PC Tools has a strong reputation for fighting spyware with its Spyware Doctor software, which has remained at the forefront of commercial anti-spyware software for many years. Unlike most rival anti-spyware companies that have tied their offerings into a comprehensive suite of products, PC Tools also creates its own anti-virus software, firewall and other elements, rather than buying in white-label scanning engines from other security vendors. This is actually a little surprising because PC Tools is now owned by Symantec - you'd have thought it might be granted a little Norton magic, but the two businesses continue to operate separately.

As a result, it suffers from the same problems as most suites at the moment, which is that Norton Internet Security is a step ahead in terms of functionality, technology and quality of interface. The PC Tools front screen shows the basics of your protection and is simple enough to use, but tweaks for its settings are split across two sections, which is where things start to get confusing. First, there's the section labelled IntelliGuard, which includes real-time protection using PC Tools' ThreatFire to offer resistance to unknown viruses. Then you get the generic settings that let you perform various actions, such as schedule scans.