F-Secure Internet Security 2010

Getting your internet security in a suite of programs is the simplest way of securing your PC. However, it’s also the most expensive. While tech-savvy surfers protect their machines with free tools downloaded from the web, suites are aimed at the novice and offer complete protection with a minimum of user input. What’s different about F-Secure’s latest version of its software suite is the price – a competitive £39.95 for three PCs, or just £19.95 if you want to protect a single machine. Not bad for an all-in-one solution.

Features:
Most of the basics you’d expect from a security suite are here. It’ll scan your computer for viruses and malware, has heuristic and cloud components to stop unknown and new viruses from striking, and stops intrusions via the firewall. It’ll also protect your email from spam and phishing and has a parental control feature that should help keep younger surfers out of trouble online.

Performance:
F-Secure has had a good set of results in third-party anti-virus tests since mid-2007, only tripping over a few false positives (rather than actually letting anything through) in Virus Bulletin’s testing. Some of the secondary features are a little light – parental control relies on entering passwords where rival products will often go deeper into the Windows User Account settings. It also only has child and teenager settings, with no room to create more variations if your kids are harder to pigeonhole.

Ease of use:
The interface has been streamlined to make it easier to work out what’s going on – a big green tick on the front page will tell you whether you’re safe. Large Norton 360-style buttons then link through to more features, such as further status information, tasks and statistics. Some links, however, go to quite complex functions with very little in-program explanation. Opening firewall ports, for example, which is listed alongside the update and scan options, is a significantly more advanced task that should really be sunk another layer down in the program’s advanced user settings.

Value for money:
Most rival software is sold for around the price of the three-user suite. If you don’t need to protect any extra computers, go for the single-user option – it’s a bargain that’s hard to beat.