The accuracy of this antivirus program is a concern, despite the fact that it is very small, very fast, and offers a stack of tempting features.
Pros
Fast
Exceptionally low in weight
Blocking of URLs with high accuracy
A multitude of useful features
Cons
Below average outcomes in independent tests
During the review, there were multiple false positives.
There are several advanced functions that are difficult to operate.
Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus is an intriguing piece of software that can be used on both Windows and Mac computers. It searches for malicious software in an unconventional manner.
Webroot spends the majority of its time on intelligent behaviour monitoring, which enables it to detect even the most recent threats. This is in contrast to other suites, which place a heavy emphasis on detecting known malware (opens in new tab), which typically requires stacks of background processes and regular downloads of cumbersome signature definitions.
This results in an application that is incredibly small – only 15 megabytes on the test PC, compared to over a gigabyte for many suites – and because it does not check every potential file for known dangers, scans are typically finished in a matter of seconds. (The Webroot website makes the claim that it is sixty times quicker than some of its rivals.)
In spite of its compact size, Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus nevertheless manages to pack in a long list of features, including antivirus protection, real-time antiphishing protection, an additional layer of anti-ransomware protection, a straightforward firewall, and a network monitor.
The Identity Protection feature provides users with a set of tools that work together to block malicious software and websites from gaining access to their personal information. Protection is provided against unwanted screen grabbers, keyloggers, questionable browser add-ons, cookie and website data theft, and more besides.
When you upgrade to Internet Security Plus with AntiVirus, you will receive support for both Android and iOS, in addition to a straightforward password manager.
Internet Security Complete with Antivirus includes additional features such as the automatic erasure of your web activities as well as an online backup service that provides 25 GB of secure online storage space.
Strategies and cost breakdowns
Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus (opens in new tab) can be purchased for $24 to protect one device for the first year, with the price increasing to $40 when the subscription is renewed.
There is no provision within the licence for adding more devices. Although Webroot is offering a second year of service for the price of $36, this discount is so insignificant that it is unlikely to sway the majority of users.
Protecting three devices with Webroot Internet Security Plus with AntiVirus (opens in a new tab) costs $36 for the first year and $60 annually thereafter.
Webroot Internet Security Complete with AntiVirus (opens in new tab) protects up to five devices and costs $48 for the first year but increases to $80 annually thereafter.
Although the price isn’t very cheap, it falls within the range that we would have anticipated. For example, during the first year, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus costs only $15, but during renewal, the price remains the same at $40.
However, Bitdefender offers greater flexibility in terms of billing. You have the ability to extend your licence for a greater number of devices and years, which will, over time, result in significant cost savings. If you have a lot of hardware that has to be protected, for example, you can get a three-year licence for ten devices for only $180, which works out to only $6 per device per year.
Setup
You are not need to provide Webroot with your credit card information in order to use its trials; however, you will be required to register with your name and email address. After that, the website will give you a download link as well as a licence key good for 14 days.
Installation is quick, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given that the programme itself is so lightweight that there is essentially nothing that has to be done. Webroot is compatible with the vast majority of other antivirus software, and it can do so without causing any of the typical conflicts or headaches.
Webroot will launch and perform an initial system scan as soon as the installation is finished. This took less than a minute on our test PC, but it was still able to identify a couple of adware-related objects on our test system, which is something that most other antivirus solutions are unable to do. You can quickly evaluate or take action on any results with only one or two clicks, and then you can let Webroot continue to secure your computer.
Whatever it is that you’re doing, it does not appear like Webroot will have any significant impact on the resources that are available on your machine. The software simply added two background processes to our computer: one user application and one service. These processes frequently utilised less than 10 megabytes of random access memory (RAM), making them about as undemanding as an antivirus can get.
Antivirus
The user interface of Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus is far more complicated than that of the majority of its rivals. It is packed with panels, icons, switches, tiny buttons, and a great deal of text.
If you choose to do nothing with your antivirus software, then this may not matter all that much. The application will begin guarding your device as soon as it is installed, and in the event that you are ever concerned about the possibility of an infection, the ‘Scan My Computer’ button on the control panel will make it abundantly apparent to you what steps you should take next.
Finding the other aspects might be a challenge in and of itself. The application has a number of different scan types, such as Quick (RAM only), Full (local hard drives), Deep (look for rootkits, Trojans, and more), and Custom (scan specific files or folders), but they are buried so deeply in the interface that you may never realise they exist (to see what is on offer, click PC Security > Settings > Custom Scan).
Regardless of whatever scan we went with, it was incredibly quick. The intense Deep Scan took two minutes and 15 seconds to complete, while the Quick Scan was finished in fifteen to twenty seconds. The other scans fell somewhere in the between of these two extremes.
The algorithm was successful in identifying all of the potential dangers that we used as a sample. Detection rates were high. It even prevented us from launching one of our test applications, which is a tool that we use to carry out a variety of attacks. No other antivirus software has detected the possible risks posed by this programme before it was even launched.
