F-Secure Offers Lifetime Security

There's a trend among security companies to offer super-wide protection that covers all of your devices. A subscription to McAfee LiveSafe, for example, lets you install protection on every Mac, PC, and mobile device in your household and monitor them all from a single location. Symantec and Kaspersky offer similar packages, though their subscriptions cover a fixed number of devices. Today, F-Secure announced an offer that's expansive in a different direction.
Rather than cover all your devices for one year, the F-Secure Internet Security PC Lifetime License covers one PC for its entire lifetime, which F-Secure defines as seven years. Users will get the exact same protection offered by F-Secure Internet Security 2014, updating to all new versions that appear during the seven-year subscription. It's definitely a novel approach.
Laptops Under the Tree
There are some limitations you'll want to be aware of. First, this is a limited-time offer, lasting only until the end of January in 2014. That makes sense; F-Secure's aim is to have you install the product on that brand-new computer you got as a holiday gift. They point out a study by the Consumer Electronics Association that reports 74 percent of consumers plan to purchase some kind of CE device for the holidays, and that notebooks and laptops made the top five wish list for both adults and teens.
There's another reason to install the lifetime license on a brand-new computer—it's non-transferable. If you replace that computer before seven years, you can't transfer the license to a new computer. The license specifically states that it lasts "for the functional lifetime of your PC computer but no more than 7 years from the installation date."
Finally, in my own testing F-Secure did a good job keeping malware out of a clean system, but wasn't as effective rooting out already-existing infections. That's yet another reason to install it on a brand-new computer.
A Good Deal?
For $59.99, the basic license for F-Secure Internet Security lets you protect three PCs for one year. A lifetime license costs $79.99. Let's see, so the basic license is about $20 per PC per year, while the lifetime license is less than $12 per PC per year as long as you keep it for the entire seven years. On the flip side, if you replace your PC in less than four years, the lifetime license isn't a bargain.
So, which type of computer user are you? The one who just has to have the very newest box? Or the one who carefully tends each PC year after year, keeping it running well into its old age? Your answer will determine whether this offer is a good match or not. You can find the offer here.