Ultimate Security Suite

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on February 27, 2009

This comprehensive suite of tools protects your privacy, but the failure of the proxy feature stops us from crowning it the ultimate choice.

Ultimate Security Suite's simple interface merely displays buttons for each tool, but you can easily access each tool through the system tray icon. The PC Privacy tool quickly erases many browser traces and allows you to selectively erase traces from Windows system areas and a few common applications. The suite scans your computer's memory, Registry, and folders for adware and spyware. The process is slow, as it must download a current problem list at each scan.

The Password Manager tool effectively fills in most Web-based forms. However, it only places additional buttons on Internet Explorer's toolbar to save Web URLs and autofill web forms. We like the robust firewall protection that scrutinizes all incoming and outgoing data and makes it easy to limit certain connections. The program quickly scans Outlook and Outlook Express e-mails for keywords to move spam to a separate folder for easy deletion. Ultimate Security Suite is supposed to allow anonymous surfing using downloaded proxy lists, but we were often unable to connect to the Internet using the selected proxy.

Privacy-conscious users will find this program useful to remove and mask personal information. Novice users will find this utility easy to operate, but may find some functions difficult at first.