F-Secure SAFE “full computer scan” seems not to scan all files

Ruud24

The number of files on my MacBook with MacOS Catalina (10.15.7) - the latest version - is about 757,000.

F-Secure SAFE “full computer scan” (trial version) only scans about 680,000 files. So less than the number of files on my MacBook.

I did also try 2 other antivirus software solutions from company A and company B.

The “full computer scan” of company A scans about 965,000 files.

The “full computer scan” of company B scans about 1,165,000 files.

Company A and B scan more than the number of files present on my MacBook. Maybe they scan inside “archive” files (e.g. dmg files or zip files, or etc).

Why does not F-Secure SAFE scan all my files (or more by opening “archive” files)?

Do you notice the same and do you know the reason why?

Amirul

Hi @Ruud24

Thank you for reaching out to F-Secure Community.

For your information, there is no difference between our trial product and purchase subscription. What you get during the trial will be the same when you purchase our product.

To answer your question, different security products may handle file scanning differently hence why the resulting scan varies for a different products. At F-Secure, we use the Security Cloud system which acts as the main component that takes care of primary protection. We also use different scanning engines that could result in the report may vary.

For example,  the first full computer scan scans all hard drives for malware, such as spyware, viruses, and rootkits. The second full computer scan will be significantly faster because only the files that have changed will be scanned. If an archive has not changed between scans, then it will not be touched in the second scan. If the archive contains 100 files, then the number of scanned files will be 100 less in the next scan. New virus definition update and computer restart reset the scan cache. This means that the first scan after the reset scans all files again and takes a longer time. The following scans will then be faster again.

To simplify this, different security products may provide you with a different level of security that results in different reports, but how the resources are being utilized is important so that it won't affect your daily activity on your computer.

jake23

https://community.f-secure.com/en/discussion/comment/131363#Comment_131363

Hi! I came here with the same question, and that's a great answer. However, it brings up my next concern - if there are files in the folder that should not change (for example docs), I would expect F-Secure to show X files scanned in the first scan, and then 0 in another scan. Yet it does not do it consistently and sometimes scans just a few of those documents, suggesting they have changed since the last scan. What may be the cause of such behavior?