Tesco started this off. Early in 2007 it unleashed a range of software - rebadged Ability products - adorned with its logo and quite low price tags. Woolworths clearly thought that it'd have a bit of that, and thus the Woolworths Software collection was born on much the same principle. So we're taking a look at two of its maiden selection here, which appear to have come from the same supplier as Tesco's.

And top of the bill is a quite brilliant piece of educational software by the name of Braintastic: Maths And Word Skills Ages 4-7. The Braintastic range has actually won a fair amount of acclaim prior to this rebadged re-release, but it's quite a coup for Woolworths to get hold of the software.

Let's break with tradition and cover the downsides first. Occasionally the screen fills a little too much with options, and thus it's not as intuitive as you'd like to pinpoint the next option. And when sub-menus appear on top of other menus, it won't immediately always be obvious which is which, and that can leave you futilely clicking on buttons that aren't going to respond.

Those aside, Braintastic is excellent, comprehensive and well thought through. Bringing together a collection of games and activities, and monitoring the progress of its users (with parental controls allowing you to balance the amount of play and work), it's got a terrific range and quality of things to do. We particularly liked the fact that it encourages users to earn access to the various games. In short, it's £14.99 well spent.

Also keeping the minds of the young busy and pure is Woolworths Internet Security and Childguard. It's not the only Internet security product on the Woolworths books, but it's the only one with the happy picture of a cheesy child on the front.

Its roster of promises includes 12 months of Web protection, spyware and virus protection, a spam blocker and protection for your data, and on the whole it does an okay job. It demanded we uninstall an existing security tool from our PC - AVG Free in this instance - and when installed it offers daily updates in addition to its gamut of tools.

To be fair, it's a perfectly competent collection of tools, although we weren't too hard pushed to come up with equivalent tools that we prefer. Working on the assumption that some protection is better than none, Woolworths has offered enough to warrant the £25 asking price. F-Secure is a far better bet for our money, though.

On this evidence, Woolworths' plan is virtually identical to Tesco's, with some good applications available for not much cash. We do have a concern over allowing the tools we tested here too much responsibility for the protection of our system, but did find Braintastic to be an absolute delight. The moral? Don't write Woolies off. Even if its pick and mix has gone a bit to pot recently...