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Highly Effective and Thorough Scans

As for the scans, you have a choice between Full (available from the main menu), Quick, and even Scheduled scans. While the quick scan runs through the most important (and vulnerable) sections of the OS in less than three minutes, the full scan needs up to one hour to complete. But, it's very thorough and checks all the files and folders on a user's computer.

The Custom scans do precisely what the name suggests: allow you to set up custom checks and pick which drives/folders/files/apps should be checked. And don't forget that Total Security comes packed with three engines, including the Cloud engine, Bitdefender, and Avira. It would be a good idea to run scans with all three engines once a month to make sure the OS is safe and sound.

Effective Optimization Tools

Can you see the Cleanup icon on the dashboard, in the bottom left corner? All you need to do to access it is to click on it once; next, hit the 'Scan' button - Total Security will automatically start a junk files/plugin scan. While it won't make wonders happen, the positive effect on performance can be quite significant. That's especially true for older operating systems that you've been running for two years or more.

The speedup is also quite useful: it's located right above Cleanup in the main menu. It's just as simple as all the other tools in 360; click the Optimize button and let it try its best at improving performance. Together, the Total Security tune-up tools will be a good routine to run once a couple of months. Compared to rival products, they are well above average.

Cloud-Based Protection

The best thing about the cloud-based engine - it detects threats in real time, and the database is continually being updated. That means you will be protected from all the latest threats (which can't always be said about leading solutions like Kaspersky). The engine is continuously monitoring the system, looking for any suspicious activity.

When you switch to cloud-based protection, system impact is significantly reduced during scans. Still, as we said earlier, it is highly recommended to use all the available engines during a scan to make sure there are no malicious files left on your drive. Make a habit of always scheduling a full scan that includes all the engines and give Total Security some time to perform all tests.

360 Total Security Cons

Lab Test Results Leave a Lot to be Desired

Mediocre antivirus protection is one of the most significant downsides of Total Security. Still, in the most recent lab tests ran by AV-Comparatives, it managed to earn a perfect 6/6 score in Protection. In Performance, it achieved the same rating, while earning 4/4 in Usability. Compared to Bitdefender and Kaspersky with their perfect 18/18 scores, this is quite a decent achievement, especially for a maintenance suit.

In our in-house tests, we always use a folder full of malicious samples and release it to the OS. Different antivirus programs react differently to this: some of them interfere as soon as they see any suspicious activity; others 'attack' the files only when they're trying to copy themselves to the hard drive.

Total Security can do both, depending on the mode (in Security, it's continuously monitoring the drives and prevents any attempts of planting malware; in Balanced, it waits until the files make their way onto the system). In this test, it detected up to 85% of the malicious files. You might think that this is an excellent performance, but standalone versions of Bitdefender and Avira eliminated 94% of the malware.

On the bright side, Total Security is excellent against phishing websites, which are steadily becoming the biggest threat for modern-day users. It showed results similar to Webroot and Bitdefender and kept all the dangerous URLs at bay. A quick fact: we ran the same tests last year, and 360 wasn't nearly as impressive.

Online Shopping Protection automatically kicks in whenever you enter a shopping website. It is quite good at protecting against hijacking and keylogging. It's important to note that while we were satisfied by its performance against outside threats when we planted ransomware samples on the system, it failed at detecting them.

Pop-Ups in Free Edition

It's as simple as that: to use the free product, you'll have to get used to the constant ads. The only way to get rid of them is to upgrade to the paid version, which costs 14.99 dollars a year. It's a common practice for free software to be full of ads; however, Avast, Kaspersky, and Bitdefender are a lot less 'contaminated' with advertisements.

Some of the Most Effective Tools aren't Available with 360 Free

In the Pros, we mentioned that Total Security offers a generous line-up of useful tools. However, some of the most effective ones only come as a part of the Premium edition. We'll go over every single additional tool in the Extra Features section. For now, it's important to stress out that the entry-level functionality is still quite decent and on par with most rivals on the market.

Still, we consider this to be a con, as the leading maintenance tools on the market offer more free features. Besides, compared to rivals, most of the free tools are underpowered and won't be as effective.

Full Scans Have a Significant Negative Effect on Performance

While working in the background and running through the drives and folders in the regular mode, 360 has a light impact on the system. But when you run scans, especially the full scan, the strain on the system CPU, RAM, and hard drive raise exponentially. This is especially true for the Avira and Bitdefender engines. Even if you have a modern-day computer, we would advise against running any heavy apps when there's an active scan.

Lab Scores

And now, let's take a quick look at how 360 Total Security performed in various real-world tests. We carefully examined tests ran by several leading third parties and are happy to share the results with you.

AV-Comparatives, one of the most recognized independent testers, gave it the Advanced+ rating back in 2014 for real-world protection. In the performance test, it only earned 2 stars out of 3.

AV-Test, a similarly respected company, checked Total Security's capabilities in 2017. Back then, it got 5.5/6 in Performance, 3.5/6 in Usability, and 4/6 in Protection (1/6 with the default engine). Yes, the results were lower than average, and the product hasn't been significantly improved over the last 2 years. Interesting fact: during the 2013-2014 period, the Qihoo solutions managed to perform a lot better.

That same year (in 2017), SElabs tested 13 antivirus products from different companies. Total Security had a Legitimate Accuracy of 95% and a Protection Accuracy of 27% (with a total of 70%). That earned it the last place on the list, while Norton and Kaspersky took the lead.