Please notice
That is our all-in-one roundup reviewing Qihoo 360’s client safety options for 2021. On this web page, after our transient intro, you’ll discover
(a) a full analysis of the free product 360 Whole Safety, and
(b) our evaluation of the paid-for model 360 Whole Safety Premium
You’ll be able to leap to the opinions of these particular person merchandise by clicking on the hyperlinks within the bar on the prime of this web page.
360 Whole Safety (opens in new tab) is a safety and PC upkeep suite from the Chinese language developer Qihoo 360 Software program.
The free model consists of a lot of the key options: antivirus, anti-ransomware, malicious web site filtering, a sandbox, advert blocking, browser settings safety, Home windows cleanup and optimization instruments, and extra.
This is not as highly effective because it was once. Specifically, once we reviewed 360 Whole Safety a few years in the past, it included the superb Bitdefender and Avira engines – they appear to have been dropped.
Nonetheless, there is no doubt the free version has a number of performance, and upgrading to the paid model, 360 Whole Safety Premium, will get you much more.
- Wish to attempt 360 Whole Safety? Try the web site right here (opens in new tab)
There’s higher antivirus (opens in new tab), together with detection of fileless assaults. A firewall protects your community, a knowledge shredder securely deletes confidential information, it may possibly routinely replace drivers, there’s anti-tracking, scheduled system cleansing and ‘privileged entry to tech help’, plus it drops all of the advertisements within the free version.
Costs begin at a low $20 to cowl one gadget for a yr (opens in new tab). A one-year, three-device license (opens in new tab) is simply $27; go for two years (opens in new tab) and it is $50, and a three-year deal (opens in new tab) is just $53. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (opens in new tab) seems comparable at $25 for its personal one-year, three-device license, however that is solely due to the introductory low cost: it jumps to $60 a yr whenever you renew.
360 Whole Safety
Organising 360 Whole Safety is straightforward. A small installer downloads and unpacks the principle program information. Though the interface prompted us to register with our e-mail handle, this wasn’t mandatory, and we may use the suite with out offering any private particulars.
The suite grabs extra assets than the common antivirus, with our setup utilizing 600MB of disk area, including six background processes and diverse Home windows providers and drivers.
That is no nice shock whenever you have a look at all of the options you are getting, although, and it did not appear to make the tiniest distinction to efficiency. We ran PCMark Skilled earlier than and after putting in 360 Whole Safety and there was solely a few factors distinction in our rating, throughout the vary of error we might count on from evaluating two runs.
Safety apps with a number of information and processes can depart them extra open to assault by malware, which is able to usually attempt to disable any antivirus earlier than taking on your PC.
We run varied exams for this, together with making an attempt to vary Registry settings, alter configuration information, unload drivers and terminate key processes.
The outcomes seemed good, initially, with the core antivirus engine brushing all our assaults apart. However then we managed to disable the anti-ransomware Doc Protector fully (extra on that beneath). And we have been in a position to delete a number of Registry settings, suggesting extra severe assaults could be attainable. (Apps could crash or in any other case misbehave if they do not see settings within the vary they count on.)
Antivirus
360 Whole Safety seems and feels very similar to every other safety suite you’ve got ever seen: it provides an icon to your system tray, left clicking opens a dashboard along with your safety standing, and a left-hand sidebar presents icons for its varied features (Virus Scan, Speedup, Cleanup, Device Field, Account),
Clicking the Virus Scan button shows three scan sorts: Fast, Full and a restricted Customized scan (you’ll be able to select places in your exhausting drive, however not whether or not you need to scan reminiscence, the Registry, detachable drives, or different choices you would possibly get with extra configurable functions).
You can too scan chosen information, folders and drives from Explorer’s right-click drive. It is not sensible sufficient to run simultaneous scans, although, so when you attempt a right-click scan whereas it is operating one other, you will be instructed to ‘attempt once more later.’
Scan instances have been mid-range as greatest, and did not enhance as we hoped. 360 Whole Safety took 34 minutes to scan our 50G of check information, for example, higher than Bitdefender (39 minutes) however trailing Kaspersky (29 minutes.) However it did not make a lot effort to optimize subsequent scans, and our second run nonetheless took 29 minutes. Different antivirus usually verify solely new and adjusted information, and Kaspersky’s second scan took solely 2:50, whereas Bitdefender’s was solely 27 seconds.
