Please observe
That is our all-in-one roundup reviewing each F-Safe shopper safety resolution for 2021. On this web page, after our transient intro, you’ll discover
(a) a full analysis of the entry-level F-Safe Anti-Virus, together with our critiques of the extra options included with the remainder of the vary:
(b) F-Safe SAFE, and
(c) the top-end bundle F-Safe Complete
You may bounce to the critiques of these particular person merchandise by clicking on the hyperlinks within the bar on the prime of this web page, however keep in mind that this text is basically designed to be learn during, because the options of F-Safe Anti-Virus are additionally current within the higher-level safety suites, in fact.
Finnish safety vendor F-Safe (opens in new tab) has an attention-grabbing shopper antivirus vary constructed round three most important merchandise.
F-Safe Anti-Virus (opens in new tab) is a no-strings bundle which gives core antivirus safety for PCs solely. It is fundamental, does not even embody malicious URL filtering (opens in new tab), and there are not any important extras.
We will not argue with the worth, although, at $40 to cowl three units for a yr. Bitdefender and Kaspersky each cost an preliminary $30 to guard three units for a yr with their fundamental antivirus, however this leaps to $60 on renewal.
- You may join F-Safe’s Antivirus options right here (opens in new tab)
F-Safe SAFE (opens in new tab) is a extra succesful bundle which provides URL filtering, banking safety, easy parental controls and safety for Mac, Android and iOS units. That is excellent news, but it surely’s nonetheless lacking among the options you would possibly anticipate from an web safety suite, resembling a firewall, spam filter or password supervisor.
Pricing is honest, with a 3 machine, one-year license costing an preliminary $35, then $70 on renewal, and extra financial savings accessible as you add units and years. It is broadly akin to different safety suites, though would possibly really feel dearer as you do not have fairly as many options.
F-Safe Complete (opens in new tab) is actually F-Safe SAFE with unrestricted entry to F-Safe’s Freedome VPN (opens in new tab), and F-Safe ID PROTECTION, the substitute for the corporate’s KEY password supervisor.
ID PROTECTION (opens in new tab) nonetheless features a password supervisor (opens in new tab), however you now additionally get darkish internet monitoring. F-Safe displays the net for indicators of your private info being leaked in a breach, and raises an alert if something seems.
Norton 360 Deluxe does a lot the identical, however F-Safe claims to have some benefits, particularly by utilizing ‘a mix of human intelligence and Darkish Internet monitoring to get well breach knowledge as much as 6 months quicker.’
Costs bounce to $90 to cowl as much as three units for a yr, or $110 to cowl 5.
That is not dangerous, however Norton 360 Deluxe provides antivirus, darkish internet monitoring, 50GB of cloud backup area and a limiteless VPN (opens in new tab) for $40 in yr one, $105 on renewal (that is to cowl 5 units.)
Alternatively, though Avira Prime does not have darkish internet monitoring, it will get you antivirus, VPN and a bunch of different upkeep and safety instruments for under $100 a yr, or $9 a month to strive it out.
F-Safe Anti-Virus
Making an attempt out F-Safe Anti-Virus is straightforward, with a free trial obtain on the location, and a easy installer which arrange our system inside a few minutes.
The antivirus made common use of system assets for a starter product, grabbing round 500MB of space for storing, and including six background processes to our PC.
We ran the highest Home windows benchmark PCMark Skilled earlier than and after putting in F-Safe Anti-Virus, hoping to detect any affect on velocity, however the distinction was tiny, throughout the margin of error we might anticipate from working the take a look at a few instances.
Was this an issue with our testing process, we questioned? Possibly not. AV-Comparatives’ October 2020 Efficiency Check positioned F-Safe in first place out of 17 for its minimal system affect.
We’re not simply within the dimension of an antivirus bundle; we take a look at how effectively it protects its set up from assault, too. Malware usually tries to disable any safety instruments it detects, so it is vital {that a} product can defend itself.
F-Safe Anti-Virus began uncertainly, as we had been capable of shut and disable some providers, however not others. Had this broken our safety? It was arduous to inform.
Then, although, we delivered a serious blow by unloading considered one of F-Safe’s key drivers with a regular Home windows software, breaking the power to detect malicious information as they’re written to disk. With the motive force working, downloading a malicious file in Chrome resulted in a ‘Failed – Downloading error’ warning; afterwards, it downloaded with none points.
