Conclusion and awards
So, time to sum up SteelSecurity. Without wanting to sound downbeat about it, SteelSecurity does exactly what it says on the tin… a bit like a can of Ronseal wood stain. What makes SteelSecurity good is that it just gets on with the job, bothering you as little as possible, if ever. There’s just about everything in the package that you could want as a gamer. You get AV to protect your PC whether you’re at home or at a LAN, you’ve got an intelligent firewall that controls the access to your PC whilst still letting you play your games. You get a spam filter that integrates so well with most mail clients that you’ll wonder if it’s working until you realise your spam count has dropped. And you get a frankly superb online backup service that makes life so easy you’ll wonder why you didn’t get something like this before.
But, as with anything, there is a flaw. Not a flaw with anything in SteelSecurity, but just with the product as a whole. First, pretty much everyone will have either already bought, or will be running the free version of, everything in the SteelSecurity package. So you have to ask the question as to why you’d want to go and buy this. To be honest, that’s a question that you’ll have to ask yourself. Do you want to ditch what you have and know and take a punt on SteelSecurity, or are you happy with what you have?
Well, let me put it like this. I reinstall often. Maybe once every two months at least. Anyone who has reinstalled will vouch for how much of a pain it is to go off and get the latest version of their preferred security software. And then you’ve got the pain of opening up the various odd ports that some games prefer to use… and then there’s the inconvenience of your AV popping up with an update or a virus scan right when you’re about to defuse the bomb in a particularly tense CS:S match. Sure you can configure this yourself too, but it’s all a pain.
How about one package, one disk, that just does it all for you. You install it and then promptly forget about it. How about a package that just gets on with the job you bought it for and even helps you protect you data? That’s exactly what SteelSecurity does. So next time your subscription for Norton comes up, or if you’re thinking of a reinstall, I’d recommend having a look at SteelSecurity, it really is an intentionally understated masterpiece. Oh, and it works with Vista (RC2) too!
Pros
Near invisible when it’s running
Configure itself to the game you’re playing
Easy to navigate and configure
Brilliant online backup
Perfect for the gamer
Cons
Can conflict with hardware firewalls
So transparent you wonder if it’s working (not really a ‘Con’ as such but after chatty Norton and over-demanding AVG, you might be a bit nervous it’s doing anything)
It’s the Ronseal of PC security packages; it does exactly what it says on the box.
HEXUS Awards
SteelSecurity
SteelSecurity
