BullGuard Backup 8.0 review

As its name suggests, BullGuard Backup is a plain old-fashioned backup program.

It doesn't take an image of entire disks or partitions. It just copies files from your PC to a remote location of your choice. This sounds simple enough, and to a large extent it is, but BullGuard has added extra features and provides a level of control and specificity that you don't get in most of the cheap or free programs that do the same job.

When the program is installed, you configure it using the setup wizard. This allows you to specify what should be backed up (you can point the wizard to particular files and folders or tell it to back up types of files, such as images), where it should be backed up to, and how often it should be backed up. Based on the criteria you've selected, the program creates a number of backup jobs: one for your emails, one for your photos, and so on.

If you later want to change the way one of these jobs works, you just select it and click Edit. You can also add filters to a backup job, telling the program only to back up files of a certain size or a certain age and so on. This is useful when the main backup type isn't discriminating enough.

The program's big selling point, and one that BullGuard is at pains to make you aware of, is the 10GB of online backup space that you get on the BullGuard server at no extra cost. You don't have to configure Backup to work with the online drive, it's all done for you, and the online drive is listed as one of the possible storage locations every time you create a backup job.

This is a well made, easy-to-use piece of software. If you need all the features it offers, it's well worth considering. Otherwise, there are free backup programs that do the same job; to see some examples, go to www.computerbuyer.co.uk and click Labs, then choose Backup Software. Still, there's also the free 10GB storage to be taken into account, and that by itself is worth at least a sizeable fraction of your £25 a year.