Editors’ Note: While F-Secure continues to support existing users of F-Secure Anti-Virus, the company has halted new sales of the product. F-Secure Internet Security, a cross-platform security suite, is now the entry-level product in the F-Secure line.
Every antivirus absolutely must perform the basic functions of removing existing malware and preventing future infestations. Beyond that, some companies pack in so many extras the basic antivirus seems like a security suite. Firewall, spam filter, VPN—you name it, they've got it. F-Secure Anti-Virus, by contrast, focuses on the central task of defending your system against all sorts of malware, including ransomware. It doesn't even try to steer your browser away from phishing websites, though its web traffic scanning cuts off access to malware-hosting URLs. If you want antivirus protection without frills and extras, it can be a good choice.
How Much Does F-Secure Anti-Virus Cost?
A little under $40 per year seems to be the sweet spot for antivirus pricing. Editors' Choice products Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, ESET, and Webroot all go for that price, as do several others. You pay $39.99 for F-Secure, which looks to be in the same range, but that subscription lets you install it on three PCs, not just one. That's a good deal. You can get a one-license F-Secure subscription for $35.99, but why would you?
A McAfee AntiVirus Plus subscription looks more expensive, at $59.99 per year, but that price lets you install protection on all the Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices in your household. Other companies offer multi-device subscriptions with significant volume discounts. For example, the simple $60 fee for Sophos always gets you 10 licenses, and a 10-pack of Bitdefender license costs $79.99.
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Getting Started With F-Secure Anti-Virus
After a quick install, F-Secure automatically updates its antivirus definitions. Once that’s done, it’s ready to start protecting your PC.
Long-time F-Secure aficionados will notice a big change in the product’s appearance. For the last few years, it used a minimalist display, with a simple two-item menu at left and security status notification dominating the rest of the main window. A button to scan the system and a link to settings round out the old display, leaving plenty of whitespace.
In the current version, the left-rail menu disappears into a three-line menu icon at top left. Below that is a Viruses & Threats panel holding the all-important Scan button, and a list of recent events occupies the bottom right corner. The rest of the window holds stylized images of trees, and of people enjoying their mobile devices. It’s quite a change.
Just about every antivirus uses the convention that green means protection is copacetic while red indicates a problem. F-Secure takes that convention to the next level. If there’s a problem, the status indicator turns red, and a sinister hat-wearing bandit appears on a red background, riding a wicked horse. The stylized happy people I mentioned switch to stances of alarm, pointing at the bandit. The panel with the bandit image bumps upward every few seconds, to get your attention. You should turn off protection once, just to see the warning display. Make sure to turn it back on after, though.
F-Secure Does Speedy Scans
In addition to updating antivirus definitions at start, the app offers to run a quick scan. I declined that offer, preferring to run a full scan. In general, you should always run a full scan right after installing a new antivirus.
Clicking the Scan button on the main window also runs a quick scan. To get a full scan, you start by clicking in the Viruses & Threats panel anywhere except on the Scan button. This brings up a large window from which you can launch scans, check for updates, submit suspect files to F-Secure, and more.
When I did run the full scan, it finished in 31 minutes, less than half the current average time. F-Secure clearly uses the initial full scan to optimize its process—a repeat scan finished in just three minutes.
Many antivirus tools use a simple progress bar to let you know how the scan is going. Some even estimate how long it will take to finish. F-Secure shows its progress with an unusual circular sweep that escapes its round progress bar to paint the whole window. I noted that the progress report stuck for quite a long time at 11%, then rapidly sped to completion.
In theory, after that first full scan you should be able to sit back and rely on real-time protection to fend off future attacks. Even so, you may want to run a regular full scan, just in case. With F-Secure, you can schedule a scan to run every day, every week, or every four weeks.
Excellent Lab Test Results
In past years, all four independent antivirus labs that I follow have included F-Secure in their regular testing. At present, it only appears in reports from two labs, but its scores are excellent.
Researchers at AV-Test Institute rate products on protection against malware, low performance impact, and usability. That last category refers to minimizing false positives, legitimate apps or web pages flagged as dangerous. A product can receive up to six points for each category, with 18 points being the maximum possible score. F-Secure earned a perfect 18 points in the latest round of testing. So did another dozen programs, among them Avast, Bitdefender, and Kaspersky Free.
