360 Total Security Review

360 Total Security, also known as 360 Safeguard, is a program developed by Qihoo 360. This antivirus software uses Avira and BitDefender engines, and also offers many additional original tools. The essential plan is completely free. However, there are variations available in the paid plan for the antivirus.

There are two versions in the Total Security line: 360 Total Security and 360 Total Security Essential. Their main difference is that the Essential version has significantly fewer features than the standard one. For example, Essential lacks performance enhancement, cache removal, Wi-Fi hotspot scanning, and vulnerability removal features.

Apart from that, they are identical. Both versions have the following features: several innovative antivirus technologies, such as a cloud scanner, various antivirus engines, anti-phishing, and anti-malware. Also, they provide an effective counteraction to viruses that spy on a user through a computer’s webcam and keyboard, a component of the general protection of the OS.

The element of general security allows you to instantly check plug-in USB drives, use a firewall, lock-on triggers, protect the registry, scan data of opened and saved files, and much more. As the standard version of the antivirus, is free, it is a good choice regarding the software functionality. So, it is important to look closer at the details.

360 Total Security Antivirus Price and Plans

There are three basic plans you can choose from as a user. They differ in functionality and hardware requirements, so you can pick one that is optimal for you.

360 Total Security Essential

The name speaks for itself: the plan has the essential antivirus and anti-malware features your PC may need. It protects your system from possible viruses and is free, but contains ads. But if you want the software to lighten up your computer, this plan is not enough.

360 Total Security

This plan is the most popular among users and can match your expectations about an antivirus. It has all the functionality of the Essential, plus clean-up, speed-up, and Wifi security check options. Notably, this plan is also free of charge and also contains ads. You can set it up to the way you want, but all the operations in it are designer to perform either by default or manually.

360 Total Security Premium

It is the antivirus plan with its full possible capacity. The extended features of the premium plan allow the antivirus to shred data, clean your privacy, analyze your disc, set up a firewall. Besides, you can schedule your clean-ups, and choose a lively visual theme. This plan is ad-free, as there is nowhere to upgrade it. This software plane will cost you $13 per month.

360 Total Security Antivirus Pros

Security

The basis of the security package is virus protection, but the engines for this are actually Avira and BitDefender. For those who need reliable protection, this is excellent news: both of these scanners perform well for a regular PC user.

There are three scanning options: quick scan (very fast – it took me less than five minutes), custom scan, and full system scan. There is also a built-in Patch-Up feature that automatically checks installed programs to make sure they are not outdated or contain vulnerabilities. If the system detects a program with an available update, it suggests information about the update and a link to download the new version.

Outdated software is a good find for a hacker (67% of computers infected with the WannaCry virus work with an outdated version of Windows). In addition to the vulnerability scanner, this program also looks for other system vulnerabilities. It automatically tags advertising tags and quickly fixes issues.

Scanner has many useful features

360 Total Security will quickly find any threats that arise due to optimization problems. It also detects unnecessary and outdated data you do not need or should delete. Selecting Fix, the user will ensure the elimination of all detected problems, the field of which can be clicked on Recheck for a control scan. The scanner interface is convenient and understandable.

By doing a full scan, the antivirus can find not only optimization problems and unnecessary files but also virus applications and other malware. It is also possible to scan wireless network security, but some router models, unfortunately, may not be supported.

Optimization and cleanup

The module offers to disable some scheduled tasks (usually unnecessary ones like a software quality improvement program) or some unnecessary services (such as font buffering service). Also, it suggests optimizing the network connection. To fix all the problems found, click the Optimize button.

The system cleaning module allows you to delete various junk files, such as temporary files, browser cache files, system junk, etc. At the end of the cleaning, the program will offer to free up additional disk space using System Backup Cleaner. If automatic updating of your system is not turned off, this tool can be quite useful. It allows you to delete unused backup files of system updates, which take up quite a lot of space.

Performance

The dispatcher shows three rather modest processes that use processor time and RAM very economically. For example, the same default and accessible among many users browser Firefox can use more than 500 MB of RAM. At the same time, the antivirus with its three processes takes only about 50 MB, which is extremely compact compared to many running applications.

The antivirus demonstrates outstanding performance at the hardware with 3 GB of RAM, Intel 1000M about 1.8 GHz for 2 cores and the Win10 OS (64-bit). However, it makes no discomfort during operation, and the OS performance does not get affected by the antivirus.

Easy-to-understand UI

Installing Qihoo 360 Total Security is a relatively simple two-step process. The executable is downloaded from the website, and subsequently downloads the definitions and components that the program should run. We should highlight that some additional modules (such as a decryption tool from ransomware viruses) are not included in the package bundle.

Instead, they are loaded after the initial installation is completed. It helps to keep the size and boot speed relatively manageable. After installation, the program is easy to manage. The notification icon informs you of system alerts that do not require intervention, and additional tools are available from the toolbox menu. All in all, this is a well-developed user-friendly software.

360 Total Security Antivirus Cons

It needs your participation

Antivirus may not respond to the threat with the default settings. It is solved by turning on the Avira and Bitdefender engines, which are initially turned off. It requires your participation even when you are not aware that something may be wrong with your system. So, you need to guess when to run the full scan or do it from time to time. It will ensure the security of your computer and data, but it is not independent in 360 Total Security.

It gets too paranoid

This antivirus may get too suspicious from time. For example, it may dislike a video card driver or software that is fully safe. This infrequent phenomenon may depend on the specific configuration or settings of the program itself. Also, it brings inconvenience when you try to open or install some files that do not contain viruses.

