Labs

FIREWALL RATING HHHH

F-Secure Internet Security 2005 is a suite of programs containing virtually everything you need to protect your PC. It includes a firewall, which we'll concentrate on in this review, as well as utilities to guard against spam, spyware, viruses and content from unsavoury websites.

The anti-virus scanner is second to none, while the anti-spam engine is adequate. In our tests it cleared up 40 per cent of our spam, making it less effective than SpamPal (www.spampal.org), which is free. The anti-spyware program is a rebranded

Most people will find the firewall easy to use. If you want to protect just a standalone PC's internet connection, you'll find that it does the job with the minimum of hassle. It has application protection to foil Trojans, and it quietly logs port scans and network attacks without bothering you.

Running it with a web server was not without problems, though. When we installed the IIS web server the slow test PC crashed. It also opened all IIS's ports, allowing the internet access to FTP and SMTP services. It was possible to add firewall rules to block the FTP and SMTP ports, but you have to refer to the services by name rather than port number, so if you were running SMTP on a port other than 25 you'd be a bit stuck. You need to create your own entry in the services list and then point to it, which is not straightforward.

If you want to buy a package that does everything you need with the minimum of tinkering, this can't be beaten on price.