Webroot SecureAnywhere 2013 – Webroot Takes the Gloves off versus other Antivirus 2013 Vendors

It has been less than eight weeks, (less than a month in many cases) since vendors have started releasing Antivirus 2013 products.  Webroot is challenging the other major antivirus vendors with a Webroot commissioned performance benchmark study,  “Webroot SecureAnywhere Cloud Antivirus vs. Seven Competitor Antivirus Products”. PassMark published this benchmark   report around September 12. 

The 2013 products in the report - Webroot SecureAnywhere, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2013, Norton AntiVirus, AVG Anti-Virus 2013, McAfee Antivirus Plua,  and Microsoft Security Essentials.  The 2012 products in the test - ESET NOD32 Antivirus 5 and Trend Micro Titanium 2012.  Trend Micro Titanium 2013 has since been released.

The highest score obtainable was 112.  Webroot had the highest score with 103.  Surprise!  The next highest score was ESET with 62.  The lowest score was by McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2013 with 34. 

Once again, though, you have to consider the following.   Benchmarks are fine and good.  In the world of internet security, protection is the most important factor.  Everything else is secondary.  If products  have similar detection rates, costs, ease of use  and  performance benchmarks come into play. On a higher level, companies can do an  ROI analysis.  A strong argument can be made that purchasing security is like purchasing insurance. On a personal level, people don't do ROI calculations when they buy home or earthquake insurance, for example.

The performance metrics used were -  Scan Time, Installation Size, Installation Time, Registry Keys Added, Boot Time, User Interface Launch Time, Memory Usage during System Idle, Memory Usage during Initial Scan, Browse Time,  File Copy, Move and Delete,  Network Throughput,  File Format Conversion;  File Compression and Decompression; File Write, Open and Close  Scheduled Scan Time. 

Test results for SecureAnywhere 2012 are below (these organizations haven’t tested with 2013 products yet):

• In AV-Test.org’s latest test (July/August with 2012 products), 13.5 out of 18.   www.av-test.org
• Virus Bulletin VB100 Testing - One fail and two passes in the last twelve VB100 tests.  Webroot's last participation was in  December 2011.www.virusbtn.com
• AV-Comparative’s on Demand Detection of Malicious Software (March 2012) -   19 out of 20 (1 star, high degree of false positives). www.av-comparatives.org
• AV-Comparatives – Whole Product Dynamic Real World Protection Test - “Tested” (0 stars)
• Webroot SecureAnywhere  received  4.5 stars from PC Magazine in October 2011 and scored highly in the publications malware testing. Smaller sample sizes than the test organizations, however. The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization prefers large samples. www.amtso.org . Two of their white papers are "Best Practices for Validation of Samples" and "Sample selection for Testing".

“Webroot SecureAnywhere Cloud Antivirus vs. Seven Competitor Antivirus Products” is available on the Webroot website.  Webroot also has  an interesting   eight question  total cost of ownership calculator for antivirus software  at http://www.webroot.com/En_US/business/land/calculator.html

Click on the below graphic to enlarge it. 

 

To see review scores for Internet Security 2013 and Antivirus 2013 solutions (PC Magazine and CNET), go to:

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/09/best-antivirus-2013.html

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/09/best-internet-security-suites-2013-best.html

About Passmark www.passmark.com

PassMark® Software Pty Ltd is a privately owned software development group with a head office in Sydney, Australia and a branch office in California, United States.

Webroot Going After Symantec Business Customers (but not by name)

A couple of week ago, some Symantec users got to experience the “Blue Screen of Death”.

According to a posting after the problem leading to the blue screen of death  was resolved.  "The root cause of the issue was an incompatibility due to a three-way interaction between some third-party software that implements a file system driver using kernel stack based file objects — typical of encryption drivers, the SONAR signature and the Windows XP Cache manager," Symantec Security Response team member Orla Cox said in a blog post.  "The SONAR signature update caused new file operations that create the conflict and led to the system crash."  http://www.zdnet.com/symantec-explains-windows-xp-blue-screen-of-death-outbreak-7000000943/

 

A blue eye for Symantec.  They explained further in the post how they were going modify the test process to prevent this from happening again.  

In  a late July  “How to stop feeling blue” email campaign (and without mentioning Symantec), Webroot has felt your hurt, and has a solution. Of course, it does involve a product switch ;).

“PC users around the world recently found themselves facing the dreaded blue screen of death.  It's not the first time a security update caused system crashes, and it won't be the last.  How can you avoid becoming the next victim?  Switching to Webroot® SecureAnywhere™ Business – Endpoint protection is the only solution that solves the update problem.  Plus, you'll always get superior support from Webroot—whether your company has 25 users or 25,000.”

"Issues of false positives and ‘blue screens of death" are down to anti-virus technology being 20 years out of date.”  Dan Raywood, SC Magazine UK, July 18, 2012

To help alleviate your hurt, Webroot is offering businesses   a 30-day free trial or an up to 6-month competitive swap out. 

  

This could get interesting if Symantec chooses to respond.  They   both contract with Passmark Software to perform comparative tests for them.  Passmark  is a privately owned software development group with a head office in Sydney, Australia.  www.passmarkcom

It could be hard to find  a lot of independent third party testing of both products.

Both companies have products that scored 15.5 points out of 18.0 in a certification test by  AV-Test last week.  www.av-test.org

 Symantec is not participating in AV-comparative’s testing this year.  In their latest  Whole Product Dynamic Real World Protection test, Webroot received a “Tested” rating, with  a large number “compromised” files.   Webroot received one star (3 is tops) in the March  On-demand Detection of Malicious Software test.  www.av-comparatives.org .  They were last in false positives, twelfth in file detection rate.  

Symantec hasn't been participating in Virus Bulletin's VB100 testing.  Webroot had false positive issues in that test and failed to receive a VB100 in December 2011 testing (the most recent test they participated in). www.virusbtn.com

Look for updated battle cards to be created.  Or not. A Symantec  response may be stealthy.  This is when marketing gets to be interesting.