Feature Set:  

Lifeguard 3.0 covers just basics-backing up applications and data. You cannot verify the data to confirm the backup was error-free, encrypt backups, create a bootable system recovery disk or backup your registry. You cannot make a full system backup (a copy of your hard drive) or perform supplemental backups, such as a differential backup.

You can backup emails, address books and chat conversations; this last tool is unique to Lifeguard. And you can backup to a hard drive, DVD, CD, backup over a network, backup to an Internet account, to a removable disk or FTP.

We found a few Lifeguard 3.0 features intriguing. The opening screen keeps a running clock since the last backup, a useful visual reminder. Also, backup scheduling is extremely flexible, giving you the freedom to schedule a backup anytime—from now to a year from now.

Ease of Use:  

Installing Lifeguard 3.0 was a snap, but navigating was challenging. Lifeguard uses small screen icons that don't show descriptions until you move the mouse cursor over them.

Physically backing up data is simple once you've selected files—just pick a destination for the backup and press Go. But selecting files for backup and managing data after restoring were both challenging.

Backup/Restore:  

The Lifeguard 3.0 backup option instructions are misleading. When you begin, Lifeguard appears to select all backup categories by default: email, email address book, Internet bookmarks, and so on. We thought Lifeguard would backup all items on the hard drive in each category-but it doesn't work that way. The program backs up only what you specify it to backup-a good method, but with confusing instructions. To select specific items for backup, you must double-click them from the list inside the default category and then Lifeguard will save each to the backup list.

Lifeguard automatically selected hidden files and backed these up too—something we didn't anticipate.

When we restored files to the hard drive, Lifeguard simply placed files in a single folder. No original folders or paths were restored; this made sorting restored data inconvenient and time-consuming.

The restore function was also difficult. You can only restore a backup if Lifeguard is in advanced mode (not simple mode). A button at the lower right corner allows you to toggle between the two modes. (Advanced mode offers more features.)

Help/Documentation:  

The Lifeguard 3.0 help menu was hard to find. To open it you must click a small blue question mark in the bottom right corner of the screen. The Help menu contains complete step-by-step instructions for backups and restores.

However, we couldn't find software requirements anywhere and Lifeguard 3.0 doesn't offer a link to Tenebril's website.

Because of its limitations, we don't recommend Tenebril's Lifeguard 3.0. For the same price you can buy the top consumer backup software available, ,a href="genie-backup-manager-review.html">Genie Backup Manager.