App Review Qihoo 360 Free Total Security 2025

[Shadowra]

Content source

https://odysee.com/@Shadowra:f/Qihoo-360-Free-Total-Security-2025:9

Qihoo 360 is a Chinese software company, well known in the West for its security solutions and its browser: 360 Browser.

The software provides free protection, formerly in partnership with Avira & Bitdefender but now on its own engines and with KuPeng.
The program aims to be comprehensive, but is also packed with totally useless blotware (such as temporary file deletion, suggestions to install Opera or additional software, etc.) and paid-for functions (such as a firewall).
In short, let's see what it has to offer in terms of security.



Interface :

The interface is simple, but full of bloatware and functions that I find useless.
Some functions are not available in the free version, such as the firewall.
I activate the PUP search and install the Web protection extension.
In terms of power consumption, it's light, a little less on the CPU from time to time, but still OK.

Web protection: 5/9
4 malwares pass by without any reaction from the antivirus and infect the machine fairly quickly.
RegSvc.exe is injected by a RAT without any reaction from Qihoo
1 URL is dead.

Fake crack : 1/1
Blocked

Malware Pack : Remaining 29 threats out of 123
Disastrous result.
Even if the Qihoo Cloud manages to catch up with some malware, others install themselves without reacting and contribute to the violent infection of the machine.
The paid-for firewall only reacted once to block a connection (and that was to IP 127.0.0.1), so it didn't help.
Qihoo also has proactive protection, but it's a long way behind, as it didn't react much to the attacks.
In the end, the machine was well infected, with several Trojans, RATs and Infostealer active and visible....

Final scan :
Qihoo : 1
NPE : 7
KVRT : 6 (Infection Memory !! )
EEK : 5

Final opinion:

Unfortunately, Qihoo continues to lose ground in terms of protection and efficiency.
While in the last test it certainly failed, but I still had a glimmer of hope, it failed miserably by doing worse today.
Its Web protection, although activated, never reacted.
The editor clearly seems to be resting on its old strengths, not evolving or making any changes or improvements, which is a shame.
Not recommended.

 

[Parkinsond]

As if the morgue needs more dead bodies!

 

[Captain Awesome]

As always good work by @Shadowra

 

[Marko :)]

Jesus... this crap still exists!

 

[Trident]

When they dropped the third-party SDKs (initially using both BD and Avira) they went severely downhill.

Behavioural blocking in this software is almost non existent. Majority of the protection is just based on hashes.

Updates don’t improve anything protection-wise, they just add more and more bloatware, and features with questionable effectiveness.

The cherry on top was the launch of the paid version when I don’t see who will use this software even for free.

 

[Parkinsond]

The cherry on top was the launch of the paid version when I don’t see who will use this software even for free

As if it is a valuable product and many users are ready to pay for using it; marketing tricks.

 

[stonjean633]

And they expect £30.00 for 1 year/3 devices. For a firewall and several more bloatware features. Their firewall was previously GlassWire (which can also be downloaded for free).

The paid version adds this:
Driver Updater
Privacy Antitacker
Professional desktop management
Important Data Protection
Avoid advertising interruptions
Professional technical support

I rather trust other reputable AV on that amount for yearly subscription.
Heck even K7 Ultimate (5 devices lifetime) is more deserving than paying Qihoo Annually.

 

[Parkinsond]

And they expect £30.00 for 1 year/3 devices. For a firewall and several more bloatware features. Their firewall was previously GlassWire (which can also be downloaded for free).

The paid version adds this:
Driver Updater
Privacy Antitacker
Professional desktop management
Important Data Protection
Avoid advertising interruptions
Professional technical support

They target those who have no knowledge of security solutions market; when they find the product pricey, they may think it is a good one and must be a value for money.
That is why participating in specialized forums such as MT is useful.

 

[Zero Knowledge]

Great test again! Keep up the great work!

On a side note, the major problem is what drives people in buying a product? The price and quality mostly then last is brand loyalty. Most people look for a the cheapest price in their budget and go with that product. Others look for the best quality no matter the price. There is no right or wrong way but if you land some where in the middle you should be fine.

 

[Antimalware18]

Anyone remember when this was popular? came out the gate swinging before ultimately realatively if not completely dissapearing, just like Baidu, just like whatever that AI one
from china that i cant remember the name of....

oh well, as always, great job @Shadowra

 

[Trident]

Anyone remember when this was popular? came out the gate swinging before ultimately realatively if not completely dissapearing, just like Baidu, just like whatever that AI one
from china that i cant remember the name of....

oh well, as always, great job @Shadowra

WiseVector was the AI one. And this AI was mostly hashes in the cloud, just like Kingsoft, just like Baidu, Tencent and Qihoo. There was no AI.

 

[roger_m]

Thanks for the test. I wasn't expecting it to do well.

Behavioural blocking in this software is almost non existent.

While it's not good at stopping unknown malware, you often get frequent alerts when installing or updating non malicious apps.

 

[Moonhorse]

Bad results indeed, i guess even huorong is doing better these days.

 

[roger_m]

Bad results indeed, i guess even huorong is doing better these days.

Huorong has absolutely terrible detection rates, unless you enabled advanced heuristics, which leads to an excessive amount of false positives. Without advanced heuristics enabled, most likely 360 would do better.

 

[Moonhorse]

Huorong has absolutely terrible detection rates, unless you enabled advanced heuristics, which leads to an excessive amount of false positives. Without advanced heuristics enabled, most likely 360 would do better.

True but the size of company makes difference here, compared to product how it does. Thats what i really meant

 

[Victor M]

I suspect that these Chinese products do better with regional threats, Chinese malware, etc, that do not propagate outside of asia. They have their own world over there. Totally unproven hypothesis.

 

[Parkinsond]

I suspect that these Chinese products do better with regional threats, Chinese malware, etc, that do not propagate outside of asia. They have their own world over there. Totally unproven hypothesis.

I think the major fraction of global malware is Russian and Chinese stuff; they are definitely beyond local

 

[Victor M]

Major fraction of western malware yes , IF the hacker chose to distribute it globally. But they have their own language, their own games, their own popular apps. Their own cracks. And it is quite a large population. So a hacker would be satisfied with his malware distribution even if it is confined to asia.

EDIT: Chinese is taught as the second language in high schools in asia, in addition to English. It has to do with trade ties.

 

[Parkinsond]

Major fraction of western malware yes , IF the hacker chose to distribute it globally. But they have their own language, their own games, their own popular apps. Their own cracks. And it is quite a large population. So a hacker would be satisfied with his malware distribution even if it is confined to asia.

EDIT: Chinese is taught as the second language in high schools in asia, in addition to English. It has to do with trade ties.

Once long time ago, I tried to launch Netlimiter activation tool, a cmd window poped up preceded by a notification window with Chinese letters; K free did not detect the threat either during prelaunch scan or after launch; those fellows do know what they are making

 

[Victor M]

They may write good malware, but my point is that some of them are limited to asia, and products like Qihoo may be focusing on detecting local threats. After all that's their major target market. Gaining international reputation would be a secondary bonus.

We have a Disneyland over in China too. No need to for them venture abroad.