card number, for instance, for protection from phishing scams. Outpost also allows you to password-protect its uninstaller to prevent malware abusing it.

At around a tenner for a one-year licence covering three PCs, Outpost is a convincing solution at a good price.