Following the series of test drives that I’ve been performing on the main brands’ security suites, this time I tested Emsisoft Internet Security Pack. As it is usual with the top security product from a company, Emsisoft’s security pack  includes anti-virus (2 separate scanning engines to be precise) a firewall, web filter and so forth.

After installing it, I put it to my classic acid test of visiting known malicious websites to observe how it behaves in a dangerous environment. I must say I tried multiple times to infect the computer, and all the attempts were thwarted by either the real-time protection module, or the web filter. Read on for what I found to be the problem with this product.

Although this product passed the test described above with flying colors, the problem I found with Emsisoft is its over-restricted and awkward approach to security. Every time ANY program tried to access the Internet, modify the registry, or otherwise perform any questionable action, a pop-up window came up alerting me to it and asking me to make a decision. And the worst part is, even though there was a checkbox to have Emsisoft remember my answer so I would not be prompted again when the same operation repeated, I kept being prompted again for a decision on things I had already decided what course of action to take, AND had told Emsisoft to remember my answer. Glitchy and awkward.

Along that line, I have tried the firewall before, as a stand-alone installation, and besides the above nuisance, I found the firewall to be very resource-hugging and a specific application installed in my computer, for no reason at all, decreased in performance about 2,000%. It was hard to track down too, as there was no evidence connecting the presence of the firewall to the degraded performance of the application, and only through a trial test was I able to ascertain that indeed the firewall was the culprit.

So although a pass on the test drive, I’d stay away from it in terms of the user experience.