Intego for Windows Review: Is It a Safe Option in 2024?

#1 Intego for Windows Review in 2024

Intego, a name that's been around in the antivirus world since the 90s, has recently stepped into the Windows arena. Known for its Mac security solutions, Intego's venture into Windows protection caught my eye. That's why I decided to put Intego for Windows to the test and see how it stacks up against the competition.

In this thorough Intego for Windows review, you'll discover:

• How well Intego protects your Windows PC from various threats
• The unique features that set Intego apart from other antivirus solutions
• Whether Intego's performance impact is noticeable on your system
• How user-friendly the interface is for both novices and advanced users
• If Intego for Windows is worth your investment

So, let's examine what Intego for Windows has to offer!

In a Hurry? Here's a Quick Summary

If you're short on time, here's a quick overview of what I found out about Intego for Windows review:

What You'll Like:

• Easy-to-use interface with clear navigation
• Quick scan option for daily use
• Real-time protection with customizable settings
• Web Shield for safe browsing
• Low impact on system resources

What You May Not Like:

• Limited extra features compared to some competitors
• Optimization tools are basic
• No VPN or password manager included
• Lacks advanced customization options for power users

What Makes This Intego for Windows Review Different?

You might be wondering why you should trust this review over others you've seen online. Well, I'll tell you something - many reviews out there are just repeating information from the product's website. They don't actually test the software themselves. That's not how I do things.

For this Intego for Windows review, I bought Intego for Windows with my own money and installed it on my personal Dell XPS laptop. I spent over two weeks testing every feature, running scans, and seeing how it performed in real-world scenarios. I even tried to throw some simulated threats at it to see how it would react.

Throughout my testing, I took numerous screenshots to document every aspect of the software. You'll see many of these screenshots throughout this review, giving you a real, unfiltered look at what Intego for Windows is like to use.

I'm not here to simply praise Intego or to bash it unfairly. My goal is to give you an honest, detailed account of my experience so you can decide if it's the right antivirus for you. So, let's get into the specifics of Intego for Windows.

Buying Intego for Windows

When it comes to purchasing Intego for Windows, you'll find that the options are refreshingly simple. Unlike some antivirus companies that overwhelm you with a dozen different packages, Intego keeps it easy with just three versions: Personal (1PC/1 Year), Family (3PCs/1Year), and Extended (5PCs/1Year).

I decided to go for the Extended version, which offers the best value with an 18% discount. The process was pretty simple - I just clicked the "Buy Now" button and was taken to the checkout page. Here's where I noticed something interesting: the payment is handled by 2Checkout (now known as Verifone). You get options to pay by debit card, PayPal, or wire transfer.

Now, here's where things got a bit odd. While the payment went through immediately, I didn't receive a confirmation email until 12 minutes later. That's quite a delay in today's instant world, isn't it? I was a bit concerned, so I sent them an email asking for details. To their credit, they responded right away, providing me with the license key and invoice.

With the license key in hand, I downloaded the installer and was ready to go. One thing I appreciated was that Intego didn't force me to create an account to use the software. However, I did end up creating one anyway through the 2Checkout (Verifone) link, which allows me to manage my subscription.

Installation

Installing Intego for Windows was a breeze. The process was so simple that I almost felt like I missed something. There were no options to choose from - not even language selection (it defaulted to English). The whole installation took just one minute.

After installation, I entered my license key, and there it was! I was ready to use the paid version of Intego for Windows. It's worth noting that the simplicity of the installation process might be a double-edged sword. While it's great for less tech-savvy users, those who like to customize their installation might find it lacking.

Interface

The first thing that struck me about Intego for Windows was its user interface. It's clean, simple, and easy to navigate. The main dashboard gives you a quick overview of your protection status, and you can access different modules from the sidebar on the left.

