F-Secure SAFE 2018
A clean interface, but the maddening number of false positives mean we can’t recommend this suite
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE 1yr, 3 devices, £28 (£34 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/279fsec
In terms of malware prevention, F-Secure’s internet security suite – known for the past few years as SAFE – does a pretty good job. Its protection score of 99.7% equals Kaspersky’s, and only misses perfection by the tiniest margin.
Unfortunately, AV-Comparatives found that the score came along with a whopping 38 false positives – a dreadful result that’s miles behind any other contender. Maddeningly, there isn’t even a way to get the software to double-check with you before quarantining files: you just have to let SAFE do its thing, then go into the software and manually restore any items that have been wrongly removed.
It’s a shame, because SAFE is quite an attractive security suite. As with Eset, the interface is clean and simple: the home tab offers literally two buttons, one for launching a scan and the other for configuring the (few) relevant options.
The next tab down is Family Rules – an update to the old Parental Control module that moves management into the cloud, so you can configure web-browsing restrictions and time limits from an online portal. It’s a convenient way of doing things if your child has their own PC, and it also connects to F-Secure’s Android- and iOS-based parental control apps. There’s no way to block applications or social media contacts, however, and web filtering only works on iOS if your child uses the F-Secure browser, so you’ll have to disable Safari.
The other major feature is F-Secure’s password manager, which comes as an optional download. This works perfectly well – but if you want to synchronise your passwords across multiple devices and platforms, you will need to pay £11 a year for the premium service. That’s a pretty shocking cash grab, considering that you’re already paying for SAFE – and that there are plenty of third-party password managers that will do the same for free.
Aside from that there’s not much to configure, the settings pages having been designed to a minimalist Nordic template. SAFE also stays pleasingly out of the way when launching applications and browsing the web: AV-Comparatives rated it very fast, even when running new programs for the first time. File-copy performance wasn’t so hot though, rating as mediocre on the initial run.
To be blunt, it’s academic anyway. Based on the results before us, SAFE 2018 simply can’t be trusted to tell what’s a virus and what’s not. That’s unacceptable – and the fact that it’s expensive doesn’t help either.