App Review F-Secure vs Emsisoft vs Kaspersky Comparative Reviews

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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Shadowra

Shadowra

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Hello and welcome to this comparison!
Today we will compare F-Secure, Emsisoft and Kaspersky.
These antiviruses have a different approach.
F-Secure offers a minimalist, ready-to-use interface. On the other hand, Emsisoft is more geek oriented with a very complete security customization and Kaspersky plays in both camps.
But... will it be enough to keep a PC protected?



Results:

F-Secure SAFE:
The product is very light and defends itself very well. It let through 1 malicious URL, the malware installed itself but showed no sign of malicious actions.
On the pack, F-Secure misses 24, but does not falter as it blocks all attacks for me! DeepGuard and its Cloud do the job and block my execution attempts, it's even the antivirus that fought the most!
The disinfection tools show an infection in ProgramData but not active, this is a good point.

Emsisoft: Emsisoft is a very complete antivirus and above all it can be customized as you wish.
On URLs, it does the same as F-Secure by letting malware through. But it is smart and cuts off the connection!
On the pack, Emsisoft can trust its famous anti-malware network on the Cloud because it blocks all the malwares!
The disinfection tools just show the malware from the URLs but not active, like F-Secure, this is a good point too.

Kaspersky : In this version, I test the Small Office version, which does not really change compared to a Standard or Plus version.
On the URLs, Kaspersky does a perfect job.
On the pack, Kaspersky catches infections with its System Watcher and offers me an advanced disinfection on the installation of RevengeRat, which he successfully completed.
The machine is clean.

Winner: Even though Emsisoft and F-Secure let an infection through, it was not active so it is not a failure. The system could be cleaned very easily especially since there are no keys at startup.
It's a draw between these 3 antivirus programs.
 

Stopspying

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I agree with both of the previous comments, thanks for the work put into the testing and great video. I'm also a big fan of both Emsisoft AM and F-Secure SAFE, I have used AVs from both companies for years. My current SAFE license expires in March and I have a nice shiny new Emsisoft license to replace it with (thanks to MT and Emsisoft), so, when you tested both of them that made this video a 'must see' for me. I've used Kaspersky products much more intermittently, but not for a few years now.

When your SAFE scan showed red segments it was quite re-assuring, as I don't see them, I'm not a malware/AV tester, so to see that SAFE dealt with the malware etc gives me confidence that it does what it claims to do.
 

SeriousHoax

Level 47
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Mar 16, 2019
3,630
Nice one (y)
Looks like F-Secure is still blacklisting malware found on abuse ch :unsure:
But I won't be so sure about system remaining infection free on this test. Specially on F-Secure's test, it looks infected with malware made persistent persistence via scheduled task which went unnoticed by F-Secure. If it's something like a data stealer, then data was already taken or will be taken at a later time.
On Emsisoft's test, the malware in the download folder is a password stealer, as indicated by Kaspersky's signature name. Maybe Emsi stopped the malware and it's just a remnant. If that's the case then the system is safe.
Kaspersky achieved a proper clean sheet, it seems.
 

Dave Russo

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May 26, 2014
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Hi Shadowra,I have a request, are you able or willing to do a video just on Firewalls? I have long wondered and really hard for me to find any resent test showing difference strengths Thank you and if this just too much, anyone have a link on this subject?
 

Shadowra

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Sep 2, 2021
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Hi Shadowra,I have a request, are you able or willing to do a video just on Firewalls? I have long wondered and really hard for me to find any resent test showing difference strengths Thank you and if this just too much, anyone have a link on this subject?

Yes I can, but I'll have to be patient because I have less time at the moment :/
 
F

ForgottenSeer 69673

Hi Shadowra,I have a request, are you able or willing to do a video just on Firewalls? I have long wondered and really hard for me to find any resent test showing difference strengths Thank you and if this just too much, anyone have a link on this subject?
The one I tried was the one my internet provider gives out free and I guess if they never update the setup file it will not work for me. I will check that out
 

anirbandutta01

Level 7
Well-known
Jun 18, 2022
303
Hello and welcome to this comparison!
Today we will compare F-Secure, Emsisoft and Kaspersky.
These antiviruses have a different approach.
F-Secure offers a minimalist, ready-to-use interface. On the other hand, Emsisoft is more geek oriented with a very complete security customization and Kaspersky plays in both camps.
But... will it be enough to keep a PC protected?



Results:

F-Secure SAFE:
The product is very light and defends itself very well. It let through 1 malicious URL, the malware installed itself but showed no sign of malicious actions.
On the pack, F-Secure misses 24, but does not falter as it blocks all attacks for me! DeepGuard and its Cloud do the job and block my execution attempts, it's even the antivirus that fought the most!
The disinfection tools show an infection in ProgramData but not active, this is a good point.

Emsisoft: Emsisoft is a very complete antivirus and above all it can be customized as you wish.
On URLs, it does the same as F-Secure by letting malware through. But it is smart and cuts off the connection!
On the pack, Emsisoft can trust its famous anti-malware network on the Cloud because it blocks all the malwares!
The disinfection tools just show the malware from the URLs but not active, like F-Secure, this is a good point too.

Kaspersky : In this version, I test the Small Office version, which does not really change compared to a Standard or Plus version.
On the URLs, Kaspersky does a perfect job.
On the pack, Kaspersky catches infections with its System Watcher and offers me an advanced disinfection on the installation of RevengeRat, which he successfully completed.
The machine is clean.

Winner: Even though Emsisoft and F-Secure let an infection through, it was not active so it is not a failure. The system could be cleaned very easily especially since there are no keys at startup.
It's a draw between these 3 antivirus programs.

Thank you so much @Shadowra ❤️❤️ . I've installed Kaspersky from their official website but in process manager it's showing Kaspersky process as 32 bit instead of 64 bit. (Using 64 bit system)
 

Stopspying

Level 19
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Jan 21, 2018
814
They ended that some time ago - On my PC F-secure wanted SD & Hitman uninstalled a while ago but no longer - I installed F-Secure with SD/Hitman with no issues last week :)
This was my experience too when I installed F-Secure SAFE last month, it didn't request that I uninstall Shadow Defender or anything else. Which was a pleasant surprise.
 

harlan4096

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Apr 28, 2015
8,634
There is no problem, the GUI is in 32 bits, no need to be 64 bits:

1674059062608.png
 

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