This is not a straightforward safety gap to use. An attacker would one way or the other want you to run malicious code in your system with admin rights, and with out being detected by F-Safe. And even when he managed that, and downloaded a malicious file, F-Safe Anti-Virus ought to detect it in RAM, or by way of its habits.
Nonetheless, this can be a weak spot that we not often see with different antivirus, and it additionally leaves us questioning if there could be others (our time was as restricted as our hacking expertise, and a critical attacker may need many extra concepts.) We reported our findings to F-Safe, although, and hopefully the corporate will shortly deal with any points.
Antivirus
In case you’re used to antivirus merchandise making an attempt to win you over with stacks of bonus options, F-Safe Anti-Virus will disappoint, as a result of it does not have any. There’s barely something past antivirus scanning and the associated safety layers and settings.
This method pays off with F-Safe’s interface, which is nearly as easy and simple as you will ever see. The principle console has two buttons: Virus Scan and Settings. Faucet the primary and F-Safe Anti-Virus runs a really fast scan (beneath a minute on our take a look at system), offers with any threats mechanically and shows its verdict. Tapping the Settings button reveals a really minimal set of configuration choices.
Skilled customers could be a bit pissed off by the dearth of options and management. F-Safe does not provide you with a selection of scan sorts on its most important console, for example, working a fast scan by default. There’s a full system scan, for those who can observe it down (it is tucked away behind the Virus Scan Choices button), however we could not create a customized scan kind.
Heading for the Settings panel did not assist. Whereas opponents like Avast and Avira have a mass of guide scan tweaks and configuration choices, F-Safe has simply two easy checkboxes: ‘Scan solely identified file sorts’, and ‘Scan inside compressed information.’
You may run focused scans by proper clicking a file, folder or drive and selecting Scan For Viruses. These are speedy, even initially, and get quicker in subsequent runs. The app checked 50GB of executables in round 19 minutes at first, for example, quicker than most, dropping to 14 minutes after we checked once more.
F-Safe helps parallel scans, too, an enchancment since our final overview. If a scan is working within the background, you now not have to attend earlier than working one other, possibly checking a USB key. Good-click the important thing in Explorer, select the Scan possibility, and the app opens one other scan in its personal window. Most customers will not do that usually, but it surely’s a welcome usability plus.
Help for scheduled scanning permits the bundle to mechanically verify the system, however once more, there’s little or no management. You may’t ask F-Safe Anti-Virus to verify particular information or folders, for example – it should be a regular scan – and the one interval choices are each day, weekly or each 4 weeks.
There is a small however worthwhile further in F-Safe’s ransomware safety characteristic, which prevents untrusted purposes from accessing information in no matter folders you’d wish to preserve protected. This is not a brand new or uncommon thought – Home windows 10’s ‘managed folder entry’ characteristic does a lot the identical factor – but it surely’s nonetheless a useful further layer of ransomware-blocking safety.
F-Safe Antivirus is brief on scanning choices, then, but it surely’s additionally speedy, correct and easy-to-use.
The shortage of URL blocking is a draw back, however you are still protected by F-Safe’s different layers. After we accessed a web page containing a crypto miner script, F-Safe allowed the HTML web page to obtain, however then detected the menace throughout the file earlier than it was capable of launch. Even with out URL blocking, you are still very effectively defended.
Safety
AV-Comparatives Actual-World Safety Check pits 17 prime antivirus engines towards among the very newest malware, then explains intimately who’s come out on prime.
The July-October 2020 abstract report positioned F-Safe in second place, considered one of solely three distributors to dam 100% of take a look at threats (Panda and Pattern Micro had been the joint winners.)
(This is not fairly as spectacular because it appears, as a result of F-Safe had a really excessive 44 false positives. Kaspersky got here fourth with a safety fee of 99.7%, but it surely did this with solely two false positives. F-Safe’s safety fee is increased, however that is as a result of it is elevating extra alarms, lots of them false, and these might translate into main hassles in real-world use.)
AV-Check’s October 2020 Residence Consumer report (opens in new tab) additionally confirmed F-Safe blocking 100% of take a look at threats, and that is no fluke; it did the identical in 5 out of six assessments within the earlier yr.
