‘Potentially unwanted applications’ have behaviors or traits that you may consider undesirable or unwanted. ‘Unwanted applications’ can affect your device or data more severely.
An application may be identified as ‘potentially unwanted’ (PUA) if it can:
- Affect your privacy or productivity – for example, exposes personal information or performs unauthorized actions
- Put undue stress on your device’s resources – for example, uses too much storage or memory
- Compromise the security of your device or the information stored on it – for example, exposes you to unexpected content or applications
These behaviors and traits can affect your device or data to a varying degree. They are not however harmful enough to warrant classifying the application as malware.
An application that shows more severe behaviors or traits is considered an ‘unwanted application’ (UA). The product will treat such applications with more caution.
The product will handle an application differently depending on whether it is a PUA or UA:
- A potentially unwanted application – The product will automatically block the application from running. If you are certain that you trust the application, you may instruct the F-Secure product to exclude it from scanning. You must have administrative rights to exclude a blocked file from scanning.
- An unwanted application – The product will automatically block the application from running.