Review: F-Secure Mac Online Backup

July 03, 2009

By Gil Poulsen

Product: F-Secure Online Backup
Company: F-Secure
Price: $49 for 12-month subscription
Website: f-secure.com

Over the past 15 years I’ve purchased, used, reviewed and even trained other users in numerous applications that were “ported” from their Windows versions to run on the Macintosh platform. Some have been supremely Mac-like, showing little or no evidence they were originally written for an entirely different computing platform. Others appeared to be assembled with less regard for the Mac user, perhaps still sporting some Windows-specific close boxes or other user interface elements. Some contained references in the help system to the C:\ drive, or to files or directories that aren’t actually present on Macs.

Then there’s F-Secure’s Online Backup, the alleged Mac version.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m going to purchase a program I’ll be trusting to back up all the critical files on my Mac - and enable me to restore them easily and accurately - I’d like that program to at least appear to be created for the Macintosh platform. Not only is F-Secure Online Backup (hereinafter referred to as FSOB) the sloppiest port of a Windows application I’ve seen in recent memory, but it also appears designed to deliberately confuse the user right from the start in terms of which files are actually being backed up.

That’s unfortunate for the folks at F-Secure, because FSOB does indeed “work.” In my testing I was able to back up well over a gigabyte of data to their remote vault, then successfully restore various document types to my Mac in an intact and accessible state. But the program’s Byzantine file selection process makes for a great deal of head-scratching when it comes to designating files for backup, while the default settings inexplicably omit all music files, yet include all video files. Remarkably, FSOB even asserts that it will be protecting my Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird or Windows Mail e-mail data, with no mention of Apple Mail or Entourage; that’s not the kind of interface screw-up that inspires confidence in a backup system.

My initial - and futile - attempt to fully grasp FSOB’s configuration process sent me scurrying back to the printed manual included in the box, only to discover that it contained exactly one page of Mac installation instructions and one page of uninstallation instructions. The downloadable PDF manual was much more revealing, providing a table that details how the default settings for the five categories in the file selection area operate, while at the same time confusing me beyond all rational measure. I’ll try to make some sense of the process as I go along, but there are some mysteries even an experienced writer/reviewer is incapable of unraveling.

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