The researchers at MRG-Effitas report results a bit differently from the rest. In their banking Trojans test, anything other than near-perfect success represents failure. F-Secure managed the near-perfect performance needed to pass, as did ESET NOD32 Antivirus, Malwarebytes, and several others.
This lab's comprehensive test using all malware types can result in two types of success. Perfectly blocking every single sample earns Level 1 certification, while eliminating all traces of any malware within 24 hours gets Level 2 certification. Only Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security failed this test, with the rest divided evenly between Level 1 and Level 2. F-Secure fell into the Level 2 group, along with Avast One Essential, Avira, and Bitdefender.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure Online
The labs use wildly different scoring systems, so I've devised an algorithm that maps them all onto a 10-point scale to yield an aggregate lab score. F-Secure’s 9.9 point aggregate score beats all others except AVG and Bitdefender, both of which hold a perfect 10. It’s worth noting, though, that scores for AVG and Bitdefender are based on results from three labs, to F-Secure’s two. Of products tests by all four labs, Avira Antivirus Pro rates highest, with an aggregate score of 9.8 points.
Malware Protection and DeepGuard
F-Secure's layers of malware protection include signature-based detection of known treats, naturally. But an antivirus with no other means of detecting malware would be vulnerable to every brand-new threat, useless until analysts develop a signature for that threat. F-Secure's answer to zero-day, never-before-seen malware is the DeepGuard behavior-based detection system.
F-Secure's online database identifies known good files, and the real-time antivirus wipes out known bad files. DeepGuard kicks in for processes that don't fit either category—unknowns. Much like the similar component in Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus, it watches unknown processes and puts the kibosh on those that exhibit a pattern of malicious behavior.
For every antivirus review, I run a hands-on malware protection test using real-world samples that I collected and analyzed myself. Some antivirus products start wiping out threats they recognize as soon as the files show up in Windows Explorer. Others wait for a click or wait until the program is about to launch. F-Secure belongs to the former group, and it’s a real speed demon. Within just a few seconds it wiped out 90% of the samples, though it took a while longer to display the transient popup notifications of each successful detection.
After the initial culling, I launched each remaining sample and noted how F-Secure handled it. Protection layers including DeepGuard caught most of the samples, bringing F-Secure to 97% detection and 9.5 of 10 possible points. That matches the latest score from Total Defense Essential Anti-Virus, and it’s a substantial jump from the 9.0 score F-Secure earned in its last two reviews.
Even so, several products have scored higher against this same collection of samples. Norton AntiVirus Plus tops the list with 100% detection and 9.9 points, while G Data Antivirus and ZoneAlarm came close with 9.8. That leaves McAfee and Webroot jostling for a shared third place with 9.7 points.
F-Secure's standalone antivirus—reviewed here—doesn't include phishing protection, but its web traffic scanning feature prevents attacks from malware-hosting URLs. To test this feature, I start with a feed of malicious URLs recently discovered by malware experts at London-based MRG-Effitas, typically no more than a day or two old. I launch each and note whether the antivirus blocks access to the URL, wipes out the downloaded malware, or sits idly doing nothing. I aim for a set of 100 verified data points.
Many antivirus products fend off malware-hosting URLs by diverting the browser to a warning page, but F-Secure works at a lower level. When web traffic scanning blocks a page, you get a blank browser window with “403 Forbidden” as the title, along with a transient notification from the antivirus and a line in the event timeline. At least that’s how it’s meant to work. In my testing I didn’t get those notifications, and the blocking event didn’t show up in the timeline. My F-Secure contacts couldn’t duplicate the problem, but they pointed me at a log file that confirmed web traffic scanning was doing its job.
I did get transient notifications when the antivirus recognized and blocked a harmful file in the data stream. In addition, the regular real-time antivirus wiped out some files that made it into the Downloads folder. One way or another, F-Secure prevented 91% of harmful downloads.
F-Secure’s score is right in the middle of current products, meaning half of them did better. At the apex, McAfee, Norton, Sophos Home Premium, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm all scored a perfect 100%. Interestingly, ZoneAlarm PRO NextGen Antivirus + Firewall achieved that score by carefully analyzing every download, while Trend Micro blocked almost every item at the browser level.
Improved Ransomware Protection
With ransomware ever more prevalent, I expect any decent antivirus to include some form of ransomware protection. F-Secure offers its ransomware protection in conjunction with DeepGuard, stating that it monitors protected folders to block suspicious activity. You can turn off ransomware protection without turning off DeepGuard, but disabling DeepGuard disables them both.
