This week’s test drive is the recently released F-Secure Total Security 2012. As usual, upon installing it and updating its signature file, I proceeded to throw the computer at malicious websites to see how effective F-Secure was in thwarting the malware therein.

First round: downloaded a program right out of a Russian website, and emulating a gullible computer user, proceeded trying to open the program just downloaded. F-Secure real-time protection module jumped, blocked it from opening, alerted me to its existence, and nuked it. A posterior in-depth analysis revealed the program was indeed never allowed to open, so no damage to the computer. First round: Pass.

Second round: A fresh Trojan. Same behavior, same result as first round.

Third round: Another very nasty Trojan, the most frequent type of malware these days. Same result, the real-time protection module didn’t even let the file finish downloading and rendered it harmless. Pass!

Fourth round: A fake antivirus. Same result: No luck in infecting the computer. It became obvious that these attempts to infect the computer were pretty much useless. I actually ran out of malicious websites to throw the computer at! And despite all the efforts, not only did the computer not get infected with any payload, the files containing malware were not allowed to stay in the computer, in fact they weren’t even allowed to arrive at the computer. Because no malicious file was allowed to open (execute), some of the security layers were not even called upon! (Like the firewall).

Conclusion

Similar to my recent review of Lavasoft’s product, F-Secure passed the test but at the cost of some system performance impact: I spotted 12 different processes running in the background when F-Secure is running. That’s a lot of processes for just one program. And even though my test computer is fast, I was able to clearly perceive the performance degradation once F-Secure was installed. So users with old or slow computers might want to stay away.

The updated list of security products that have passed my test follows. The sequence is simply the order in which they have been tested and does not represent any kind of performance score:

1. Kaspersky Internet Security 2012.

2. VIPRE Antivirus Premium.

3. ZoneAlarm Extreme Security Suite 2012.

4. Avira Internet Security Suite 2012.

5. Emsisoft Internet Security Pack.

6. Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware Total Security Suite 2011.

7. F-Secure Total Security 2012.

And remember, any of the above products provide enough protection to keep you safe while surfing the web IF complemented with AppGuard, as laid out in my article from over 2 years ago on the subject.