Intego's main dashboard provides a clear overview of your protection status

The interface is divided into five main sections:

1. My Dashboard: This is where you can see your protection status and toggle on/off the real-time protection, web shield, and prevention engine. You can also run a unnecessary files cleanup from here.
2. Antivirus: Here you'll find various scan options, including quick scans, full scans, and custom scans. You can also access the quarantine file list from this tab.
3. Optimization: This section allows you to start a complete checkup of your device, searching for large or duplicate files.
4. Reports: Here you can find all security reports and information related to your PC.
5. Settings: This is where you can adjust general, security, optimization, and account settings.

One thing I noticed is that the UI isn't resizable, and there's no option to choose a different theme. However, the current theme is quite balanced, with a dark left sidebar and a light main area. I also discovered that you can choose between 8 languages from the general settings, which is a nice touch for international users.

You can change the language and disable notifications from the general settings.

Major Features

Let’s discover the main offerings of Intego for Windows . We’ll identify its distinguishing features and see how they align with your security goals.

Real-Time Protection

Real-time protection is the backbone of any good antivirus solution, and Intego for Windows doesn't disappoint in this department. This feature acts as a constant guardian, scanning all files that you download, open, or modify on your computer.

What I found interesting is that you can easily toggle this feature on or off from the My Dashboard tab. This flexibility can be useful if you're using a different antivirus for real-time protection (although I wouldn't recommend running two real-time protection systems simultaneously).

Another crucial component of Intego's real-time protection is the Prevention Engine. This advanced feature monitors suspicious behaviors on your system and blocks unknown and zero-day threats that use unconventional evasive techniques. I appreciate that Intego gives you the option to switch this on or off as well, allowing for more control over your system's security.

Web Protection

Intego's web protection feature, called Web Shield, is another essential line of defense. You can enable or disable it from the My Dashboard, and when active, it blocks malware downloads, suspicious websites, and web attacks while you browse the internet.

Intego's Web Shield offers protection against online threats

To put Web Shield to the test for this Intego for Windows review, I visited several known malicious websites:

• WICAR: Intego blocked the entire website.
• AMTSO: Intego blocked 13 out of 15 threats.
• EICAR: Intego blocked 2 out of 4 threats.

While these results are generally good, there's still room for improvement, especially with the EICAR test. It's worth noting that Intego doesn't provide any browser extensions for web protection, which some users might miss.

Scan

Intego for Windows offers several scanning options, all accessible from the Antivirus tab. You can choose between quick, complete, or custom scans to check for viruses, malware, spyware, and other potential threats.

Intego offers multiple scan options to suit your needs

Each scan goes through four stages: scanning memory, scanning popular files, scanning system files, and behavior analysis. During the scan, you can see the elapsed time, files scanned, and issues found.

Quick Scan

The quick scan is designed to check critical areas of your computer and is recommended for daily use. In my Intego for Windows review tests, it took about 3.5 minutes to finish, scanned 95,000 files, and detected 2 threats that were downloaded from my previous web protection test.

The quick scan goes through four stages: scanning memory, popular files, system files, and behavior analysis.

Malware is kept in the quarantine and you can decide if you want to delete or restore the files.

The quarantine shows infected files, threat name, detection date, and location.

Also, you can choose which type of files or specific folders, websites, and apps you want to be ignored by detection modules from the Security settings.

The security settings lets you configure the protection options and manage exclusions.

Full Scan

The full scan is more thorough, checking everything on your system. When I ran it, it took 11 minutes to complete, scanned 330,000 files, and didn't detect any new threats (the two threats detected by the quick scan were already in quarantine).

Scheduled Scan

One feature I particularly appreciate is the ability to schedule scans. You can set up automatic scans at your preferred times, choosing between quick or complete scans, and selecting the day of the week and hour.

Setting up scheduled scans is easy with Intego

Custom Scan

For more targeted checks, Intego allows you to perform custom scans. You can drag and drop or browse for specific folders or files you want to scan. This is particularly useful if you've downloaded files from a questionable source and want to check them before opening.

