We Got Served

Up until now in the world of the Windows Home Server, when it comes to anti-virus products there really has only been one choice - Avast! windows Home Server Edition. Now there’s a bit of competition with the recent release of the F-Secure Home Server Security beta.

When I was planning this article I thought I would be able to make a list of features and compare and contrast each product. However on downloading and installing F-Secure Home Server Security I found that the two products are really aimed at two different markets. I would classify Avast! as being aimed at WHS owners who want anti-virus protection for their server but also have a bunch of networked home PC’s to manage and want to be able to do that from one location. F-Secure Home Security, on the other hand, gives peace of mind to WHS owners who maybe have one or two PCs and are happy with the preinstalled anti-virus that was bought with the PC, (Which drains a subscription out of their bank balance every 12 months), but also want protection for their Windows Home Server. 

Now I have to admit when Terry asked me to do a write up of F-Secure Home Server Security, my heart sank a little. First up I had to uninstall avast! from my WHS, would this be a problem? Although I had no reason to think that it would be, but then I had to uninstall avast! from the 7 PC’s/Laptops on my home network, what a pain! So it took me a day or two to gird my loins for that task. As you can see from the following screen shots the avast! uninstall from the WHS went without a hitch using the console to uninstall the avast! Add-In. 

Open up the Windows Home Server console and uninstall avast!

Yes I do mean uninstall..

Wait for it….

Success!

After a reboot there was no obvious trace of avast! on the WHS. 

Now I assumed, (and one should never make assumptions) that F-Secure Home Server Security was a complete package of WHS and client anti-virus protection in the avast! genre. So with this misconception in mind I went ahead and uninstalled avast!  However after installing F-Secure I realised that it only protected your home server, so had to reinstall avast! on the home computers. More on this later.

The process for installing F-Secure is the same as all WHS Add-ins. Copy the installation file to the Add-ins folder in your Home Server’s Software share, navigate via the WHS console to Windows Home Server Settings. Open Add-ins and then select the available Add-ins tab. Click on the F-Secure Home Server Security Beta Install button and let Windows Home Server do the rest.

The F-Secure setup begins.

Now agree to sign your life and first born child away!!

Then enter the subscription key sent to you via email when you signed up for the beta.

Now wait for installation

And celebrate with a successful installation!

After restarting the console, progress to setting a few options.

 The startup wizard quickly sets up a full scan and enables a weekly scan every Friday.

Phew, my WHS is now protected!

The F-Secure WHS Console tab allows access to various functions within F-Secure.

Virus & Spyware protection:

Automatic updates:

My subscription. The beta comes with a six month subscription:

Scanning

After installation the initial scan undertakes a full of the WHS although using the Scan Now button enable a choice of scans:

After a scan:

After the scan is complete, information showing the type of threat present on the WHS is shown along with a recommendation as to what to do next - in this instance automatic cleaning of the item of malware.

After a thoroughh clean and disinfect of the home server, a report can be viewed.

This gives more information on the nature of the threat and about the scan undertaken:

Configuration

As I mentioned earlier, F-Secure is a server only package and does not manage other PCs on a home network. As such, it is aimed at the less experienced WHS owner wanting an set and forget anti-virus/spyware suite. And as such there is not much need to go fiddling under the hood. However F-Secure  has many configuration options and these are all accessible from the console.  

These include;

Real-Time Scanning:   Each bit of data pulled from the home server is scrutinised for viruses or spyware. I didn’t notice any particular access lag during this process, but if you had a problem you can easily turn it off.

Scheduled scans can be set:

Specific files can be scanned or excluded as well as configuring what F-Secure should do once it finds a virus or spyware:

Automatic updates of virus and spyware signatures is very important to maintain an up to date system:

Any files that are placed in quarantine can be viewed safely before a decision to clean:

Help is available but buried away within the quarantine section. The most obvious place for this would be to access it via the main F-Secure console screen. The help is fairly generic and equally applies for all F-secure products and not specifically to WHS. For example, the user is told to check the status icon in the task bar to determine if F-Secure is functioning properly, yet as F-secure resides on the server the user is not going to see any icon in the system tray unless the WHS Connector icon shows an alert. Now this is a beta product and this should hopefully be resolved by release.

So all in all F-Secure Home Server Security is easy to install and manage via the WHS Console. You can install and forget it or tweak it a little if you so desire.

For me personally, avast! WHS Edition has the edge as I want to manage anti-virus protection for all the PC’s on my network via the WHS Console as well as be alerted when there are issues. 

As for how well the system does at picking up viruses and spyware, let’s say there were no surprises on my WHS. It picked up one piece of Malware, although it was difficult to determine exactly where this was located - I could not find any way of viewing previous reports after another scan had taken place.

So in summary, F-Secure is a standard anti virus and spyware package but with nothing innovative or creative in the way it is implemented for Windows Home Server beyond the capability to manage it via the Console. It’s spyware tracking gives it a small edge over avast!, however, you really shouldn’t be browsing the internet with your home server, so this functionality seems a little extraneous. With the option to manage anti-virus protection on all of your computers from within the WHS Console, avast! remains the one to beat.