SE-Labs’ Residence Anti-Malware Safety report for October-December 2020 (opens in new tab) wasn’t almost as impressed, although, inserting F-Safe in ninth place out of 13 for cover. We would in all probability put extra weight on the mixed and extra optimistic verdicts of AV-Comparatives and AV-Check, however maybe working our personal assessments would inform us extra.
Testing
We had no points with F-Safe Anti-Virus in our personal file and habits monitoring checks. Our take a look at executables use every kind of very suspect methods – launch one Home windows software, which launches PowerShell, scripting it to make use of one other Home windows software to obtain a malicious file – and F-Safe jumped on most of those, elevating an alert and killing the method so it could not trigger any extra harm.
To finish the overview, we launched our personal customized ransomware simulator on the F-Safe Anti-Virus system. Because the simulator has by no means been publicly launched, F-Safe could not have seen it earlier than, in principle making the menace far harder to detect.
F-Safe has blocked our simulator from its file signature prior to now, however missed it this time. Our take a look at menace launched efficiently and encrypted 1000’s of person paperwork with out F-Safe Anti-Virus’ habits monitoring elevating any crimson flags.
F-Safe’s Protected Folders system allows defining particular folders which the app says are then ‘shielded from encryption blackmail (like ransomware.)’ That may certainly defend our take a look at knowledge, proper? Nope: our simulator encrypted all of them.
These outcomes should be interpreted with care. We all know from lab testing that F-Safe blocks most ransomware with out issue, even probably the most subtle of zero-day threats, so it appears odd that our tiny simulator acquired via. Because it is not actual malware, maybe F-Safe Anti-Virus believed it was a reputable software, possibly a real encryption software, and so allowed it to run unrestricted.
Nonetheless, whereas we will not make sure what occurred or why, these outcomes make us a bit nervous. When an antivirus is confronted with an executable file it is by no means seen earlier than, participating in very ransomware-like habits, and encrypting information inside a protected folder, we’d anticipate it to at the very least elevate an alert, asking the person if this was okay. The truth that did not occur must be a priority.
Closing verdict
F-Safe Anti-Virus is pretty priced, compact, straightforward to make use of and with principally optimistic outcomes from the testing labs, however surprising overview points together with its ineffective Protected Folders system depart us with some issues.
F-Safe SAFE
F-Safe SAFE (opens in new tab) extends the corporate’s antivirus bundle with URL filtering, banking safety, parental controls and extra apps to guard Mac, Android and iOS units.
New options embody stalkerware safety and an advert blocker for iOS. There’s smarter searching safety, Home windows banking safety ought to now not block trusted purposes, and the Household Guidelines parental controls system now helps each day deadlines and bedtime to be set throughout all supported macOS variations and accounts.
These are all helpful options, however they nonetheless depart us feeling a bit underwhelmed. URL filtering comes as customary with most baseline antivirus packages, for example. And shifting up from antivirus normally will get you a lot extra options than you will see right here. Bitdefender Web Safety features a firewall, spam filter, webcam safety, a microphone monitor, and a bunch of smaller privateness extras (password supervisor, file shredder, easy encryption software, wi-fi community scanner, extra.)
Choosing F-Safe might not prevent a lot money, both. Bitdefender Web Safety 2020’s three machine, one-year license is priced at $35 in yr one, $80 on renewal; the equal F-Safe figures are solely marginally cheaper at $35 and $70.
Nonetheless, for those who solely want the safety fundamentals, F-Safe’s less complicated and extra light-weight method could also be a bonus, and it is actually price having a look on the suite’s extra options.
Malicious URL filtering
F-Safe’s Safe Searching characteristic makes use of a mix of browser extension and network-level applied sciences to guard you from internet threats.
This begins by displaying a ‘fame score’ icon subsequent to each hyperlink in your Google, Bing and Yahoo! search outcomes. Prohibit your clicks to URLs with a inexperienced tick for ‘protected’ and you will instantly keep away from some dangers.
A second layer of safety blocks identified dangerous websites, in addition to ‘suspicious’ web sites or something with ‘prohibited content material’ (relying on doable parental management settings.)
The characteristic in all fairness configurable, useful for those who discover it blocks reputable websites. If a hyperlink is falsely flagged, you are ready so as to add it to an Exceptions checklist in a click on or two. And for those who nonetheless run into a couple of hassles, you’ll be able to scale back detection sensitivity by protecting blocking for dangerous websites, however turning off ‘suspicious’ web site blocking.
