Security product lineups typically include a standalone antivirus, an entry-level security suite, and either a feature-rich mega-suite or a cross-platform suite—sometimes both.
F-Secure Internet Security, reviewed here, is a Windows-only entry-level suite, one step up from the straight antivirus.
At the next level is F-Secure Safe, which offers security protection and parental control for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android devices.
Given that the two suites cost the same, you're better off choosing F-Secure Safe, or one of our Editors' Choice suites.
At $69.99 per year for three licenses, F-Secure costs the same as Avast and ESET, and a tad less than Avira.
Three-packs of Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus and BullGuard go for $10 less, while Kaspersky, Trend Micro and Bitdefender cost $10 more.
F-Secure is squarely in the middle.
F-Secure offers a wider variety of multi-license packs than almost any competitor.
Choices range from $49.99 per year for a single license to $279.99 per year for 25.
Pricing is the same for the cross-platform F-Secure Safe, except that the one and two license choices are absent.
A few other companies offer super-sized license bundles.
Kaspersky Security Cloud gives you 20 cross-platform licenses for $149.99.
With BullGuard, you get 10 for $140.95.
And an $89.99 subscription to McAfee Internet Security lets you install protection on all your Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices.
Like F-Secure's standalone antivirus, this product has an airy, streamlined main window, with lots of whitespace.
A status indicator dominates the main window, with a button to launch a virus scan and a link to settings.
Tabs at left let you switch from this main screen to a page of tools and to the parental control system.
Shared Antivirus Features
The core features of this suite are precisely the same as what you get with F-Secure Anti-Virus, with one enhancement.
The big difference is that the suite integrates with your browsers to help fend off malicious and fraudulent websites.
Please refer to my review of the standalone antivirus for full details on shared features.
I'll summarize here.
Lab Test Results Chart
Malware Protection Results Chart
All four of the independent antivirus testing labs that I follow include F-Secure in their reports.
Its test scores are all good, but not tip-top.
I use an algorithm to map all the different-style scores onto a 10-point scale and come up with an aggregate lab score.
F-Secure's score of 9.0 points matches Avast and Windows Defender, all three of them based on scores from all four labs.
Also tested by four labs, Avira and Kaspersky Internet Security came out with 9.8 and 9.9 points respectively.
Bitdefender has a perfect 10, though that's derived from just three sets of scores.
In my own hands-on malware protection test, F-Secure detected 93 percent of the samples and earned 9.0 of 10 possible points.
That's a decent score, but others have done better against this same set of samples.
McAfee and Ashampoo edged out F-Secure with 9.1 points each, and Avast managed 9.2, but the big winner is Webroot, with 9.7 of 10 possible points.
Tested against my previous set of samples, Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe($49.99 for 5-Devices on 1-Year Plan at NortonLifeLock) matched that score.
F-Secure's standalone antivirus does not include the browser protection component found in this suite, which is a shame.
However, it does have an advanced network protection feature that successfully blocked access to many malware-hosting sites in my testing.
Including malware that F-Secure eliminated after download, the antivirus scored 88 percent protection in my malicious URL blocking test.
To the protection available at the antivirus level, the suite adds a browser extension that proved quite effective.
Be warned, though, that this extension only supports Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.
If you use Edge, Opera, or another browser, it won't help.
In almost every case, it diverted the browser to a page stating that F-Secure blocked a harmful site.
I saw a handful of instances where Advanced Network Protection handled blocking a dangerous URL instead, and a few more where real-time protection quarantined the downloaded malware payload.
With 99 percent protection, F-Secure shares the top score with Bitdefender and Trend Micro Internet Security.
F-Secure's real-time protection wiped out all my ransomware samples, as these are known quantities.
The real ransomware threat comes from zero-day attacks.
If brand-new ransomware gets past your antivirus, it doesn't matter if an update wipes out the malware the next day, because the damage is already done.
To simulate zero-day attacks, I turned off the regular real-time protection, leaving only the DeepGuard behavioral and ransomware-specific components active.
DeepGuard detected and quarantined all but one of my ransomware samples after launch.
Most are file-encryption attacks, but the collection includes one full-disk encryption ransomware and one of the screen locker type.
However, the one attack that F-Secure missed managed to encrypt files in the Documents folder and replace the desktop with its ransom note.
Remember, though, that for this test I turned off regular antivirus protection.
With all F-Secure components enabled, the ransomware didn't have a chance.
Poor Phishing Protection
The same browsing protection that did so well against malware-hosting URLs also aims to steer users away from fraudulent websites, phishing sites that try to steal their login credentials.
However, when I put this function to the test it didn't do nearly as well.
To prepare for this test, I scrape hundreds of reported phishing URLs from sites that track such things.
I aim to use the URLs that haven't yet been analyzed and blacklisted.
I use a hand-coded program to launch each URL in turn and record that the antivirus caught it, the antivirus missed it, or it wasn't a phishing site after all.
I run this test on four systems simultaneously.
The product under test protects one, of course.
The remaining three rely on the protection built into Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.
Phishing Protection Results Chart
Almost half of the current products outperformed all three browsers.
About another quarter beat at least one of the browsers.
F-Secure lies in that dismal group of products beaten soundly by built-in protection in all three browsers.
It lagged their average detection rate by 11 percent.
F-Secure's 78 percent detection rate is in the bottom half.
At the top, Kaspersky and McAfee both managed to detect 100 percent of the fraudulent pages, while Bitdefender and Trend Micro came close with 99 percent.
The conclusion here is clear.
If you're using F-Secure for protection, don't turn off what's built into the browser.
See How We Test Security Software
Banking Protection
While online security is always important, it's especially urgent during sensitive online activity such as banking.
Quite a few suites offer extra protection to keep spyware from snooping on sensitive online activity.