Ransomware Protection

Intego for Windows includes ransomware protection, which is crucial in today's threat landscape. To test this feature for this Intego for Windows review, I used a ransomware simulator. The results were encouraging - Intego successfully stopped 15 out of 22 ransomware simulation scenarios. This is on par with the industry average, which is a good sign for a relatively new player in the Windows antivirus market.

Optimization

Intego's optimization feature is a basic computer cleanup tool. While it doesn't offer as many options as some dedicated PC cleanup software, it can still be useful for maintaining your system's performance.

Intego's optimization features focus on finding large and duplicate files

The optimization tool includes three types of scans:

1. Complete Checkup: This scan looks for large unwanted files and duplicates to free up space.
2. Large File Scan: This helps you reclaim storage space by identifying large, unwanted files on your disk.
3. Duplicate File Scan: This thorough scan detects duplicated files that accumulate in your folders over time.

In my Intego for Windows review tests, the scan took about two minutes and found over 8 large files and more than 7,000 duplicates. The cleanup process was quick and easy - I just selected the files I wanted to remove and clicked "Clean all selected".

Intego found a significant number of large and duplicate files on my system

While these features are useful, they're quite basic compared to some competitors like Bitdefender or Kaspersky. If you're looking for more advanced system optimization tools, you might find Intego's offerings a bit limited.

Reports

The Reports section in Intego for Windows provides a thorough overview of your system's security status. Here, you can find all security reports and information about your PC, including scan reports, real-time reports, web shield reports, prevention engine reports, and cleaner reports.

Intego's Reports section provides detailed information about your system's security

When you select a scan type, you'll see details such as the scan type, date, files scanned, issues found, and issues fixed. This level of detail is great for users who like to keep a close eye on their system's security status.

System Performance Impact

One of the most important aspects of any antivirus software is its impact on system performance. After all, what good is a secure system if it's too slow to use? To test Intego's performance impact, I used my Dell XPS laptop with an Intel i7-1065G7 CPU @ 1.30GHz and 16 GB of RAM, running Windows 11.

During a full scan, I noticed that Intego consumed about 80% of my CPU power and 200MB of RAM. The CPU usage is significantly higher than the industry average of about 25%, which is a bit concerning. However, the RAM consumption is below the average of 300 MB, which is a positive point.

It's worth noting that outside of scans, Intego's impact on system performance was minimal. Day-to-day tasks like web browsing, document editing, and even light gaming didn't seem to be affected when Intego was running in the background.

Intego for Windows review: Conclusion

After spending considerable time with Intego for Windows, I've come away with mixed feelings. Here's a summary of my findings for this Intego for Windows review:

• Antivirus Protection: Intego provides decent malware detection, but it's not top-tier. The ransomware protection performed well in my tests, which is a significant plus.
• Web Protection: The Web Shield feature is effective, blocking most malicious websites in my tests. However, it could use some improvement, especially in detecting certain types of threats.
• User Interface: The interface is clean and easy to navigate, making it suitable for users who prefer simplicity over complexity.
• System Impact: While Intego doesn't significantly impact system performance during normal use, its high CPU usage during scans is a concern.
• Extra Features: The optimization tools, while useful, are basic compared to some competitors. The lack of features like a VPN or password manager might disappoint some users.

Overall, Intego for Windows is a solid choice for users who prioritize simplicity and ease of use. It covers the basics of antivirus protection without overwhelming you with complex settings or features you might never use.

However, if you're a power user looking for advanced customization options or a suite of extra security tools, you might find Intego lacking. Its high CPU usage during scans is also something to consider if you're using an older or less powerful system.

For antivirus security, TotalAV, Norton, and Bitdefender are top recommendations. Don’t miss our best antivirus software picks for 2024.

Octav Fedor (Cybersecurity Editor)

Octav is a cybersecurity researcher and writer at AntivirusGuide. When he’s not publishing his honest opinions about security software online, he likes to learn about programming, watch astronomy documentaries, and participate in general knowledge competitions.