Keeping a computer secure online is an ever-more-complex job.

The days of merely needing a firewall and anti-virus program are now over – with its various components F-Secure Internet Security is a good example of these changes.

The main screen is fairly simple with a large icon showing whether the computer is safe or not, accompanied by shortcuts to three main sections – status, tasks and statistics – and smaller icons for updates and settings. The large green tick denoting a safe computer still appears if scheduled virus scanning is disabled, although we would recommend running regular scans.

The Status screen gives an overview of the different kinds of protection offered. Virus and spyware protection are bundled together, while the firewall keeps an eye on what programs are trying to talk to the internet as well as keeping hackers out, and dial-up protection prevents modem users being scammed into dialling premium-rate numbers. A toolbar in Internet Explorer gives a warning of anything untoward in websites and checks search engine results and webmail, there is email spam filtering and, finally, parental controls.

The Deepguard protection is an interesting solution to the problem of malicious software being released much more often. Deepguard decides whether or not software should be allowed to run based both on lists created by F-Secure and on what the program is trying to do. Behaviour such as trying to change the Windows Registry would trigger an alert unless it is on a list of approved software, in which case there is no interruption to the user. Likewise, if the software is on a list of known miscreants it is blocked without question.

The parental controls have two levels of protection, for small children and teenagers. Each has separate limits for time spent online, though the restrictions don’t apply to chat or online games. Children are only allowed to browse sites in an approved list, whereas teenagers are restricted the other way round with full access except to some blocked sites.

There are free security tools available, but the full-on F-Secure package keeps everything simple and working properly. F-Secure Internet Security 2010 includes some useful tools and is easy to use.