For example, Bitdefender includes Safepay in all products, starting with the antivirus.
At the suite level, Kaspersky offers Safe Money, which specifically isolates the protected browser from other processes.
You get Bank Mode in Avast's product line, starting with the free antivirus.
Bank Mode in Avast Internet Security and Safepay in Bitdefender both open a separate desktop for secure browsing.
Kaspersky's Safe Money isolates the browser process from other products, flagging the secure browser with a green border.
All three kick in automatically on detecting a financial site.
Banking protection in F-Secure also activates automatically for financial sites, but it operates a bit differently.
When you connect to a financial site, it blocks all other connections and displays a banner stating that banking protection is active.
Buttons let you hide the banner, or end the protection session.
Clicking Hide rolls up the banner to a thin line at the top of the screen.
In testing, it clearly worked.
The banner appeared when I opened a bank site, as it should.
And when I attempted to connect elsewhere with a different browser, I got an explanatory page advising me to finish my banking first.
I did find, though, that when using Microsoft Edge, protection against connecting elsewhere did not affect another instance of the same browser.
Banking protection does what it promises, but I'm not sure it's as completely protective as some of the competition.
It seems possible to me that, for example, a data stealer could capture your private data and wait to phone home with it until banking protection ended.
The other products I mention isolate the entire browser process rather than simply preventing other connections.
Limited, Awkward Parental Control
Not every parent wants or needs a parental control system in a security suite.
For those that do want this feature, a system that controls and monitors all the devices used by each child is a modern necessity.
It's no use limiting screen time on the PC when your kid can just switch to the iPad.
Alas, F-Secure is chained to the past, with one-device control, and what it does on that one device is severely limited.
To turn on the parental control system, click the Parental Controls tab at left, then click the big Turn on button to "set time limits and block unwanted content." Next you confirm that you want the default settings.
Clicking No doesn't take you to customization; it just backs off from turning on the parental control system.
Congratulations; you've just set up parental controls for yourself.
Yes, the only way to configure parental controls for a given Windows account is to log into that account and do the job.
I've never seen that before.
Several versions back, you could control all accounts without logging in to each, but F-Secure removed that feature.
So, you must log into each child's Windows account (you do know their passwords, right?) and turn on parental controls.
Common wisdom is that children should have Standard user accounts, without Administrator privilege.
No special privilege is required to turn on parental controls, but if you want to customize setting you have to supply the password for an Administrator account.
For each account, don't forget to launch Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer and install the F-Secure browser add-on.
Some of the parental control features don't work properly without the add-on.
Note, though, that any child, even one with a limited-permission Standard user account, can disable or remove the add-ons.
F-Secure's content filter can block access to websites matching 15 color-coded categories.
In the red category you'll find Adult, Disturbing, Drugs, Gambling, Alcohol and tobacco, Illegal, and Illegal downloads, all blocked by default.
Yellow categories are Violence, Hate, Weapons, Dating, and Shopping, all but the last blocked by default.
In the blue realm are Social networks, Anonymizers, and Unknown, the first two blocked by default.
Yes, if you don't edit the defaults, you'll find yourself locked out of Facebook.
In testing, the content filter worked well, even in a totally unknown browser that I wrote myself.
Your kids won't get past it using a secure anonymizing proxy.
Not only did it block the HTTPS anonymizer, it displayed the same message as for non-secure sites (some parental control systems can't manage that feat, simply showing a browser error for blocked HTTPS sites).
Do note that the ability to display a message for blocked HTTPS sites is handled by the browser extension.
In my hand-coded browser such sites just displayed an error message.
The same thing happened in Microsoft Edge.
Now for the bad news.
Right on the warning page is a big button labeled Allow web site.
If you've given your child an Administrator account (to avoid the hassle of coming over and logging in all the time) then clicking that button just grants access.
Under a Standard account, that button still appears, but it doesn't do anything.
For that matter, a child with an Administrator account can simply turn off parental controls.
There's no provision for locking them down with a password.
A child with a Standard account can't make any changes, though.
By default, the search result filter is off.
If you turn it on, F-Secure forces safe search in Google, Yahoo, Bing, and YouTube.
In testing, I found that this feature successfully prevented disabling safe search, but only with the browser extension active.
If your child uses a little-known browser or disables the extension, that's the end of search result filtering.
F-Secure does offer a two-way time limit system.
Parents can put a cap on daily computer use, two hours by default.
You can set the limit up to seven hours, or eliminate the cap.
There's also a weekly grid that schedules when computer use is allowed, in one-hour increments.
By default, it permits access from 8am to 8pm each day.
When I last reviewed this product, it gave parents the choice of limiting computer time altogether, or just limiting time on the internet.
That option is visibly gone; you can't just limit internet time.
F-Secure doesn't rely on the system clock to manage its schedule.
A smart-aleck kid with Administrator access can't tweak the clock to access the internet outside the allowed time.
In truth, such chicanery isn't needed if the kid has an Administrator account.
The lock screen that displays when time is up includes an Extend… button.
That's it for parental control.
It's all local to the PC, with a bare minimum of features.
And you don't get any reports on what the kids have been searching for, or what sites the system blocked.
Bitdefender Internet Security and Kaspersky are among the suite products that offer full-scale parental control, rivaling what you get from the best standalone products.
F-Secure, by contrast, offers a Windows-only solution with a uniquely awkward configuration system.
Some features don't work in unknown browsers, and for those older kids with Administrator accounts, it's no use at all.
To be fair, parental control in F-Secure Safe is a modern, cross-platform, remotely managed system.
When you install Safe on a Windows PC, most features are the same as with F-Secure Internet Security, but parental control is a modern remotely managed system.
Small Performance Impact
The days of bloated security dinosaurs sucking up system resources are long over.
Most...