Safety
Qihoo 360 Whole Safety is not assessed by any of the impartial testing labs, making it tougher to check with the competitors. We have ran some easy exams of our personal, although, and so they’ve given us clues about its skills.
There was largely excellent news with file detection, the place the app picked up all our identified pattern threats.
We observed an uncommon variety of false positives, although. Our scanning velocity check requires an antivirus to verify 50GB of legit information, and most instruments accurately report that they are clear, however 360 Whole Safety falsely flagged six information.
Conduct monitoring is extra strict than regular for easy threats. We run scripts which use very clearly sneaky tips to obtain malicious information, for example – run a typical Home windows app to launch PowerShell and have it obtain and run a file, for example – and Qihoo popped up and warned us about every of those.
The issue, although, is it handled these points like a firewall, displaying the identify of the offending course of and asking if this must be allowed, or not.
Customers may simply approve malicious actions, both as a result of they do not perceive the alert, or they’re in a rush and do not take the time to consider it.
Inaccurate alerts do not assist, both. We ran an app which accessed an online web page to search out its world IP, however though 360 Whole Safety raised an alert, it mentioned the app was downloading a Trojan.
Kaspersky and Bitdefender take a stricter however safer strategy, deciding themselves what’s harmful and killing the offending course of instantly.
360 Whole Safety’s conduct monitoring additionally failed once we pitted it towards our personal customized ransomware (opens in new tab), which was in a position to encrypt all 11,000 of our pattern information. Once more, Kaspersky and Bitdefender did a lot better, realizing what was taking place virtually instantly, closing our check risk and recovering the only a few information it managed to encrypt (usually solely 5-10.)
360 Whole Safety’s Doc Protector routinely backs up some information as they’re modified, and this labored for us, saving a few of our information in a recoverable kind.
This solely backed up a subset of our information, although (Workplace paperwork and PDFs), with a 100MB dimension restrict. It saved them to a neighborhood folder, doubtlessly requiring a number of disk area. As Doc Protector is tucked away outdoors of the principle interface, some customers could by no means even understand these information are there. Worst of all, Doc Protector would not shield itself towards tampering. Malware which acknowledges it may possibly detach its filter drivers or flip off the Doc Protector service, stopping it from backing up any extra paperwork, then get on with trashing all of them.
360 Whole Safety does have some searching and anti-phishing safety, however this solely appears to catch the best-known threats, and even these have been solely stopped by browser extensions. Our check apps have been in a position to immediately entry the identical malicious URLs with out problem.
It is a blended image total, then; Qihoo 360 Whole Safety Free delivers cheap safety in some areas, however falls down in others, and these safety holes make it tough to advocate total.
Options
We do not have the area to do justice to Qihoo 360’s huge function set, however these are a few of the objects we observed through the evaluation.
Bonus security measures begin with the sandbox. This lets you run doubtful packages in an remoted atmosphere the place they can not have an effect on your system. It is not an alternative to poor malware detection however the sandbox does work; once we ran our customized ransomware within the sandbox, it wasn’t in a position to encrypt any information.
A Patch Up software can detect and set up patches for Home windows. It additionally appears to work accurately, however we struggled to see why you’d belief this forward of Home windows Replace.
A webcam safety module warns you about unrecognized apps making an attempt to entry your webcam.
The Velocity-up module scanned our check system and made 75 suggestions about our startup packages, scheduled duties, providers and community settings. Once more, this sounds good in idea, however in follow? Not a lot.
This system would not all the time inform you a lot about what it has discovered. One in every of our startup objects had the outline: “Adware; that is an advert plugin that it put in in a bundle.” We needed to know what this was, and to see a path, and/or a filename, however there have been no extra particulars – no different approach to see what 360 Whole Safety needed to take away.
The suggestions have been generally questionable, too. Our system included 12 objects regarding software program updates, together with Home windows Replace, and 360 Whole Safety labelled all of them as both ‘advocate off’ or ‘non-compulsory off’. Why would a safety program which tries that can assist you obtain updates for some functions, advocate you flip off updates for others?