Measuring the accuracy of any URL filtering layer is hard, and F-Safe proved significantly troublesome. We could not use our common automated testing framework because of a technical battle with the best way F-Safe works (our challenge, not F-Safe’s), and it isn’t been benchmarked by the labs just lately.
Hand testing of malicious hyperlinks discovered F-Safe had solely common blocking success, although, and AV-Comparatives’ 2019 Anti-Phishing Certification Check (previous, however the final one the place F-Safe appeared( reported related outcomes. It discovered F-Safe SAFE blocked a creditable 85% of threats, but it surely nonetheless lagged the 5 different contenders: Avira (88%), Avast (94%), Kaspersky (94%), Kaspersky (97%) and Bitdefender (98%).
Banking safety
Banking safety is a typical safety suite characteristic, and normally includes utilizing a customized hardened browser to hold out your most vital on-line transactions. However F-Safe’s Home windows banking safety characteristic does issues very in a different way.
If you go to a identified banking web site, F-Safe SAFE disconnects all untrusted purposes from the web and prevents them going again on-line when you’re on the web site. It additionally blocks untrusted web sites till your transactions are full.
These are drastic steps, however an alert warns you what is occurring, and SAFE highlights your display screen with a inexperienced border as a reminder. Banking safety ends mechanically if you depart the location, or you’ll be able to shut it down manually with a few clicks if it is interfered with any reputable apps.
This has improved since our final overview, when Banking Safety did not hearth up after we accessed some main websites, together with PayPal.
However we’re uncertain how helpful this actually is. SAFE might cease malware connecting to the web when you’re on the banking web site, but when it is already working in your system, accumulating keystrokes, possibly taking screenshots, you are already in huge bother. If it will probably’t ship your stolen credentials when you’re on the web site, our guess is it will simply strive once more later.
On stability, we favor banking safety which makes use of a separate and remoted browser. Bitdefender’s Safepay is much less handy to make use of, for example, but it surely instantly improves your safety by not having any extensions, and it takes low-level technical steps to defeat each keyloggers and display screen capturing malware.
Parental controls
F-Safe’s Household Guidelines is a fundamental parental controls system which allows setting machine display screen deadlines, blocking entry to web sites by content material kind, and (on Android and iOS) finding misplaced or stolen units.
Machine utilization might be restricted to a complete period of time per day. Choices vary from quarter-hour to eight hours, however you are compelled to select from a small variety of preset instances. For instance, if a 3-hour restriction is not fairly sufficient, your subsequent choices are 3 hours half-hour, 4 hours, then 5, 6, 7 and eight. Would it not actually be so troublesome to permit a person to enter a selected variety of minutes?
All these settings are utilized to a selected machine, too (or a person account on a tool, for PCs.) In case your youngster has two or extra units, you will must set them up individually, and think twice about how any utilization time ought to be cut up.
Though you are not capable of outline when through the day your youngster ought to use his time allowance, a Bedtime characteristic limits machine use throughout nighttime. You are capable of set when the machine is turned off and turns into accessible within the morning, though once more, SAFE limits the time you select. (If the default 7am is fractionally too early, for example, you’ll be able to’t set it to 7:15 or 7:45; your subsequent selections are 7:30 or 8pm.)
A content material filtering system allows blocking entry to web sites by their kind. This solely has 14 classes (Grownup, Medication, Playing, Violence, Social Networking and so forth) so is fast and simple to make use of, though does not provide you with a lot alternative for fine-tuning.
F-Safe’s Finder is an easy anti-theft service which allows discovering your misplaced Android and iOS units.
SAFE for Android additionally helps distant machine wiping and locking, helpful for those who suspect your machine is not coming again any time quickly.
Household Guidelines is straightforward to make use of, however brief on options. In case you’re pleased with the parental controls fundamentals, it’d nearly be sufficient, however everybody else might be higher off elsewhere.
Multi-platform
The most important advantage of F-Safe SAFE might be its safety for Android, Mac and iOS, in addition to Home windows units.
Each the Mac and Android apps have a lot the identical characteristic set because the PC version: antivirus, searching safety, banking safety and parental controls.
