Solved The Anti-Virus Battles

neves said:

Real-World Protection Test February-May 2023

The first half year results of the ongoing Consumer Real-World Protection Test for February-May 2023 are now available.

www.av-comparatives.org

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Shame they don't test Webroot!

kelper said:

Shame they don't test Webroot!

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Constant decline since 2011: Test antivirus software Webroot

2011 was actually the last time certified by VB: Virus Bulletin :: Product Archives

To many FP (false positives), struggles even with the most average Ransomware & Anti-Phishing websites
- by modern standards. All the AV solutions are tested yearly and if they fail the tests - are not deem worthy of an inclusion. It's also worth to be added - that those are consumer AV solutions. There's also enterprise which comes at a different price range: Comparison (ofc, even the enterprise solutions from webroot don't seem to qualify). This days webroot is a product of habit (used to be fairly decent once upon a time - and most of its current user probably never checked it's current status - current potential and detection rate). Still advertised to this day (payed - that is), so that too - might help keeping it alive. Don't know about the team behind it (why don't they bother to bring it up to modern standards - or maybe they can't ).

Ru

neves said:

Constant decline since 2011: Test antivirus software Webroot

2011 was actually the last time certified by VB: Virus Bulletin :: Product Archives

To many FP (false positives), struggles even with the most average Ransomware & Anti-Phishing websites
- by modern standards. All the AV solutions are tested yearly and if they fail the tests - are not deem worthy of an inclusion. It's also worth to be added - that those are consumer AV solutions. There's also enterprise which comes at a different price range: Comparison (ofc, even the enterprise solutions from webroot don't seem to qualify). This days webroot is a product of habit (used to be fairly decent once upon a time - and most of its current user probably never checked it's current status - current potential and detection rate). Still advertised to this day (payed - that is), so that too - might help keeping it alive. Don't know about the team behind it (why don't they bother to bring it up to modern standards - or maybe they can't ).

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They don't test it because it works in a different way and does not use a database. It only uses heuristics and will journal any changes made by a suspicious program and can roll back these. It's tiny, installs in a flash and uses few resources. But don't let me disabuse you of your preconceptions!

kelper said:

Ru

They don't test it because it works in a different way and does not use a database. It only uses heuristics and will journal any changes made by a suspicious program and can roll back these. It's tiny, installs in a flash and uses few resources. But don't let me disabuse you of your preconceptions!

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They do test every commercial AV (or free - if popular enough), just don't bother ranking it - if it's not on pair with other alternatives (same goes for all the other AV solutions missing from tha list). Heuristics sounded better in theory - compared to practice... efficiency wise (used to be adopted as a primary feature by almost every AV - but the number of False Positives end-up hurting the popularity of all the top contenders). It's why it became an alternative engine - on modern AVs - still counting on definitions for better accuracy - paired with other detection engines (which indeed - can have a higher impact on resources, tho - far from the old days - and less capable CPUs). Maybe A.I. will change that. Anyway, even malware that's wildly available for testing - can give a product like Webroot a bad name. And that, even while using their Endpoint security which costs 150$/yearly...


(tests/video made by a random user if you concluded that the popular AV testing sites are conspiring against AV for not paying the yearly bribe - while only affording sites like PCMag ).

PS.When it comes to malware - only facts matter, supposedly malware has not feelings (same goes for every threat). But who knows, maybe A.I. will change that too (mimic or find away to develop feelings - and feel bad about infecting some systems - especially if a given machine is to easy to infect).

AV-Test and AV-Comparitives did not 'drop' Webroot. Webroot no longer pays them to have their products tested because the testing methods are not compatible with the way Webroot works. Here is a comment from MRG-Effitas.

kelper said:

AV-Test and AV-Comparitives did not 'drop' Webroot. Webroot no longer pays them to have their products tested because the testing methods are not compatible with the way Webroot works. Here is a comment from MRG-Effitas.

https://www.mrg-effitas.com/case-study/webroot/

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Based on that logic... if a system gets infected while using a Webroot proection - it's not Webroot's fault, instead... the ones who made the malware are to blame for not making it in a way that's compatible with Webroots heuristic detection engine.. So, basically... in 2023 Webroot is selling fancy words (fancy advertisement) + remote support & back-up (at least you get that - cause based on its effectiveness seems to be the main commercial value). As webroot's community specialist phrased it:

"Many third-party tests operate in a manner that doesn’t take into account the way Webroot works. We’re inherently different. Webroot uses a dynamic, cloud-based solution. The agent that’s loaded on a PC or Mac quickly checks files against our constantly evolving list of behaviors, files and sites that are good, bad or unknown. This allows the product to closely monitor files that aren’t already known as good or malicious, they’re still unknown. We can track the file’s behavior until it is determined to be good or bad. If it’s bad, then it can often rollback any actions the malicious file took.

Malware detection and prevention is not about a moment in time. It is an ongoing battle against the bad actors out there – millions of end users, partners and customers trust, and are delighted in the protection Webroot offers."

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Bullshit, so called cloud-protection (where a filed is checked on their severs - to make sure is legit) - is quite common (main way most AVs decide - if a given file is actually legit). A.I. learning is new in the industry (for couple of years now) - but they're not the only ones using it (on VIRSUSTOTAL the scanners with the highest amount of false positives - are actually A.I. based). If only they were more transparent about the services they offer - like remote back-up which is something they seem to relay on more than any protection feature included in their packages (fail safe - that is). They do mention it (as being part of the package) - but not as a primary service - after all Webroot is suppose to be a System Security solution - so that's what they promote as the primary strengths of their products (even tho, it proved to be a weakens - doing worst than the competition).

The malware line is quite ridiculous.... For a given customer (be it a personal computer or a bushiness line) - is exactly about a given moment in time (the time when the malware in question is undetected - a time when it can have serious impact on a vulnerable system). Once discovered - it becomes irrelevant - easy to deal with. Yet, he makes it sound like it's ok to be a sacrificial lamb (your system's infection - being used as patient 0 - to deal with that given malware) - and have your semsitive data compromised (a back-up can not restore - private files or information getting leaked) - for the greater good (so others won't have to go through same experience/malware.... at your expense).

Sure, it's lite on resources...


That's the main thing it's praised for. Even tho - that's something i like seeing while using an app (using the system's resources efficiently), for a security app - the effectiveness of its protection seems more relevant. And based on what I've seen in practice - the amount of infections and how easy it is easy to infect (even a kid looking for recent samples on google could manage that with ease) - are more than enough reasons not to recommend webroot products. Seriously, no client could ever take me seriously (more like i'm laughing at their expense) - if i'd use webroot's logic and tell them that... their system getting shoveled - is not the protection's fault but the type of malware they got infected with - which... is simply not compatible with this state of the art scanning engine - so next time they should find compatible malware or ransomware for it to work properly....