Support is not there

Qihoo 360 Total Security is an entirely free antivirus, so you should expect that the support service will not be as comprehensive as that of paid software. Nevertheless, the company offers basic questions and answers online to help users solve common problems, such as installing or manually updating antivirus databases. However, you can immediately see that there is no phone or live chat support, and email support is only available for users who have switched to 360 Total Security Premium.

360 Total Security Extra Features

360 Connect

If you need to configure your grandmother’s computer remotely, this tool will help you. It is a specific feature with its own issues, but it is easy to manage in the program’s intuitive interface.

Instant installation

It allows you to install various popular programs with one click (ICQ, Skype, etc.)

Browser protection

This feature allows you to protect your browser from unauthorized changes to the search engine and/or your homepage. Unlike its competitors, it does not provide the options of safe viewing and blocking tracking of the user.

Firewall

The full-time Windows firewall is pretty good, and it will satisfy the needs of most users. If it turns out to be small, then 360 Total Security offers to install (completely free) GlassWire Firewall. Actually, after starting the Firewall tool, you will see a window with the Install button. After installing the firewall, this button will start it.

Sandbox

With the sandbox feature, you can run hazardous programs, and all the changes to the system configuration made in the sandbox will not affect the real system. This feature comes in handy if you are not sure about the application you install or run.

PC vulnerability scanner

It is a useful system vulnerability scanner that allows you to check for security updates and various patches. It is also possible to install or remove a security update (patch).

Disk Compression

This feature allows you to free up disk space by compressing system files. It can offer to free disc space by compressing 4.7 GB of data. But you should take into account that the compression of system files will certainly lead to a decrease in performance. So, you need to resort to this measure only as a last resort or when free space is more important than performance.

How to install and setup 360 Total Security

Installation

Installing 360 Total Security on Windows, macOS, or Android is very simple. Anyone who has ever installed at least a program can handle it. You need to download the file from the official site and run it.

Then, user intervention is minimal. The installer will only offer to select the folder to install it in and the language. Before installing 360 Total Security, be sure to remove another antivirus, if you had any, in the system. Otherwise, they will begin to conflict and make a big load.

The system requirements of 360 Total Security are quite modest: the antivirus needs 512 MB of RAM and a 1.6 GHz processor. But, in reality, it is much more modest when it runs in the background. It takes up only a few tens of Mb of memory, and the system loads almost imperceptibly. For Windows, all versions from XP to 10 are supported, both 32-bit and 64-bit.

However, when scanning the system, the load increases noticeably, although then it decreases slightly. But a full computer scan is a troublesome task for any antivirus, in principle, consuming almost all resources. Although 360 Total Security is not particularly voracious in this case and can work effectively even on a weak computer.

Engines setup

• Avira. An engine from developers from Germany, which does not connect automatically.
• Bitdefender. It is another engine that also does not connect automatically.
• Cloud Scanner. It is a built-in cloud engine that uses file checksum technology. It works constantly, does not turn off as a separate component.
• QVM AI. It is a is a built-in preventative protection system that uses cloud-based mechanisms. It makes sure that protection from new viruses is up to date. It works constantly, does not turn off as a separate component.

You can plug-in and unplug the downloadable components, but you need to install them first. The good news is, the program will take on the hardest part again. You can open the Antivirus section and click on the icon corresponding to the engine you want. The download and installation process can be monitored on a horizontal scale at the bottom. Turning the component off is also easy: do it in the application settings or by moving the slider that opens when you hover over the desired icon.

Antivirus setup

Straight after installation, the antivirus is ready to work and will offer to perform a full scan and optimize the system. You can agree, and 360 Total Security will do it automatically. You can refuse and do all this at a more convenient time.

You can go to the Antivirus tab and connect the Avira and Bitdefender engines as well. These themselves are among the best, and when combined, they provide excellent protection. But keep in mind that the load on the system and resource consumption will increase slightly.

Among other settings in the General section, you can disable the output of the system boot time, but this information is insignificant for the average user. Also, the program does not respond to archives that are just stored on disk by default, even if they have viruses. Therefore, it is useful to enable the Scan compressed files in the Antivirus section. In the Privacy section, you can enable a warning when trying to use a webcam. It will protect your computer against unauthorized surveillance through it.

Configuration settings

You can temporarily disable 360 ​​Total Security antivirus. To do this, you can click on the tray icon with the right mouse button and drag the slider to the Off position in the menu that appears.
Disabling 360 ​​Total Security for a while can be done differently. Open the interface by clicking on the tray icon, and then click on the icon in the upper left corner with the inscription Protection: On. The Settings button will appear on the right side. Click on it, then Disable protection will be displayed at the bottom. You can enable it the same way.

Disable protection

Before disabling 360 Total Security antivirus, consider that you leave the system unprotected. Any malicious program at this time remains without control and can do much harm to your computer. However, if you turn off 360 Total Security for a short time, and then turn it back on, it will scan and detect malware anyway.

Our verdict

It is a decent antivirus for a regular user. Extensive acceleration and cleaning tools improve the state of your system by removing unnecessary applications and startup files. There is also a handy graph of the average load time of your system, which makes it easy to observe improvements after eliminating unnecessary services.

Also, 360 Total Security provides a menu of Guides, which allows you to change the system settings, in case you are not satisfied with automatically configured tools. If there is something you do not understand, you can find the answer there. And finally, in the History section, you can see all the changes in the system optimization settings. These tools also have excellent cleaning planner integration.

360 Total Security online security tools include a file shredder for the safe removal of unwanted files and folders (available in the free trial version in the basic plan and with a Premium subscription), and a virtual sandbox environment for safely checking potentially malicious programs, a virtual storage for storing passwords, as well as a tool to decrypt corrupted data.

This tool is designed to crack the encryption of ransomware viruses that block access to your files and directories, which is the second line of defense against cyber threats.

Frequently asked question