K7 Total Security offers a comprehensive protection suite with malware scanner, firewall and parental controls backed by a 30-day free trial and money-back guarantee.
K7 Computing was established in Chennai, India in 1991. Their software utilizes signatures and heuristics to detect threats while also including a software firewall and email spam filtering capabilities.
Virus Protection
K7 Total Security offers an array of antimalware protection features, including malware and ransomware detection as well as data locker. Furthermore, it comes equipped with spam filter, behavior-based ransomware protection, vulnerability scanning and parental control. However, my tests revealed that its malware protection proved less effective than some competing products.
I found the smart firewall and web protection provided by this program to perform admirably during my tests, blocking every suspicious URL and website I sent them as well as exploits attempting to run on my test computer. Furthermore, I particularly liked being able to run scans directly from the Scan tab without needing to navigate various submenus – an essential feature for busy users.
A Tools tab contains several smaller functions, including a virtual keyboard for entering passwords to protect against keyloggers and extremely basic cleaners for Windows and browser temporary files. In addition, this tool features the capability of vaccinating USB drives against autorun malware which could spread between devices; rare in suites but very helpful for keeping your data secure.
Firewall
K7’s firewall aims to defend you against network-based attacks, and did quite well at doing just that. Its approach to program control differs slightly from other suites: treating the first week as training before tightening security by requiring all programs requesting access. While this avoids popups from certain competitors that can popup unexpectedly during use, this leaves your system open to malware infection should a malicious program gain entry and begin shutting it down while working invisibly in the background.
K7 Total Security performs the standard scan to look for viruses and other threats on your computer, including rootkit detection based on behavior analysis; an often useful feature not present in other suites. My clean test system took around 110 minutes for its full scan compared with an average time of 120 minutes; an impressive 10-minute faster timeframe!
K7 Total Security includes a USB scanner to try to prevent this, as well as an option to vaccinate USB drives so they cannot be used by malware to spread from one system to the next.
K7 Total Security offers more than just virus and malware protection; it also features an email spam filter which does a solid job at filtering out junk mail, blocking malicious URLs and phishing sites which attempt to take your login credentials, as well as an efficient backup component that keeps files secure during ransomware attacks or other disasters that cause havoc with devices.
Spam Filter
K7 Total Security offers an array of privacy-protection features, from spam filtering and antimalware detection, scanning the hard drive and cache for adware and spyware detection and parental control monitoring of children’s web browsing activity – it typically consumes 10-20% of CPU resources during testing – typical for this class of software.
K7 offers features to protect files against ransomware and other forms of malware threats, as well as vulnerability scanning and password manager features. My hands-on tests demonstrated its behavior-based ransomware protection scored well overall despite failing to thwart all real-world attempts I made against it; its parental control system however proved ineffective during my trials.
Safe Surf, part of K7 Security Suite’s Internet Suite, blocks access to phishing sites – or those which masquerade as banks or retailers and steal credentials such as login name and credit card number from users – in my tests. In general, K7 Safe Surf managed to block 26% of such fake sites during my evaluation; when it denied access, its warning simply stated: “Access has been denied by K7 Safe Surf.” Other similar components usually take a more sophisticated approach with instructions for restoring access if needed.
Parental Control
K7 Total Security offers an array of digital well-being monitors and controls. Its antivirus software earned high marks from independent labs as well as our hands-on tests; its antivirus protection did well without slowing down system performance or impacting system speed; yet parental controls, an essential feature most parents consider necessary, were lacking.
Parental Control cockpit of our suite enables you to easily create both blacklists of websites you do not wish for certain users to visit and whitelists of sites they can visit, setting limits on online time spent by certain individuals and blocking specific applications. In addition, a separate tab configures global options for cookies, ActiveX applets and Java applets; with password protection for web browsers.
However, you must remain careful as children can quickly find ways to bypass these tools. For instance, circumvention of ad blocking is possible by adding text strings such as “/ad” or “/adinfo” into URLs; hence the family link feature of K7 Ultimate Security should provide healthy alternatives to restricted apps and websites.
Other parental control features include virtual keyboards that can protect against keyloggers and password managers that help track online activity by your children. You can also teach them how to avoid phishing attacks and cyber-attacks.