Entered CNET Catalog: 10/26/2004
SKU: CNETFSECUREINTERNETSECURITY2005
Manufacturer: F-Secure Corp.
Manufacturer description
Today viruses spread very rapidly over the Internet causing damages to computer users. Home users are not an exception to this. If you are connected to the Internet, it is very important to protect your PC against computer viruses. In addition, when you are connected to the Internet your computer is exposed to hackers trying to find "open doors" in your system. F-Secure Internet Security 2005 includes an award winning antivirus software, as well as an easy-to-use personal firewall product that protects your system against break-in attempts when you are connected to the Internet. You can surf on the Internet, open e-mail attachments and use your computer without fear of virus infections or hackers. You can also be sure that you are not sending viruses to others. Just install and forget, F-Secure Internet Security 2005 will automatically keep viruses and hackers away from your computer.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 10/26/2004
After setup, the system reboots and F-Secure loads its start-up wizard, an easy-to-follow guide to configuring security settings. The wizard's default settings are appropriate for most users. For instance, F-Secure is preconfigured to run a weekly scan every Friday whenever the computer is idle for five minutes or longer. Surprisingly, another default setting instructs F-Secure to seek your input when it detects a virus, asking whether to clean, delete, or ignore. Competing virus fighters from Symantec, McAfee, and others simply disinfect the file, quietly moving it to a quarantined folder on your hard drive--a less intrusive approach.
Overall, the F-Secure interface is very good. A main page provides a security overview: green icons give the thumbs-up to current antivirus, firewall, spam, and parental control settings, but yellow icons indicate a problem. Some subsections could do a better job explaining specific features. For instance, the Spam Control screen offers three choices, Aggressive, Optimal, and Relaxed, but doesn't explain the pros and cons of each. You'll have to click the Help button in the lower-left corner to get a one-paragraph overview of these settings.
F-Secure Internet Security 2005 adds plenty of new features, including antispam technology to filter out unsolicited e-mail, spyware detection and removal, and a Parental Control feature that blocks Internet pages that reference drugs, gambling, sex, and other objectionables. F-Secure's core security tools--antivirus and firewall--remain vigilant at fighting viral miscreants and hacker attacks.
F-Secure's new antispyware tool is based on Lavasoft's highly regarded Ad-aware engine, which detects and removes adware, spyware, data-miners, and other secretly installed parasites. Better yet, F-Secure's spyware detector is integrated with the virus scanner, meaning you don't have to run a separate spyware scan--a smart approach found in competing security apps.
There's also a new antispam filter that is easy to use. In Outlook 2000 or later, for instance, F-Secure inserts its Spam Control button on the Outlook toolbar. You click the button to add an e-mail address or a domain name to your list of filtered senders, increase or decrease the spam fighter's aggressiveness, and so on. We also like the Parental Control feature, which filters objectionable Web content and lets you password-protect specific sites.
In CNET Labs' tests, F-Secure Internet Security 2005 produced only a 5 percent system reduction, less than Norton's and McAfee's but more than eTrust EZ Antivirus 2005's. F-Secure also took longer to scan our 1.3GB hard drive than did either PC-cillin or EZ Antivirus.To measure F-Secure's impact on system performance, CNET Labs used BAPCo's SysMark 2002, an industry-standard benchmark. The Internet-content-creation portion of SysMark measures a desktop's performance running off-the-shelf applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder, and Macromedia Dreamweaver. (We did not run the office-productivity portion of the benchmark because it incorporates McAfee VirusScan 5.13.)
