Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus Review | TechSwitch

What is Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus?

Bought by cloud storage large Carbonite in March 2019, Webroot has been within the antispyware and antivirus companies for the reason that early 21st century.

Webroot’s software program sadly isn’t as widespread as that of many rival anti-malware suites, which not solely limits the variety of take a look at outcomes now we have out there to tell our verdict, but in addition implies that you’re not as prone to discover low cost retail editions, though there are just a few knocking round eBay.

This means probably the most dependable pricing for Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus is at the moment £22.49 for a yr’s single-computer subscription at Webroot’s personal UK web site. That’s a 25% low cost on the RRP, and it’s out there to current subscribers, though the value can change and the total renewal value is £29.99.

If you need further options, SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus provides a password supervisor – really a LastPass subscription – and covers three units for £37.49, whereas Internet Security Complete offers 25GB of on-line backup storage for a present worth of £48.79. You also can combine their VPN Webroot Wifi Security.

Features, set-up and usefulness

Webroot makes it clear at set up time that its on-line SecureAnywhere account is strictly non-obligatory, however even for the essential SecureAnywhere AntiVirus suite it offers useful distant standing info in your protected techniques. At dearer tiers, it offers entry to your on-line storage, cellular antivirus and LastPass subscription, which will also be used to increase and current LastPass subscriptions.

The SecureAnywhere desktop interface is engaging, clear and straightforward to make use of, though some font selections are somewhat on the small aspect. Buttons help you optionally disable core options such real-time safety and firewall, and there’s an online defend for all the same old browsers that alerts you to probably malicious web sites and search end result hyperlinks.

Webroot’s firewall enhances the Windows firewall with further monitoring capabilities, utilizing the corporate’s personal contextual risk intelligence to alert customers to on-line exercise by unknown and probably suspicious apps.

Also enabled by default are anti-phishing and instruments that activate whenever you entry a probably delicate web site corresponding to your on-line banking portal – these are all parts that you must go away enabled.

All variations of SecureAnywhere include a course of supervisor with per-process blocking capabilities and a sandbox to run suspicious packages in, in addition to the same old logs, quarantine administration and statistics you’d anticipate from an honest antivirus suite.

Advanced settings enable you schedule scans, limit entry to SecureAnywhere’s settings and configure it to indicate extra alerts – by default, it acts silently within the background.

Related: Best Antivirus 2019

Webroot – Performance

Webroot’s a longtime participant within the anti-malware world, however its SecureAnywhere vary of antivirus merchandise don’t get examined fairly often. Fortunately, real-world dwell publicity and reference malware detection assessments have been carried out by AV-TEST in May and June 2019, permitting us to evaluate the software program’s efficiency towards a current set of viruses.

Unfortunately, that efficiency was not very spectacular. Both May and June outcomes have been little in need of catastrophic within the important real-world publicity assessments: a take a look at situation wherein the system is uncovered to assaults of the type you’d encounter within the wild, corresponding to drive-by downloads of recent malware by way of the net.

In the May assessments, SecureAnywhere protected towards 81.1% of malware assaults, however this proportion dropped to simply 66.5% in June. By comparability, Microsoft Windows Defender – the antivirus resolution that comes free with Windows 10 – protected towards 100% of malware samples in the identical take a look at and once more in AV-TEST’s newest follow-up.

It’s SecureAnywhere’s real-world take a look at efficiency that the majority emphatically brings the software program’s total evaluation rating down. Its capability to recognise current broadly out there malware samples from a reference was solely somewhat worse than a few of its rivals, at 99.3% in May and 98.9% in June.

It did comparatively badly in AV-TEST’s usability scores, falsely detecting 33 professional packages as malware, whereas most rivals’ false optimistic charges have been in single digits and Windows Defender misidentified none in any respect. To its credit score, SecureAnyway isn’t an excessive amount of of a system hog, though it might decelerate software program set up and community file transfers greater than most rivals.

Buy Webroot SecureAnywhere here

Should I purchase Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus?

Until Webroot works on getting each false optimistic detection charges down and malware safety ranges up, it’s going to be very arduous to suggest SecureAnywhere as a reputable antivirus choice. That’s a disgrace, as a result of the interface is approachable and straightforward to get conversant in, and the flexibility so as to add further options like cloud backup storage and a password supervisor is at all times welcome.

Verdict

Good costs and options can’t make up for the truth that current efficiency has been significantly underwhelming.

Ok.G. Orphanides is a author and developer whose areas of experience embody web safety, VPNs, Linux for the desktop, small-scale recreation growth, software program preservation and laptop audio techno…