We were excited to learn that F-Secure had unveiled Release 39 of its Internet Security product for 2012. F-Secure won several accolades in 2010 and 2011, including the 2010 Product of the Year designation from AV Comparatives. Our staff appreciated F-Secure Antivirus 2011, but gave it low marks for feature breadth, virus scanning performance, and general system performance impact. We were curious whether F-Secure had brought its feature set and performance up to par with its stellar virus detection.
The answer appears to be “no.” But on the plus side, F-Secure’s virus detection may be even more stellar.
While still not impressive as Avast! or AVG, F-Secure Internet Security 2012 does usher in welcome feature improvements. First up is a reboot-free install on Windows 7, which is always welcome. After installation, users will notice that clicking on the System Tray icon for the application produces a pop-up menu of choices centered just above the Task Bar. The F-Secure 2012 release notes tout that F-Secure Internet Security 2012 has been broken up into components “for easier licensing and installation.” We’re sure anti-virus users will be happy that F-Secure took their licensing needs to heart.
The F-Secure Dashboard will be familiar to users of the F-Secure 2011 product line; nothing fundamental has changed. The platform includes several protection changes that users won’t notice in the UI. They include DeepGuard 4, which F-Secure trumpets as a total overhaul of its proactive anti-virus scanner, and Mobile Broadband, which allows fine control over downloading updates when connected through a 3G or 4G Internet service.
F-Secure Internet Security 2012 Beta: The Dashboard
The Parental Control feature has been enhanced in 2012 Beta to bring it up to snuff with similar features offered by its competitors. The company has combined its Parental Control and Browsing Protection modules into a single Parental Control feature, and added Bypass Protection. In F-Secure 2011, Parental Control only worked for Internet Explorer and Firefox, and could be bypassed by using Google Chrome; in 2012, the feature operates at the networking level, forbidding access to prohibited sites using any application. F-Secure Parental Control also adds a Time Lock to restrict computer usage on a per-user basis.
Unfortunately, these enhancements to Parental Control may explain why we were unable to subject the 2012 Beta to a full review on our test machine. Immediately after installation completed, we were unable to access any Web sites in Google Chrome. When we attempted to kill the process, it hung. From that point on, we were unable to launch any other Web Browser, either! Neither Firefox nor Internet Explorer would start until we had hard-rebooted our machine and uninstalled F-Secure. Our attempts to re-install the Beta after that failed, as shown in the screenshot below. Downloading a new copy of the installer brought no relief.
Failed re-installation of F-Secure 2012 Beta.
Given its current state, users interested in Release 39 should be very wary of installing the product on a work or school system. For those who manage to run it, the 2012 Beta Release Notes contain some tips for those users who experience hangs or dramatic slowdowns post-install (turn off DeepGuard, disable parental controls and firewall scanning). F-Secure says these problems plague about 5-10% of beta users.
These pre-release issues aside, we found F-Secure Internet Security 2012 Beta disappointing in its feature scope, but were impressed with how much effort the company has invested in enhancing its already top-notch virus detection system. In today’s world, having an up-to-date virus definition database isn’t enough; anti-virus platforms must use advanced heuristics to combat zero-day exploits and self-modifying malware. If DeepGuard 4 lives up to its hype, F-Secure may yet again be able to brag it has the best damn anti-virus engine on Planet Earth.