The Clear-up module did higher, scanning our system for leftover information together with Home windows and application-related junk, searching histories and undesirable browser plugins. It discovered 17.2GB on our check system, beating CCleaner (15.4GB) and Home windows Disk Cleanup (1.5GB.)
That appears spectacular, however once more 360 Whole Safety falls down on the knowledge it supplies. We have been instructed it may liberate 952.4MB from the Home windows Installer Momentary Cache, for example, however which information would this delete? CCleaner means that you can see precisely what it may wipe. 360 Whole Safety simply leaves you to guess, making it tough to guage how reliable its suggestions are.
Elsewhere, searching extensions embrace a purchasing extension shows coupons for the purchasing hyperlinks you go to. This works, however pops up at odd instances (we have been provided Microsoft Retailer offers when making an attempt to learn Microsoft’s Safety weblog) and may embrace some very out-of-date objects. Whereas visiting UK grocery store Tesco’s web site in December 2020, for example, we have been provided particular offers for, uh, Christmas 2019.
The actual shock right here might be the VPN (opens in new tab), the free Home windows version of VPN Proxy Grasp (opens in new tab). This restricts you to servers in ten international locations (North America, Europe, India and Singapore), nevertheless it would not have any information switch limits, uncommon for a free VPN.
This is not a high quality service. Our final VPN Proxy Grasp evaluation (opens in new tab) discovered poor US speeds, below-par encryption, no kill swap and a definite lack of options. It did properly at unblocking streaming websites and could be helpful in some conditions, however even then, you need not set up 360 Whole Safety to get it – simply go direct to VPN Proxy Grasp.
Remaining verdict
360 Whole Safety Free is all about amount over high quality, a below-par antivirus bundled with an enormous collection of largely unimpressive safety and upkeep instruments. In the event you simply desire a huge suite to discover, that could be sufficient, however in actuality you will be higher off constructing your individual suite from the best-of-breed freeware.
360 Whole Safety Premium
360 Whole Safety Premium drops the free model advertisements, and throws in some useful-sounding extras: detection of fileless assaults, a firewall, safe wiping of confidential information, an automated driver updater, scheduled system cleansing (deletion of junk information solely), and tech help.
That is not fairly as a lot as we might like, however with costs from a really low cost $27 for a one-year, three-device license, it is nonetheless one of many least expensive safety suites round.
Upgrading would not change the interface in any approach. It simply unlocks the beforehand greyed-out and inaccessible options, and you will not see the free model’s ‘UPGRADE!!’ buttons any extra.
Our exams did not present any vital variations in antivirus safety. We’re comfortable to simply accept there are additional advantages from Premium’s fileless assault detection, however false alarms have been nonetheless frequent, and we noticed all the identical points as with the free model.
360 Whole Safety Premium’s most substantial additional might be its firewall. This claims to warn you if suspect apps attempt to go surfing, lists apps who’re at the moment lively on-line, and has a community exercise historical past to, say, present you which ones apps have transferred probably the most information just lately.
We’re unconvinced about 360 Whole Safety’s means to establish suspect apps, and it in all probability should not depart the ultimate ‘permit/ block’ determination to the person, anyway – Bitdefender, Kaspersky and NortonLifeLock’s firewalls are sensible sufficient to make this determination themselves.
There may be some worth right here, although, particularly for skilled customers trying to verify their present system. In the event you suppose you could be contaminated, for example, you’ll be able to browse processes with an lively community connection, scan something suspect, and shut it in a few clicks.
The remainder of the suite is much less spectacular. The file shredder works, for example, however yow will discover extra highly effective apps at no cost and the Driver Updater discovered much less updates than comparable instruments we’re tried, largely simply small system drivers, the place any error through the replace course of will trigger far more issues than the replace would possibly clear up.
Remaining verdict
360 Whole Safety Premium is totally filled with options, however none of them are ok to justify handing over your money. Both construct your individual free suite with one thing like Avast Free and Iolo System Mechanic, or pay for larger high quality instruments with a do-everything industrial product like Avira Prime.
- Wish to examine 360 Whole Safety to its rivals? Try our greatest antivirus (opens in new tab) information
