Review: Webroot Internet Security Essentials

Webroot is the latest security suite that attempts to curry favour by offering a range of extra features. It offers basic but straightforward operation through the main interface, with a summary of component activity and system status, and each of the tools split into a categorised list.

System scans appear to be effective, though scan times took longer than we’d have liked. Custom and scheduled scans are available and there’s an impressive degree of control over which areas of your computer are covered, including archived files, rootkits and specific user account control.

A series of shields protect against threats covering the web browser, startup, network, email and system files, with a similar degree of control over the behaviour of each component. These tools work efficiently and come with certification from a number of independent sources, including Virus Bulletin’s VB100, ISCA and West Coast labs.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the firewall. Control here is quite poor, with very little in terms of application handling. Performance isn’t much better, and considering this is a fundamental part of any system security it’s a problem that threatens to undermine the entire package.

It does offer a few extras, though, such as online backup, which after registration is unlocked with 2GB of virtual drive storage. Local backups are also supported and a wizard-based approach makes these easy to configure.

The cleanup tools are efficient and cover Windows, the internet and third-party applications, with a range of detailed settings for each to control exactly what areas are scanned and cleaned. But the suite does lack some key components, such as anti-spam and parental controls.

Webroot offers quite a lot for the money, but the firewall is not effective, which to some extent defeats the point.