The Android app (opens in new tab) will get extra mobile-specific options, together with anti-theft instruments and an Utility Privateness software which identifies apps that may entry your private info.
F-Safe SAFE for iOS (opens in new tab) is extra restricted, as normal with safety apps, however nonetheless covers some helpful features: searching safety (when utilizing SAFE’s personal browser), parental controls, restricted banking safety (an indicator highlights protected websites) and fundamental anti-theft.
None of this helps with SAFE’s fundamental points. Sure, you’ll be able to run it on the whole lot, however there nonetheless aren’t that many options, and what you get is not all the time nice.
In case you’re an F-Safe fan who likes the corporate’s less complicated method to safety, although, paying just a bit further to cowl all of your units could possibly be a very good transfer.
F-Safe Complete
F-Safe Complete (opens in new tab) is a bundle of three prime F-Safe merchandise.
F-Safe SAFE will get you antivirus, searching safety, banking safety and extra for desktop and cellular units. Discover out extra about its options within the F-Safe Anti-Virus and SAFE critiques above.
F-Safe ID PROTECTION is the brand new incarnation of its KEY password supervisor. It nonetheless generates safe passwords, shops your logins, bank card particulars and different private knowledge and synchronizes it throughout all of your units. However new darkish internet monitoring is continually in search of your private particulars showing in a knowledge breach, alerts you instantly if something turns up, and consists of steerage on what to do subsequent.
The password supervisor covers the fundamentals, but it surely does not have the options, the form-filling energy or configurability to match the specialist competitors. Only one instance: it has browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox solely. In case you’re hoping to mechanically fill your login pages on Safari or Edge, then prepare for disappointment.
We did not take a look at F-Safe’s darkish internet monitoring, however this additionally seems a bit fundamental. It solely seems for e mail addresses, for example, and also you’re restricted to a single deal with per protected machine (so 5 in whole for a fundamental license.) Relying in your plan, Norton’s Darkish Internet Monitoring characteristic (opens in new tab) may search for mailing addresses, telephone numbers, bank card numbers, insurance coverage IDs and extra.
In case you’re eager, although, it is simple to seek out out extra – a free five-day trial (opens in new tab) permits sampling the service on Home windows, Android, iOS and Mac. This is not feature-limited, both, in contrast to the previous free KEY password supervisor; you get to check out the whole lot.
The important thing characteristic with F-Safe Complete, although, is F-Safe’s Freedome VPN. This is not the cut-down demo service you will get with some safety suites, the place you are restricted to possibly 200-500MB knowledge switch a day. It is the complete product, with servers throughout 23 nations, tracker blocking, a kill swap to guard you if the VPN drops, and completely no knowledge limits in any respect.
Our personal Freedome overview (opens in new tab) discovered it was a lot the identical as most different F-Safe merchandise: brief on energy and never many options, however straightforward to make use of, good at unblocking (it labored with US Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ for us) and an honest performer total.
Worth
Freedome is a serious plus for F-Safe Complete, but it surely additionally bumps up the worth, and it might take some math to determine if this can be a worthwhile deal for you. Let’s work via one instance.
A 3 machine, one-year license for F-Safe SAFE prices $35 in yr one, then $70 on renewal.
A separate three machine, one-year Freedome license is priced at an preliminary $35, rising to $55 on renewal. Add it to SAFE and that is a complete of $70 within the first yr, $125 afterwards.
Choosing F-Safe Complete as an alternative will get you SAFE, Freedome and ID PROTECTION, and prices $90 for a similar three machine, one-year time period.
Even when we ignore ID Safety, which means you are getting Freedome VPN for $55 in yr one, however a tremendous $20 after that (an efficient $1.67 a month.)
Freedome is not one of the best VPN, but it surely covers the fundamentals, and that is less expensive than many of the competitors. Even a finances VPN supplier like Ivacy asks $42 for yr one, $60 on renewal (though that does cowl as much as 5 units.)
However for those who’re not dedicated to F-Safe, there are related offers round from some safety suites. Avira Prime has a succesful set of options, together with a limiteless VPN, and though it begins at a touch dearer $100, that covers as much as 5 units for a yr.
Shopping for F-Safe Complete makes a whole lot of sense for F-Safe followers, then, however for those who’ve not already determined you want F-Safe SAFE, the image is not as clear. Store round, and ensure to strive before you purchase.
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