In testing, F-Secure's real-time antivirus component instantly eliminated all my ransomware samples. However, the real-world worry is that a zero-day attack might slip past the antivirus. I don’t have the hacking skills to gin up zero-day ransomware attacks for every review, of course. To simulate zero-day ransomware, I simply turn off real-time malware detection when testing ransomware protection.
By default, F-Secure protects files in the Desktop, Documents, Favorites, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders for the current user. If your PC has multiple users, you should add those folders for the others as well, along with any additional folders you want to be under protection. Finding that list of folders to review or make changes can be a challenge. First, click the Viruses & Threats panel on the main window. Then click the link App and file control in the Viruses & Threats window. This brings up a window with four tabs: Quarantined, Blocked, Excluded, and Protected. That last tab is the one you want.
Trend Micro, Panda Dome Advanced, and a few others offer similar protection. They don't hinder known, valid programs from modifying protected files, but if an unknown program tries to make changes, they suspend it and issue a warning. To test this feature, I launched a simple-minded fake ransomware program that does nothing but apply reversible XOR encryption to every text file in the Documents folder. F-Secure didn't stop it. I also tried editing text files with a hand-coded editor. Once again, F-Secure didn't prevent my changes.
An F-Secure representative explained that ransomware protection is an extension of DeepGuard's behavioral analysis. Merely modifying a file in a protected folder isn't enough to trigger it. Other factors must be present that indicate actual ransomware at work.
Confronted with a dozen real-world ransomware samples, DeepGuard showed its mettle, though not perfectly. It completely missed two of the samples. They ran to completion, encrypted tons of files, and left ransom notes in several places. But for all the rest, including a dangerous full-disk encryptor, DeepGuard eliminated the threat before it could do any harm.
The free RanSim ransomware simulator from KnowBe4 challenges ransomware protection utilities by simulating 10 encryption scenarios used by actual ransomware along with two legitimate encryption activities. Optimum protection would block all the ransomware simulations and leave the legitimate activities alone. DeepGuard blocked all the simulations but also blocked the legitimate encrypting activities. That’s still quite a success.
Occasionally I encounter ransomware protection utilities that fail when ransomware launches at startup, before their protection is engaged. To test F-Secure's handling of ransomware at startup, I put a couple of the ransomware samples that F-Secure successfully detected into the Startup folder and rebooted. F-Secure silently fended off one, but the other visibly encrypted a file on the desktop before getting whacked by DeepGuard. To see what other damage might have occurred, I searched the whole disk for encrypted files. I found exactly three—two unimportant ancillary files and that one file on the desktop. DeepGuard apparently caught the malware after it encrypted that file but before it deleted the original. That’s a good showing, but I’d be happier if it eliminated the attack without even this small amount of collateral damage.
It's unfortunate that DeepGuard totally missed two of the ransomware samples. If F-Secure worked like Trend Micro or Panda, preventing all unauthorized changes to protected files, it would have saved a lot of grief. Do remember, though, that to see this feature in action I had to disable all the other layers of protection. You wouldn’t do that in the real world.
See How We Test Security Software
F-Secure Is Focused on Malware Protection
F-Secure Anti-Virus focuses all its abilities on its main task, rooting out any preexisting malware and preventing further infection, and it's effective at that task. It earns good, if not stellar, test scores, both from the independent labs and our own hands-on tests. The web traffic scanning component helps prevent malware downloads, in part by cutting any connection to malware-hosting URLs. With real-time antivirus disabled for testing, the DeepGuard behavior-based component blocked all but two of our ransomware samples.
The antivirus field is vast—we’ve covered almost fifty products. Out of that throng, we've identified three standout products as Editors' Choice for antivirus. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, is practically the opposite of F-Secure, with a huge collection of effective bonus features, and it gets great scores from three labs. McAfee AntiVirus Plus doesn’t score quite as high, but the fact that one subscription lets you protect a household full of devices is a big selling point. And the tiny, speedy Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus uses an unusual journal-and-rollback system that lets it undo damage done by malware, even ransomware. Each has its own strengths. Unless you specifically want a no-frills antivirus, you're better off choosing one of these.
DeepGuard behavior-based detection system and web-traffic scanning feature make F-Secure Anti-Virus a powerful malware fighter, but its ransomware protection stumbled in our testing.
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