F-Secure AntiVirus

The Finnish security vendor, F-Secure has released an Antivirus that focuses solely on protecting you from a variety of malware types and some ransomware. To be clear, this is not a security suite like McAfee. F-Secure provides a simple program that focuses on the key job of safeguarding your system against a wide range of malware, and in some cases, ransomware. If you are looking for an antivirus security program that is easy to use without a lot of additions, F-Secure may be the best option for you. The cost of $39.99 per year is fairly standard when compared to other antiviral programs. However, F-Secure grants you the ability to install the application on three different computers, unlike antiviral software from Norton or Bitdefender, which only give you one license. So financially, you are getting much more for the cost. However, F-Secure AntiVirus is only for Windows, so if you have macOS, Android, or iOS devices, you will need to look elsewhere.

The clean-lines pf F-Secure's main page is simple in its design. After scanning, if the program fails to detect a virus or issue, it will reveal a green icon and the phrase, "Your computer is protected."  If a problem has been detected in the system, F-Secure will provide a summary of the issue, and the green icon will switch to red. The left-side menu of F-Secure AntiVirus provides access to two items that allow the user to toggle between the main antivirus page and a secondary list of tools, which include checking for updates, looking at recent incidences, submitting a sample to F-Secure, and a few minor things that can be adjusted based on preferences. Clicking the "Virus Scan" blue button on the main page enables F-Secure to run a full scan of your computer. In tests, this took around an hour, depending on how much it had to scan and whichever version of Windows you will be working with. On the secondary "Tools" page, you are able to run a full Virus scan or a full computer scan. The first checks only areas of your system that have applications that required installation. As this requires less work for the program, the virus-only scan typically runs a lot faster. After you install F-Secure AntiVirus, you will want to run a full computer scan to make sure everything looks good. After that, the system will scan on a scheduled basis (that you can set up for whatever days and times you desire) and will alert you of any issues that it may find. 

The big selling point of F-Secure AntiVirus is its advanced layers of malware protection. Typically, an antivirus program is only set up to detect things that existed when the program was installed/created. F-Secure has found a way around this that allows the application to detect brand new threats, which they call DeepGuard behavior-based detection system. It works by connecting to F-Secure's online database that contains "good" files and "bad" files, which allows the program to remove the harmful files from the user's computer. It also detects unknown elements and can learn the standard practices and patterns that may occur with malicious behavior. In tests, DeepGuard worked to protect the system from malware more than 90% of the time.

The negative aspects of F-Secure are few, but they are important. As the basic antiviral protection doesn't protect against phishing, the company does offer more advanced protection. However, it only blocked 80% of the issues sent through it during a testing lab. The other big problem is ransomware. The basic test of general ransomware went smoothly and blocked 100% of danger. However, as F-Secure uses the DeepGuard for both malware and ransomware protection, you would expect "new," or up to the minute, ransomware would be caught just like the malware. However, in testing, the ransomware protection failed to stop almost all incidents of "unknown" threats. 

Provides advanced network detection and is a strong malware opponent

• Behavior-based DeepGuard detects malware
• Advanced network protection
• Clear and simple interface
• Fast scans
• Low-cost