App Review F-Secure Internet Security v25.2

It is advised to take all reviews with a grain of salt. In extreme cases some reviews use dramatization for entertainment purposes.
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F-Secure is a Finnish security solutions company.
After partnering with Avira to supply its virus base, this release marks a big change in protection.
Gone is DeepGuard, and F-Secure is now using Sentry, Avira's behavioral protection!
One thing's for sure: it's a risky move for the company to become a clone of the German publisher, but what about security?



Interface :

The interface is fairly straightforward, making it ideal for novices.
The one thing that may annoy experts is that TotalDefense contains... no configuration!
Everything is simplified.
Surprisingly, network traffic analysis via PowerShell is not enabled... as the editor leaves it disabled, I don't activate it.
The program is quite heavy on RAM...

Web protection: 9/9
All links are blocked by the F-Secure web filter.

Fake crack : 1/1
Blocked (Heur/APC)

Malware Pack : Remaining 28 files out of 247.
MI have the feeling that the F-Secure era is behind us...
After DeepGuard, which was excellent, F-Secure arrives with Sentry, Avira's module, and suffers from the same problem as the latter: Sentry lags far behind on unknown attacks.
Although the interceptor and network analyzer blocked several attacks, a BATCH malware succeeded in destroying parts of the system and encrypting test data.
I must admit I'm rather disappointed with the result - I wasn't expecting it!
I really hope that the company will back down or boost their protection to make it more intelligent.

Final scan :
F-Secure: 0
NPE : 29
KVRT : 0 (False positive)
Everythings : 2 files encrypted

Final opinion:

Unfortunately, F-Secure has lost ground in terms of protection due to its rapprochement with Avira, which has become a clone of the latter.
Although F-Secure used to improve with each new version, I must admit I'm very disappointed with this version.
Sentry is very average when it comes to direct attacks, the same weakness that Avira suffers from.
Apart from that, protection against malware remains fairly consistent, but not enough to recommend it completely.
I'm disappointed.

@bazang and @Szellem request
 
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Shadowra said:
F-Secure is a Finnish security solutions company.
After partnering with Avira to supply its virus base, this release marks a big change in protection.
Gone is DeepGuard, and F-Secure is now using Sentry, Avira's behavioral protection!
One thing's for sure: it's a risky move for the company to become a clone of the German publisher, but what about security?



Interface :

The interface is fairly straightforward, making it ideal for novices.
The one thing that may annoy experts is that TotalDefense contains... no configuration!
Everything is simplified.
Surprisingly, network traffic analysis via PowerShell is not enabled... as the editor leaves it disabled, I don't activate it.
The program is quite heavy on RAM...

Web protection: 9/9
All links are blocked by the F-Secure web filter.

Fake crack : 1/1
Blocked (Heur/APC)

Malware Pack : Remaining 28 files out of 247.
MI have the feeling that the F-Secure era is behind us...
After DeepGuard, which was excellent, F-Secure arrives with Sentry, Avira's module, and suffers from the same problem as the latter: Sentry lags far behind on unknown attacks.
Although the interceptor and network analyzer blocked several attacks, a BATCH malware succeeded in destroying parts of the system and encrypting test data.
I must admit I'm rather disappointed with the result - I wasn't expecting it!
I really hope that the company will back down or boost their protection to make it more intelligent.

Final scan :
F-Secure: 0
NPE : 29
KVRT : 0 (False positive)
Everythings : 2 files encrypted

Final opinion:

Unfortunately, F-Secure has lost ground in terms of protection due to its rapprochement with Avira, which has become a clone of the latter.
Although F-Secure used to improve with each new version, I must admit I'm very disappointed with this version.
Sentry is very average when it comes to direct attacks, the same weakness that Avira suffers from.
Apart from that, protection against malware remains fairly consistent, but not enough to recommend it completely.
I'm disappointed.

@bazang and @Szellem request
Click to expand...

Thank you for the test and your work. F-Secure that's it. They can close the blinds.
 
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Thank you @Shadowra for the test, it confirms and is just in time for me to allow my subscription to expire in ~30 days.

I thought I may subscribe for one device, but it's not even worth it. And I'm not willing to wait for them to hopefully get better.

Edit: I wonder what the ISP's who they provide their "rebranded" AV for, will be getting?
 
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Shadowra said:
After DeepGuard, which was excellent, F-Secure arrives with Sentry, Avira's module, and suffers from the same problem as the latter: Sentry lags far behind on unknown attacks.
Click to expand...
Avira has only a basic behavioral blocking capability.

Shadowra said:
Although the interceptor and network analyzer blocked several attacks, a BATCH malware succeeded in destroying parts of the system and encrypting test data.
I must admit I'm rather disappointed with the result - I wasn't expecting it!
Click to expand...
As expected. Even before Avira components, F-Secure was weak against malicious scripts.

@Shadowra thank you
 
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Fede90 said:
Awesome review. Do you have done something for the New McAfee? I can't find it in the other pages in this section.

Thank you
Click to expand...

It appears in the episode 2 comparison I made but I'll see about making a dedicated video later when I have a moment :)
 
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Fede90 said:
Awesome review. Do you have done something for the New McAfee? I can't find it in the other pages in this section.

Thank you
Click to expand...
And just in case this helps until a new review is posted, is the episode 2 comparison video link.
malwaretips.com

App Review - Shadowra's Big Comparative : Episode 2 - Paid Antivirus

In this video, we compare 8 paid antivirus programs. The aim is to see how effective they are, and rank them from worst to best. Please note: - the antiviruses are already ranked in the video, I've taken into account Web blocking, the reaction to an attack, my malware pack and how the...
malwaretips.com malwaretips.com
 
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Shadowra said:
It appears in the episode 2 comparison I made but I'll see about making a dedicated video later when I have a moment :)
Click to expand...
great I'm sorta on the fence about installing McAfee on VM vacated by Norton, I can't decide between McAfee and a couple others... (your comparisons series very helpful...) :D
 
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Moonhorse said:
Shame theyre clone of avira now, feels like they stepped back 15 years in development to times where f-secure was disaster:rolleyes:

Soon gen digital buys f-secure for sure :oops:
Click to expand...
Every Finnish person I have known had common sense. The decision-makers at F-Secure and WithSecure obviously do not. Their top priority is profit, and not security. Once F-Secure was split into two companies and both became publicly traded, everything has been to reduce expenses at the cost of quality.

Ah, well. This is true of every software publisher even when they deny it and say "I am not motivated by money. I do it to make users secure." When they say that, then they're just being flagrantly dishonest.
 
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So freaking sad another engine gone. Yes let's make everything Gen Digital so now even script kiddies can just optimize their packer against a single engine unless you are in China, India or Russia.

China has a crappy home grown AV engine

Russia has an amazing AV too bad it's KGBd (what they did to the western users by replacing engine without even a peep from the OS gives me enough data to know who they really are and what they are capable of)

India has another crappy AV engine.

So what we have left is Eset, McAfee, Bitdefender Microsoft, and checkpoint/ZA for the consumer market.

Edit: added bitdefender
 
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