Qihoo 360 Total Security - The Pro's and Con's

[jackuars]

With respect to the Best Free Antivirus 2015 competition, I'm starting a thread series where users of the various products will be joining together to state the Pro's and Con's of each antivirus/internet security software and why they think it is a contender or not for the Best Free Antivirus.

The first post will be updated by me with what user's think is good and bad about the product, so an informed decision can be made for newcomers.

Related Threads:
Avast Free Antivirus - The Pro's and Con's
Avira Free Antivirus - Pro's and Con's
Comodo Internet Security Premium - The Pro's and Con's
Panda Free Antivirus - The Pro's and Con's
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THE PRO'S
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• Very light
• Smooth running, ad-free installer
• Fast updates and great customer service
• Fast scan times
• Nice UI
• Good signatures
• Multi-engine + Cloud protection
• Great detection and zero day protection
• Web protection and browser locking
• Sandbox smoothness
• Webcam and USB protection
• Excellent customer support (Fast and Polite)

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THE CON'S
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• Questionable privacy policy
• Unnecessary optimization tools (not in Essentials)
• False positives at times

 

[nikos200]

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THE PRO'S
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very very good protection online!

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THE CON'S
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not so good protection offline

 

[LabZero]

PRO'S

-free
-multi engine + cloud (high detection rate)
-web protection
-sandbox
-light on system
-nice UI

CON'S

-questionable privacy policy
-unnecessary optimization tools: an antivirus should be just an antivirus
-sometimes false positives

 

[Ink]

not so good protection offline

A common trait with Cloud-based Security solutions, so not recommended for PCs running in an offline state for long periods of time.

 

[Anupam]

A common trait with Cloud-based Security solutions, so not recommended for PCs running in an offline state for long periods of time.

But with Qihoo there is choice too. Just install Bitdefender or Avira engine and offline protection is also taken care.

PROS
1. The Installer : Never seen any Antivirus having that much smooth Instller or uninstaller. Installed uinstalled it so many times but never ever had a single glitch and it's done within seconds.
2. Great Detection: well it's having a very very good detection.
3. Great Zero Day Protection : Atleast for me.
4. No slowness : I never felt any slowness with 360 Installed.
5. Sandbox Smoothness: I have tried many sandbox softwares but with 360 it's does not slow the actual process.
6. USB Protection: I really liked the way 360 protects from USB threat
7. FREE: The biggest advantage.
8. Great WEB Protection and Browser Locking.
9. WebCam Protection

CONS
1. Offsource Privacy
2. False Positives

Who needs offline protection can install offline engines. I don't see it as a Cons. Also whoever does not needs the extra stuffs like cleanups can use essential version. One good thing with Qihoo is they actually listen what user wants

 

[jackuars]

CON'S

-unnecessary optimization tools: an antivirus should be just an antivirus

Good thing that it offers 2 installers and I beg to differ here. Most other paid antiviruses (and free: read Avast) offers these features with bloated installation size, but this is not the case with Qihoo as it's installer size is minimum and these options can be overlooked and never used.

 

[LabZero]

Good thing that it offers 2 installers and I beg to differ here. Most other paid antiviruses (and free: read Avast) offers these features with bloated installation size, but this is not the case with Qihoo as it's installer size is minimum and these options can be overlooked and never used.

My comment refers exclusively to 360 TS (from your thread), knowing that there is 360 TS Essential that it does not have these tools.
Of course these tools may be ignored by the user which can decide which version to install and I have to agree with this.

Conceptually, in my opinion, the implementation of tools (useful or not) that are not an integral part of an antivirus, should be avoided and this is related also to other products that you have mentioned.

 

[RmG152]

CON'S
Avira and BD engine have a bad implementation.

 

[jackuars]

CON'S
Avira and BD engine have a bad implementation.

??

 

[Crystal_Lake_Camper]

Their shady privacy policies and high degree of false positives are the cons for me alongside That full system scan takes a sweet time and updating the virus sigs the first time. It did ran smooth , the times i used it and the gui is very appealing ( atleast to me it is )

 

[RmG152]

??

For example, if you disable cloud and test BD engine alone, the results are inferior than emsisoft (b) engine (bitdefender).

The engine they integrate on 360 is a bit useless

 

[Pat MacKnife]

PRO'S

-High Detection rate
-Multi engine & cloud
-Phishing protection
-sandbox
-Easy UI
-light on system

CON'S

-Questionable privacy policy ( i don't feel safe because of this )
-False positives

 

[Van2r]

hi guys i really wanted to ask how and why is that privacy policy is too much important?
mostly i think its depend on the usages,
for me, i use my PC for gaming and some times surfing on web and i don't feel right about any other software that respect privacy too much!(nor which they don't!)(as they say) its questionable anyway anything have access to your files exceptionally like anti viruses or browsers or a software with a searching engine or monitoring app on its behaviour usually have access to your privacy too it can read your moves and your mind on things isn't it?
so whats the matter or the difference between purpose they use it and what is the reason that they didn't or not willing for using it?
another thing i think i'm happy with that if anybody know what music i listen or which games i do play or which searches i have done if they are valuable for any company or its like they do the job for me haha...

