protection out of date with a valid license
Accepted Answer
-
Hello,
Thanks for your response!
My platform is Windows 7 and it is unsupported may be. The program is F-Secure SAFE.
So I think the situation is as follows. You installed F-Secure SAFE on this device relatively or quite a long time ago with a long-term subscription (or maybe did a renewal at the some point). As such, it may be just last year. At the moment when the installation was carried out, F-Secure SAFE still (in terms of extended support) supported Windows 7 as a platform. At some point, it became unavailable to make fresh installations on this operating system. However, the old installed software was still active with some restrictions. Such as receiving updates and some functionality may be limited.
The situation (EoL) is described a little bit there: Support for Windows 7 ending on August 14, 2023 - F-Secure Community (← clickable). This note also contains some recommendations and explanations.
The imminent end of support for Windows 7 was also announced in advance (When will F-Secure home products stop supporting Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System ? - F-Secure Community)
Is my computer with Windows 7 protected with this program?
In some ways. The main point is that the operating system itself may contain some security (unfixed/unfixable) problems that could allow malicious actors to compromise the system. Regardless of what security solution is installed on the system. And most of the third-party vendors (compared to Windows) cannot guarantee complete protection in this situation.
However, if you use this device with relative caution and at least the basic principles of safety, everything is not so bad. But it is better to refrain from very critical tasks on it (if there is an alternative in the form of another device).
In my experience, I have not tried using F-Secure SAFE on an OS that is no longer supported. I think common security modules (such as system scanning or web protection) may still be active. Not receiving AV database updates can affect the success of threat recognition. Therefore, it is better to use reliable software from a reliable source and visit reliable (known to you) web resources. To avoid accidental installing some 'tricky' ones.
You could check either your computer with Windows 7 protected against basic things with F-Secure SAFE by next steps:
- Testing Browsing and Tracking Protection with safe URLs - F-Secure Community (this is clickable URL, where you can find a test-domain and check if it will be blocked as a harmful-rated; if so, then web-module still filtering out known malicious-rated websites;)
- EICAR | F-Secure Labs (and you can AV-part by using known test-file as EICAR, described in this article).
You also can run Full Scan by F-Secure to check if system is alright (Running a virus scan manually | Total | Latest | F-Secure User Guides)
I apologize for the length of the answer. If you can check your situation and understand whether everything is limited to receiving virus databases or whether the functionality is also limited - it will be useful to know.
Basically, their official position is that they do not recommend using Windows 7 (or any other discontinued operating systems, meaning directly from Microsoft) or to be extremely careful. Since it is too difficult to guarantee any protection in such situations, and even more so when the software also ceases to support the OS and limits a number of functionality (for example, receiving updates) and does not allow fresh installation on such devices.
Thanks!
Answers
-
Hello,
I think more information is required about your setting.
For example, what device and operating system do you have? Windows, MacOS and which version? Or is it a mobile device?
Then, what is your F-Secure solution? This could be F-Secure Total app or F-Secure AV / F-Secure Internet Security.
Maybe a screenshot will be helpful. Also, when you wrote that "cannot Update" - how exactly did you come to this conclusion? What I mean is that, for example, "check updates"-button (or something like that) is not accessible / unavailable. OR maybe the update check itself failed?
Is your installation fresh? Or has the F-Secure application been installed for quite some time? In some cases (let's say on an already unsupported platform like Windows 7) - an active installation will likely still perform some functionality - but not receive updates after the named EoL time. At the same time, the subscription can still be active for some years in advance. And after some period of no updates, the application will be forced to notify about this (I think). As soon can be with Windows 8.1 edition (Support for Windows 8.1 ending on May 31, 2024 - F-Secure Community)
Thanks!