Review Of Webroot Secure Anywhere Antivirus

Today’s 2012 antivirus review features the latest offering from Webroot; Webroot Secure Anywhere.

Key Benefits:

• Quick scans
• Offers a sandbox mode
• Happily works in conjunction with other security products

There is a growing trend with antivirus programs these days and that is to combine traditional databases full of virus definitions with cloud technology which provides a quicker response to new threats. Webroot Secure Anywhere Antivirus bucks the trend somewhat by dispensing with the database model completely.
This of course offers some advantages, namely that most of the ‘work’ performed by the program is not reliant on your PC. Therefore, hourly/daily updates are not required as all the pertinent information is stored and frequently updated on Webroot’s own servers.

System Requirements
The minimum system requirements are as follows:

• Windows XP (32 bit and 64 bit) SP2 or later / Vista (32 bit and 64 bit) SP1 or SP2 respectively / 7 (32 bit and 64 bit) SP1
• 128 MB of RAM
• 10 MB of hard drive space
• Pentium / Celeron / K7 / Athlon / Duron or compatible processor

As you can see, this antivirus program should run on many older computers as well as more modern ones too.

Installation and first impression
the first thing I noted about Webroot Secure Anywhere Antivirus is that it is very quick. Very quick indeed. The program installed in seconds and then launched into a full scan. This again was very fast, taking less than 2 minutes!
When installation and the first scan have completed you will be presented with the screen shown above. You’ll note that the interface is very clean and uncluttered, making this an easy program for beginners to get to grips with.

Features
As a standalone antivirus product Webroot Secure Anywhere Antivirus was never going to be as feature packed as an internet security suite and that is quite evident when you start looking around the Settings area. Beyond the sandbox, which allows you to run suspicious programs in a protected environment, there is nothing much here that you won’t find in any other antivirus program on the market today.
You can see pretty much what is on offer in the screenshot below:

Effectiveness
This is a good antivirus program that does a fine job of detecting and blocking viruses as well as spyware, worms, etc. It’s key selling point, to my mind, is it’s ability to run on older machines and without using much in the way of memory or CPU.

Conclusion

I can think of nothing negative to say about this program but, equally, it just didn’t get me overly excited either. Thats not to say I wouldn’t recommend it though – its good at what it does, runs very well and is terrifically fast at scanning – it just, as you may have guessed by now, didn’t inspire me for some reason.
But if you want an easy to use program and quick scans then you may want to check it out for yourself…
Do you want to see what the other vendors are offering this year? If so, read my other 2012 Antivirus reviews.