Trend Micro's Housecall 7.0 opens in beta

Trend Micro today opened the public beta of Housecall 7.0, the latest iteration of the security company's Web-based malware scanner.

The Housecall 7.0 beta offers a different UI from the current stable version (6.6), and does no longer requires a Java or ActiveX plugin, but instead uses a standalone client that taps into the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, the company's cloud-based reputability and threat database which the company debuted one year ago.

It also includes the "Smart Feedback" feature, which compares the data of users with one another against the current threat definitions, thereby "crowdsourcing" the discovery of new threats. In this way, Housecall 7.0 is similar to Panda Security's Cloud Antivirus which entered beta last month.