Webroot, on the other hand, had an abnormally high proportion of false positives. To determine the extent of any performance impact, such as that of an antivirus, we make use of the superior PCMark Professional programme. However, Webroot identified a completely harmless component of PCMark as a potential danger, seemingly only due to the fact that it was built in Autoit (a scripting language sometimes used by malware.) In addition to that, there is something that we have not seen from any other antivirus software.
Features
URL filtering protects you from potential danger by utilising Webroot’s extensive database of malicious websites in conjunction with real-time anti-phishing protection. This did a good job for us, blocking malicious websites in a consistent manner, something that Chrome and Windows failed to do.
Regrettably, Webroot could only protect us in browsers in which its web extension was installed (Edge, Chrome, Firefox on our test system.) We did not experience any problems when attempting to access URLs from other applications.
The programme provides what Webroot refers to as a firewall, but it does not have any of the configurable features that are found in other firewalls such as Norton or Bitdefender. Instead, SecureAnywhere AntiVirus takes care of the majority of the laborious tasks. It monitors new and untrusted processes that connect to the internet, notifies you when new connections are created by apps that are not trusted, and asks you to either approve or deny these new connections.
This is a pleasant and interesting addition to any antivirus software; but, the lack of control may disappoint security professionals.
A keylogger, screen grabber attack, clipboard snooping, and other forms of unauthorised access to your data are all prevented by an Identity Shield that operates in the background and strengthens your browser sessions.
In order to verify this, we used Chrome using a basic keylogger that was available for free download. When Identity Shield was disabled, the keylogger was able to record any information that we input, including URLs, usernames, and passwords. When Identity Shield was on, it effectively prevented recording of the alphanumeric and symbol keys. As a result, our log only contains references to the spacebar, Enter, and Ctrl.
Even though Webroot doesn’t make a big deal about them, SecureAnywhere AntiVirus also comes with a few really useful extra tools.
You are able to run suspicious apps in an isolated environment thanks to the SafeStart Sandbox, which makes it more difficult for those programmes to make changes to your system.
An Antimalware Tools dialogue gives a utility that can be used to manually uninstall questionable programmes, along with any Registry entries that are related with them. Even while it isn’t a complete uninstaller, it might come in handy, and it’s not a function that we’ve seen offered by any of the other providers.
The ‘Set system policies to defaults’ option is included among the convenient system repair features that are available. Webroot will, with the touch of a button, rectify any situation in which malware or any other threat has restricted access to Task Manager, Regedit, or any other policy-based function.
Protection
Even though SecureAnywhere AntiVirus aced our basic malware detection tests, this only provides us with a fundamental understanding of the program’s ability to eliminate viruses. In order to get a better understanding of the wider picture, we will analyse the ranking system utilised by the most prominent independent testing labs.
Regrettably, AV-Comparatives and AV-Tests have not evaluated Webroot’s software in a number of years. With SE-Labs, which includes Webroot in its Home Anti-Malware testing, we had slightly better experience; nonetheless, the results were, at best, inconsistent.
Over the course of the previous twelve months, Webroot’s greatest performance was a fifth-place finish out of nine, with a Total Accuracy Rating of 97%. Even though SE-Labs gave the bundle its highest possible AAA rating, Webroot was nevertheless surpassed by three free products: the Avira Free Security Suite, the Avast Free, and Microsoft Defender. Webroot received a b.
That was Webroot’s most successful period. The company received a rating of ninth out of nine on the SE-Labs Q2 2021 test (opens in a new tab), with a Total Accuracy Rating of 94%. This was the company’s poorest score. (To put that into perspective, every other product that was evaluated received a score of 100 percent.)
Anti-ransomware
In order to acquire a more complete understanding of Webroot SecureAnywhere’s capabilities, we chose to pit it against our very own in-house developed ransomware simulator. Due to the fact that we created this on our own, the package wouldn’t be able to recognise it based on any established signature or pattern; therefore, it presents an interesting challenge for Webroot’s behaviour monitoring.
The results, to my great regret, were not favourable. Our simulator was completely disregarded by SecureAnywhere, which enabled the encryption of tens of thousands of files and gigabytes of data.
On this particular exam, certain vendors earn substantially better scores. Not only did the engines of Trend Micro, Bitdefender, and Kaspersky destroy our simulator within seconds of its launch, but they also decrypted the few files that it had managed to encrypt.
Because the threat we used in our test wasn’t real malware and we don’t know for certain why Webroot didn’t pick it up, we can’t give Webroot a significant failing grade for this particular issue. When we take into account the relatively low scores that SE-Labs gave, however, we are left with some concerns regarding Webroot’s dependability, which makes it more difficult for us to recommend the product.
Final verdict
The results of the tests demonstrate that this antivirus software, despite being incredibly lightweight and accurate in its URL blocking and powerful in its supplementary features, is not as accurate as the top products offered by its rivals. Webroot, on the other hand, can coexist peacefully with other antivirus software, so you may use it in conjunction with Microsoft Defender if you choose; the two programmes working together should do an excellent job of ensuring your safety.
