F-Secure Internet Security 2010

At a Glance:  F-Secure Internet Security 2010 is strong where it counts: finding the bad stuff without blaming your good programs. The user interface is slick and simple for the most part. Some firewall notifications might bother the novice but help isn't far away.

The Triple "E" Keys

The following table summarizes the effectiveness of F-Secure Internet Security 2010 based on certain tests by large independent testing labs. For more information on the scoring system, visit the Triple E Key Awards page.

Install/Remove:  I had no trouble installing F-Secure Internet Security 2010. It only took two and a half minutes followed by a restart the system. After that, the updater went to work downloading the latest definitions and program updates. I did get a firewall query about Dropbox, an online file sharing utility that I had installed. I just clicked "yes" to let that program use the Internet and all was well.

In my case it took a while to update because I had the installer laying around for a while and things were badly out of date by the time I installed it. Yours would probably go much faster. The updater specified five to twenty minutes but mine took 25 minutes. Once that was done the user interface appeared but that took a few minutes as it applied the updates. The task tray icon kept coming and going for a short time.

Removing F-Secure was easy. It only took 2 minutes and required a restart. No earth-shattering news here. Good thing too, we need the earth unshattered!

Setup/Use:  F-Secure Internet Security 2010 has a very nice user interface. There's a big green checkmark stating that "Your computer is protected". Under that, there are several icons leading to various information and settings. All in all it's very usable and clear.

However, under the "Tasks" category there were a few settings that I think a novice would be confused about. For instance, "Open firewall port" isn't something the novice user would know what to do with. This and a couple of other settings hint at a legacy firewall where the user must make decisions about which programs can access the Internet. I think this should be handled by the program or left only to advanced users. You can, however, read the help file if you must deal with it.

Otherwise, the main user interface is simple and everything is generally right there including statistics about scans, updates, and blocked programs (from accessing the Internet). It's really quite good and advanced users have their knobs and sliders to play with if they choose to do so.

Help:  The user interface has a big help button that leads you to a help file, the main web site, the "F-Secure Health Check"--a free online scanner, and the support area of the web site.

The health check includes tests for whether documents have been backed up and if installed programs are updated. After F-Secure Internet Security 2010 scans your system there's a report you can view with recommendations to update. This will lead you to the appropriate web sites for those products. I updated Firefox this way. While I'd like to see it become part of the suite, the online version works well enough.

I'm seeing this features more and more with today's security suites. I think it's a good idea even if you are only directed to the web site for the out-of-date software. Most people do not keep all of their software updated and this leaves security holes in those programs. So it's not just about new features; it's about security. Having your security suite tell you this is a terrific addition.

There's also a Knowledgebase at the web site although the help button in the program doesn't take you directly there. Still, it's easy enough to find and there's some good stuff there especially regarding fake anti-virus programs. There's an online support form and phone support but I didn't see chat support anywhere.

Performance:   Scanning my test files took eight minutes; a little longer than some packages. But, the way I've always looked at it, you can set up a scheduled scan while you sleep. I don't really care how long it takes since I generally don't scan while I work. Even so, F-Secure should work to reduce the scanning time. It just looks good to the user and is more efficient with system resources.

The good news is that the scanner found my double-zipped test virus file and quarantined it with no problem.

Value:  A 3PC license will cost you $59.99 making it about average for a suite.

Bottom Line:  While the firewall might be a little hard to work with for some users, F-Secure Internet Security 2010 is a great package that has all the essential components without any bloat. It did very well in the lab tests regarding false positives and that pushed its score up considerably. That's important to me because novices wouldn't know what to do with a good program that the anti-virus engine says is malware and they shouldn't have to.