Bullguard Backup 10 review

At £17 a year, Bullguard’s entry-level package is phenomenally cheap, especially considering that it can back up five PCs with unlimited version retention, and even includes facilities for local backups. However, the 10GB online storage is unlikely to be sufficient for just one PC, let alone five. Greater capacities are available but they look expensive compared to unlimited capacities from rivals.

The main interface is simple enough, with large, friendly buttons for instant backup, viewing settings and account details and checking for updates. The Backup tab shows the status of backups, amount of space used on your online drive and lets you view and retrieve its contents.

The software supports multiple Backup Profiles, but here, it feels as though too many options have been packed into too little space. These options include backing up daily, weekly, monthly or whenever the PC is idle, applying additional encryption or compression and choosing whether to retain old versions of files. You can also change the backup target, so that instead of online storage, backups are saved to a DVD, USB drive or network location. This is particularly handy if you want to create multiple profiles and save only the most vital documents online, while carrying out full daily backups of larger files such as home videos to a NAS on your local network.

The Bullguard Online Drive is accessible from a shortcut in the Computer folder, and files can be dragged and dropped directly into it. Retrieving files isn’t as simple, though – you have to go through the retrieval options in the Bullguard utility to select the file and version you want to restore. We’d have liked a drag and drop option, too.

Bullguard’s versatility is impressive but 10GB of storage is meagre by any standard. It makes sense for anyone with multiple PCs but not very much to back up on each one, but most users are likely to need to upgrade the storage allocation. In that case, SOS Online Backup Home Edition – which also handles local backup – offers better features at lower prices.