Hi.
I've been thinking about using and buying F-secure for a long time because of its simplicity and privacy, but I don't know if they offer good protection in my country (Brazil). I'm tired of the sameness: Eset, Kaspersky and Bitdefender, Norton (I have a license for all of them) but I see and follow the posts here on
@upnorth a lot and I see that he has been using F-secure for a long time. What do you tell me about F-secure? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Now that Norton has purchased Avira, is it still worth investing in F-secure (since f-secure uses avira engine)?
I would like your opinion, sorry if this topic may seem redundant here on the forum.
Thanks.
Good questions IMO and I will try answer them all. Thought first it was a stock investor question when I saw the topic title as yes, F-Secure is on Nasdaq.
From a pure security nerds/geeks perspective and someone who likes to follow most news around the world, Brazil is a country that seems to been hit extra hard and been/is a testing ground for banking malwares the last years. The IT infrastructure in the bank sector is probably more then likely the reason. Some reports this year been pointing to evolved samples from attacks in Brazil, now started seen in attacks also in Europe. Other then that I can't recall much else on specific threats/issues in Brazil. Banking malwares, not just those in Brazil, holds some of the most advanced and nasty samples developed/created I personal seen, but protection wise in general with F-Secure and Brazil, I'm not sure if there is anything special that F-Secure can't handle just as it does in all other countries. Maybe something with lack of re-sellers or can't support in that language.

F-Secure actually have an official office in Brazil.
www.f-secure.com
Strength and weaknesses? Several, but gladly the strength outweighs the weakness. Otherwise the company would never gain the position they are in today. The future also looks bright as the company keeps growing. Just as with most major vendors, they do care and fix problems, even for products that is used by normal users. It's a constant work in progress as problems comes and goes and yes, F-Secure had their fair share of negative time in the security news space after some serious vulnerabilities. No pain, no gain! Again, the positive outweighs the negative, but most insights like that comes from following/tag along with a product/company over time as almost all here on MT knows, one single test is never a fair/correct assessment for a whole company and all their products, made and upcoming. Personal I like real genuine reports, even the negative and extra so when they can be helpful, no matter what vendor or company. Caring and curios developers, is also something that lucky for us all exist and F-Secure has one pretty famous. I shared several of his talks and promise I will also next year, unless someone else hopefully does it before.
The Avira acquisition is interesting on several levels, but I strongly doubt it will have any major impact on F-Secure and extra so it's protection itself. Especially not now as the deal itself will not fully come into place until end of next year 2021.
the acquisition is expected to close in the Fiscal 2021 fourth quarter and is not expected to be material to Fiscal 2021 Q4 results.
investor.nortonlifelock.com
Still worth investing in F-Secure? In the end only you as a possible customer/user can fully and honest answer that. MT does has from time to time discounts/deals that I strongly can recommend if interested and for example member
@SerialCart has some of the most valuable offers I seen, even for F-Secure. But if unsure, it's always better to test before making an actual purchase.