Webroot routinely aces our hands-on malware protection test, with 100 percent detection and 10 of 10 possible points. We necessarily perform our own malware protection tests to supplement lab tests when they’re available and to stand alone when they’re not. Webroot boasts a rating from just one independent lab, while some products don’t show up in reports from any labs. Alas, one score isn’t enough for an aggregate, so Webroot has no corresponding number. My aggregate lab-score algorithm assigned Bitdefender 9.8 of 10 possible points. It currently boasts perfect or near-perfect scores from AV-Test Institute, AV-Comparatives, and MRG-Effitas. Webroot came in with a respectable AA rating.īitdefender, on the other hand, routinely takes excellent scores from multiple labs. SE Labs certifies products at five levels: AAA, AA, A, B, and C. Of the four labs I follow, only one has included Webroot in recent tests. If the verdict is guilty, your local Webroot terminates the process and rolls back everything it did.īecause of this uncommon protection technique, Webroot is a poor fit for most lab tests.

That analysis can take just minutes, or it can be longer. Webroot also sends details about unknown to Webroot HQ for analysis. Any unknowns run under Webroot’s monitoring system, which journals every program action and prevents irreversible actions like exfiltrating data to an external source. It does recognize some files right away, letting known good ones run unhindered and relegating bad ones to quarantine. The independent testing labs known this, and their tests reflect an expectation of speed.īut Webroot is different. Behavior-based detection must wait for the malware app to do something, but it’s also typically quick. Signature-based detection just takes a simple scan. One thing these techniques have in common is that they act quickly. If it acts exactly like malware, it’s malware! You’ll also find statistical systems that analyze all facets of a malware attack such as where the file came from, when it was first seen, and more. Then there’s behavior-based detection, which looks not at what programs are but at what they do.

And the antivirus coders try to catch these polymorphic attacks using fuzzy or heuristic signatures. Malware coders try to foil that detection by making each copy of an attack slightly different. The antivirus simply scans files for patterns of data that identify known malware. Modern antivirus tools use many different methods for detecting malware. How does it stack up against Bitdefender, the winner of the previous round? The Trouble With Lab Tests Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus, which is also a 4.5-star Editors’ Choice pick, is quite different from those two, and from most competitors. Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Softwareīitdefender and Kaspersky are a lot alike, with top lab scores, similar scores in our hands-on tests, and the same third-party VPN licensor.

Bitdefender vs webroot