Our test system was a Dell Dimension 8200, running Windows XP Professional, with an Intel Pentium 4 1.9GHz processor and 256MB of RDRAM. With F-Secure running, our test system scored a respectable 95, meaning there was a 5 percent reduction in overall system speed. By comparison, Norton AntiVirus 2005 and McAfee VirusScan 9.0 both scored a 94, a 6 percent reduction. Only Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 and eTrust ezAntivirus 2005 scored 100, or a 0 percent reduction. (An Internet-content-creation score of 100 represents the performance of our test system without any extraneous software running.) In a test of scanning speed, F-Secure took an average of 6.97 minutes to scan a 1.3GB directory--nowhere near as fast as speed demon PC-cillin, which averaged a speedy 2.4 minutes.
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In VirusBulletin tests since November 2000, the Windows desktop version of F-Secure has passed five out of the eight tests. By comparison, over the same period, Norton AntiVirus has been West Coast Checkmark, ICSA Labs, and Checkvir.com.
In informal testing, F-Secure's firewall scored rock-solid results when tested against the Gibson Research Corporation ShieldsUp site, which gauges a computer's protection against hacker intrusions. F-Secure prevented our test PC from divulging any information. In comparison, McAfee VirusScan no longer includes a firewall, and Norton AntiVirus, which has never included a firewall, comes instead with a limited port-blocking technology that proved to be not as secure a full-strength firewall in ShieldsUp testing.
Perhaps because the company is based in Finland, F-Secure offers fewer U.S. technical-support options than its competitors. For instance, F-Secure doesn't provide telephone assistance to Internet Security 2005 users. By comparison, Symantec, McAfee, and Trend Micro (maker of PC-cillin) all offer phone assistance, although only Trend Micro provides this service for free. Unlike McAfee, F-Secure doesn't offer online chat support.
E-mail help is available, however, and we found F-Secure's e-mail support staff to be knowledgeable and polite. Our queries were answered within 24 hours during the Monday through Friday workweek. Installation and troubleshooting advice for Internet Security 2005 was scarce on F-Secure's support site, but that's probably because the product was new when we tested it.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
User Rating: 
8/10
A good program
Pros: Less conflicts with other software
Cons: Spyware detection could be better
User Rating: 
1/10
Rebate issue--get Norton instead
Pros: Nothing special compared to norton or etrust
Cons: They do not honor mail-in rebates
User Rating: 1/10
they do NOT honor mail-in rebates
Pros: overall the software is pretty good
Cons: not free after rebate since rebate has not been honored
User Rating: 
10/10
Excellent Product - by far the best on the market
Pros: Most complete and comprehensive
Cons: company needs to advertize more
http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm
F-Secure found 4 out of 4 virii. It even stripped them away before downloading them to my system ( far superior to other products - but can be misinterpreted by the inexperienced as not being detected if thier pop up notification is disabled). Found product has 3 virus scanning engines versus 1, browser control, system control, html scanning, email (smtp, pop3, imap) scanning, spyware & adware scanning, ad popup blocker, etc. Product updates twice per day and not once per week.
User Rating: 8/10
overall easy
Pros: easy setup, no hassle
Cons: timeconsuming manual virusscan
User Rating: 10/10
The best on the Market
Pros: Keeps your comp safe
Cons: what can be bad with the best
User Rating: 8/10
A good package.
Pros: flawless firewall, v.good virus protection
Cons: Slow scan with some reduction in performance, a bit pricey.
User Rating: 
2/10
F-Secure has poor antivirus and firewall.
Pros: nice interface--wish the blues matched
Cons: Failed Eicar test miserably. Antispyware is really AAW
http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm
F-Secure only found 1 out of 4 virii (the easy, unpackaged one). It also failed (Stealthing) Sygate SOS Firewall tests. Antispyware is Adaware SE free with an F-Secure skin. Lame!
User Rating: 
4/10
Great like heroin!
Pros: Works great
Cons: DON"T trial it you'll NEVER get it off your PC
The uninstall is a joke and it makes it impossible to load other Anti virus programs.
Shame on them!
User Rating: 
3/10
E-mail support is slow and has a bad return address. Response to probles appear to come from canned
Pros: Worked good for a while
Cons: No support an now eats all memory and crashes
