Battle F-Secure vs EmsiSoft - help me decide?

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F-Secure
EmsiSoft

CypherZero

Level 1
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Feb 1, 2017
22
F-Secure or Emsisoft - which would you choose... and why? I need some help deciding.

If I'm not mistaken, I think Emsisoft uses Bitdefender's signauress and F-Secure uses Avira's? So that would be one difference.
Behavior Blockers I've read are good in both.
F-Secure has DeepGuard (cloud component) - not sure if Emsisoft has an equivalent.

My questions come down to these:

1) which will give me the best overall protection? especially against Zero-Day threats.
2) which is better for ransomware protection?
3) Script protection?

Ultimately ... which would YOU choose between the two and WHY?

Thanks!!

P.S. Comments like: I've used "this one" and really like it aren't so helpful. Each has their fan base I know. I'm really looking more fore WHY one over the other. :)
 

Digmor Crusher

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Jan 27, 2018
1,236
I used Emsisoft for about 4 years and just started using F Secure about 2 weeks ago, I'm not sure which has better protection, does anyone really know or is it just their opinion? All I can offer is that the gui for F Secure is clearly superior to that of Emsisoft's, less cluttered and far more user friendly. In fact the reason I stopped using Emsisoft is because of their dumb user console, it just makes things far more complicated then it has to be. Emsisoft used to have superb customer support thru their forum but lately it looks like their forum is going down hill a bit with fewer posters and less staff replies. I contacted F Secure about adding my bank to their banking protection, took about a week but they got around to it and sent me an email to verify. So take everything I say as supplemental advice to others that may provide more details on protection abilities.
 

Shadowra

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F-Secure!

F-Secure is very light, and offers excellent protection, especially their DeepGuard, and they use Avira + Avira Cloud (Which is for me one of the best Antivirus engine, but the best Cloud AI Machine Learning ).

Emsisoft, I find it rather heavy, the administration console rather useless and messy, it's not very clear...
In protection it is good, but a little less than F-Secure.
I had tested it privately, and I managed to bypass the DB with a RAT infection, by changing the file weight.
This was not the case with F-Secure which put an alert.
 

MacDefender

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Oct 13, 2019
779
I would vote F-Secure too! Emsisoft has a powerful behavior blocker too (that was actually their original claim to fame), but their focus in the past few years has been rather focused on how ransomware enters and spreads in organizations like weak RDP settings, etc, and I don’t feel like it’s been doing as well in keeping up as an AV product in its role. They’ve also stopped participating in almost all the lab tests, which they have their reasons for, but it leaves us unable to track its performance over time.

Emsisoft’s biggest strengths are the remote management console and an affordable server product for Windows Server. If that’s not important to you, I would choose F-Secure.
 

Nightwalker

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I have to agree with the above posts, F-Secure all the way, Emsisoft lost its touch along the years and the focus in management console doesnt leave a good impression for me.

F-Secure has a pretty decent behavior blocker combined with Avira engine plus some in-house engines and a privacy oriented cloud, it is pretty light on system too.

The only concern with F-Secure is the demerger that may impact the consumer products development in the future.


 
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BigWrench

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Apr 13, 2014
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Personally, I currently use them both. I really don’t care about the GUI’s…. Haven’t needed support for either one in a couple years, and had no issues. I couldn’t be happier with Emsisoft’s support. Went above and beyond for me. But seriously, to me, you can’t really go wrong with either one. The recent F Secure giveaways should tip the scale in their favor. ✌️

Yes, the Emsisoft management console is an absolute pain in the butt!!!
 
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show-Zi

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Jan 28, 2018
2,463
This year we switched from emisi to F-Secure.
I don't think there is an extreme difference in the superiority or inferiority of software. For the average home user, emisi's web console doesn't offer much benefit. I had a strong impression that it was rather difficult to use, so I hardly touched it.
The nice thing about Emisi is that the icon in the notification area changes when you scan and update. F-Secure is reticent.
If you are unsure about the benefits of the web console, we recommend F-Secure.

Voting may be a bad time for Emisi, as many members have been getting free licenses recently.
 

CypherZero

Level 1
Thread author
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Feb 1, 2017
22
UPDATE: I want to thank everyone who posted and/or contributed to the poll. After weighing all the info I've decided to go with F-Secure. Personally, I like EmsiSoft's interface better - BUT - I like that F-Secure's signatures are based on Avira (instead of BitDefender), along with their own in-house signatures. I also like F-Secure's DeepGuard.
 

show-Zi

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UPDATE: I want to thank everyone who posted and/or contributed to the poll. After weighing all the info I've decided to go with F-Secure. Personally, I like EmsiSoft's interface better - BUT - I like that F-Secure's signatures are based on Avira (instead of BitDefender), along with their own in-house signatures. I also like F-Secure's DeepGuard.
As for the UI, I really like Emisi.;)
 

Shadowra

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Sep 2, 2021
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UPDATE: I want to thank everyone who posted and/or contributed to the poll. After weighing all the info I've decided to go with F-Secure. Personally, I like EmsiSoft's interface better - BUT - I like that F-Secure's signatures are based on Avira (instead of BitDefender), along with their own in-house signatures. I also like F-Secure's DeepGuard.

