Jonathan: IBM/Trusteer Rapport Endpoint Protection is a software ‘service’ offered and recommended by banks (including ours) to guard against others getting control of financial information you enter on web pages and web apps. So, a must-have, right?  Well maybe not!  We’ve had Rapport installed for about four years without problems. More recently, however, I’ve become increasingly concerned at the slowness of our computers and network. It’s got so bad that when I start up my computer I walk away and leave it or 10-15mins or more until it’s ready to recognize even a single key stroke or mouse movement. And even once up and going, everything runs … well that’s the point, it’s more of a crawl. The CPU fan always seems to be running and the computer itself gets hot – even when no apps are open and background services are reduced to a minimum. I’ve tried stopping or even uninstalling anything I really can’t see I need (though some Microsoft 10 apps are seemingly impossible to remove entirely) – but it’s made no difference. It’s a wet day today so I’m spending this morning on a more systematic examination of the problem, and doing online research. And that’s where we get to IBM/Trusteer Rapport Endpoint Protection. A week or so ago I noticed how much CPU, Memory, Disk and Network resources (ie pretty much everything) were used by Rapport. But as it’s a ‘must-have’, I just assumed it was both necessary and justified. A day or two ago, however, I started to find on the internet comments – mostly by IT professionals – highly critical of Rapport. They question whether Rapport delivers any advantages over and above informed awareness and systematic vigilance, or at least advantages sufficient to justify such high demands on system resources. So, I decided to see what difference it would make, removing Rapport, monitoring the results with Windows Resource Monitor.  First, using Rapport‘s own control panel I turned off the scanning – and immediately resources started to be freed up. Then I stopped the background service using Windows Task Manager. Within seconds CPU and Physical Memory usage were down to less than 10%, and the CPU fan switched off for the first time for weeks. Next to try Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice etc … … … Wow! That’s better! And start-up pretty much simultaneous, too.  So Rapport has now been uninstalled (using Windows > Control Panel > Apps & Features from all devices on our network.  And what a difference it’s made!

Trusteer. Rapport. Endpoint. Protection. All words to conjure up familiarity, confidence, trust, dependability.  And all courtesy of your own bank! So, it must be good, huh?  Hmmph! Rapport? With whom?