F-Secure Anti-Virus 2016

The simple main window for F-Secure Anti-Virus provides simple statistics about security and updates, and also offers buttons to launch a quick scan or change settings.

There aren't many settings to think about with this product. Do note that if you leave "Handle harmful files automatically" checked, F-Secure will silently wipe out malware without notifying you.

When you turn off automatic malware-smiting, F-Secure displays a window like this upon detection malware. For testing, I always chose to let it handle the item automatically.

If you want a full computer scan, you need to select it on the Tools page. The scan button on the main page just runs a quick scan.

Instead of using a boring old progress bar to show how much is left to scan, F-Secure uses a cool progress ring instead. The entire window gets shaded to match the arc representing current progress.

New in this edition, the scan displays all found harmful items in an easy-to-read list. You can change the action for any, if you wish, and then just click a button to handle all of the items.

You can use your three licenses to install F-Secure on either Macs or PCs. The Mac edition looks very similar, but lacks a few features found in the PC edition.

F-Secure's DeepGuard behavioral detection engine watches for patterns of suspicious behavior. When it blocks a suspicious file, it lets you know what happened.

In testing, DeepGuard didn't block any of 20-odd PCMag utilities. However, it couldn't verify the safety of about a third of them, so it added those to its watch list for enhanced monitoring.

Clicking a link in the antivirus's main window installs a free, feature-limited edition of F-Secure Booster. The free Booster will clean your computer, but the speedup and update components aren't available.