Good choice 😉
 

upnorth

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Jul 27, 2015
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emsisoft allows for 1 device lic which would be far cheaper (depending on how many devices you need protected).
On F-Secures official Swedish site, 1 device for 1 year specific is available and yes it is a little bit more expensive. Around 5 euro more so " far cheaper " is for sure a pure personal reference and also depends on where one actually does the final purchase.

When it comes to the amount of licenses per device, Emsisoft is restricted for home users either for 1, 3 or 5 devices. Huge difference with F-Secure:

2022-03-06-07-06-34.jpg


Personal, I normally always use a legit local ( Sweden ) re-seller as I can choose more. One example. I can get a 3 device license option for F-Secure, that only would cost me around 0,2 Euro more compared with the 1 device license. Restrict oneself and risk create future unnecessary headaches merely for the sake of save a buck or two, no thanks!
 

Virtuoso

Level 2
Feb 21, 2022
90
On F-Secures official Swedish site, 1 device for 1 year specific is available and yes it is a little bit more expensive. Around 5 euro more so " far cheaper " is for sure a pure personal reference and also depends on where one actually does the final purchase.

When it comes to the amount of licenses per device, Emsisoft is restricted for home users either for 1, 3 or 5 devices. Huge difference with F-Secure:

2022-03-06-07-06-34.jpg


Personal, I normally always use a legit local ( Sweden ) re-seller as I can choose more. One example. I can get a 3 device license option for F-Secure, that only would cost me around 0,2 Euro more compared with the 1 device license. Restrict oneself and risk create future unnecessary headaches merely for the sake of save a buck or two, no thanks!

Now that F-secure is demerging into separate consumer and Business divisions I am hopeful of widespread availability. For Example eventhough F-Secure has an Indian Office they just concentrate on B2B business selling to Internet providers like Act Fibre and Airtel but they don't have an Indian website nor do they sell on Amazon.in nor do they have any Indian resellers.

The new demerged consumer business can spend more time and resources to ensure widespread availability just like Kaspersky, Bitdefender and ESET which offer local pricing via local websites and resellers.
 

upnorth

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Jul 27, 2015
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Now that F-secure is demerging into separate consumer and Business divisions I am hopeful of widespread availability. For Example eventhough F-Secure has an Indian Office they just concentrate on B2B business selling to Internet providers like Act Fibre and Airtel but they don't have an Indian website nor do they sell on Amazon.in nor do they have any Indian resellers.

The new demerged consumer business can spend more time and resources to ensure widespread availability just like Kaspersky, Bitdefender and ESET which offer local pricing via local websites and resellers.
Had no idea about that in India and thanks for the info. One would think F-Secure already by now had expanded more in that country as it for sure have a huge amount of potential customers/users even with their home products ( SAFE, TOTAL etc ). Will be interesting to see what happens also here in Europe after the demerge.
 

Virtuoso

Level 2
Feb 21, 2022
90
Had no idea about that in India and thanks for the info. One would think F-Secure already by now had expanded more in that country as it for sure have a huge amount of potential customers/users even with their home products ( SAFE, TOTAL etc ). Will be interesting to see what happens also here in Europe after the demerge.

Yes, there is no way for me to buy F-secure in India unless I pay European pricing on European websites. Thankfully I was able to get nearly 4 years of F-secure SAFE 5 devices subscription from the Giveaway section of this forum. It is an excellent software.

After the demerger, The F-secure consumer business will be able to better concentrate on acquiring consumers for their Home product like SAFE, TOTAL. It will take another 3 months for demeger to complete, so we can expect big moves in the next 6-12 months from the F-Secure consumer business unit.

You should check out the F-Secure Demerger presentation, they have give their plans and timelines here: https://www.f-secure.com/content/da...rts/2021/q4-2021-investor-presentation-vf.pdf
 

ChoiceVoice

Level 6
Verified
Oct 10, 2014
280
On F-Secures official Swedish site, 1 device for 1 year specific is available and yes it is a little bit more expensive. Around 5 euro more so " far cheaper " is for sure a pure personal reference and also depends on where one actually does the final purchase.

When it comes to the amount of licenses per device, Emsisoft is restricted for home users either for 1, 3 or 5 devices. Huge difference with F-Secure:

2022-03-06-07-06-34.jpg


Personal, I normally always use a legit local ( Sweden ) re-seller as I can choose more. One example. I can get a 3 device license option for F-Secure, that only would cost me around 0,2 Euro more compared with the 1 device license. Restrict oneself and risk create future unnecessary headaches merely for the sake of save a buck or two, no thanks!
fsecure.jpg
emsisoft.jpg
i didn't say it wasn't available. i said if you only need it for one device, emsisoft is far cheaper. fsecure is double the price for one device. double is more than "a bit more expensive".
 
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