 

[jackuars]

hi guys i really wanted to ask how and why is that privacy policy is too much important?
mostly i think its depend on the usages,
for me, i use my PC for gaming and some times surfing on web and i don't feel right about any other software that respect privacy too much!(nor which they don't!)(as they say) its questionable anyway anything have access to your files exceptionally like anti viruses or browsers or a software with a searching engine or monitoring app on its behaviour usually have access to your privacy too it can read your moves and your mind on things isn't it?
so whats the matter or the difference between purpose they use it and what is the reason that they didn't or not willing for using it?
another thing i think i'm happy with that if anybody know what music i listen or which games i do play or which searches i have done if they are valuable for any company or its like they do the job for me haha...

Any software that connects to internet has questionable privacy policy. Refining this theory, it's not exactly the privacy policy that's questionable, it's what user's think of privacy that's questionable.

 

[Kate_L]

@Van2r
If you read EULA of all AVs (only ClamAV is the exception), you will notice that all AVs have "privacy issues". If you play games online you will send a lot of info about you the moment you log or update the game (it's the same story as with AVs).

Also, what @jackuars said is true

 

[Overlord]

PROS >
-Very light
-Free
-Effective web protection
-Quite effective phishing protection
-WebCam Protection
-Sandbox
CONS >
-Unnecessary optimization tools
-Quite frequent false alarms.
-Questionable privacy policy

 

[Pat MacKnife]

@Van2r
If you read EULA of all AVs (only ClamAV is the exception), you will notice that all AVs have "privacy issues". If you play games online you will send a lot of info about you the moment you log or update the game (it's the same story as with AVs).

Also, what @jackuars said is true

Okay for online games, but what if you daily use your bank account to pay things what info are they recieving
edit:nevermind its still questionable more than others, i think...

 

[Kate_L]

I don't know what are you talking about @Pat MacKnife

 

[AtlBo]

Could security development companies ease some tensions about privacy by combining their connection modules into one module with settings for each connection/type of connection? I notice 2 connection rules in Private Firewall for the WDPayPro.exe module in 360 TS. With all the 10 or so 360 modules combined there are 39 connection rules. MS' W7 "alert me about new updates but do not download or install them" rule for updates seems to me like something I would like from a security program. Maybe this could be done with all connections but the defs updates or defs updates and cloud monitoring or something. There already is a pop up notification of the Avira and BitDefender defs updates in 360. The rest of the connections should be 100% on demand and 100% blockable in 360 imo.

I feel security companies could understand better that users look to them to set a super high standard of privacy for all developers. I can picture security developers incorporating some type of connectivity for their program that is only in use when actually in use so to speak and then is explained in a dialog and in a log, but I haven't seen this yet anywhere.

 

[AtlBo]

I will go with Overlord on these with the emphasis on free:

PROS >
-Very light
-Free
-Effective web protection
-Quite effective phishing protection
-WebCam Protection
-Sandbox
CONS >
-Unnecessary optimization tools
-Quite frequent false alarms.
-Questionable privacy policy

I would just add to the Pros the access now to connection information via Glasswire, which is an offering of 360 TS, stated to be a Network Monitor for 360. Also, there is some sort of anti-keylogging, although I am not sure how well it works. In part it is supposed to be activated to a higher degree when visiting certain buying and banking sites. Seems to work, but not sure how powerful.

To the cons I would add that I share the concerns of users who have stated that the program may be becoming a little bit jumbled with apps that are only marginally security related. For me, it's not that bad. 360 keeps the tools out of harm's way and out of sight of those who don't use them. They need refinement, though (the cleaner is too aggressive and requires quite a bit of work to set up).

Using 360 TS for almost a year now, I see much room for improvement. Updates seem to be moving forward at a good pace, not too fast or too slow. Remains to be seen I guess where Qihoo will take the program long term.

P.S.-I would love to see Qihoo attempt something different like add a plugin module that would make it possible for users to decide what to include in the program...even pay for plugins perhaps in some cases. I sometimes wonder why developers don't gravitate more to the concept of, say $5 one time pay apps type of improvement for a security program, over the standard $20, $30, or even $50 a year for an edition upgrade or an additional ultra high powered module. Those pricey upgrades are great, but so many users would pay for 5 plugins or more on a one time basis if the price were lower and have much better security. Higher security for the general population of computer users is what I mean. Qihoo seems to me to be in a position to create a way to have fully tailored security with this type of $5 thinking that offers 20 or 30 security modules, such as anti-encryption or enhanced anti-keylogging, etc.. That said I feel Qihoo 360 needs to boost the baseline protection of 360 in order to be able to do this. It's competent, but it's not as powerful as I would like to see in the baseline sense. Just something I been thinking about with 360 for some reason...