An antivirus utility or a full security suite can protect your devices against all kinds of malware attacks, from ransomware that encrypts all your files to phishing pages that try to steal your passwords. However, there’s nothing software can do if your computer gets run over by a bus or struck by lightning. In a case like that, backup is the ultimate security. With Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Complete, you get Webroot’s award-winning antivirus plus 25GB of hosted online backup. In previous years, your upgrade also bought you a tune-up system for your Macs and Windows boxes, but that component now comes with the standalone antivirus products. In the Webroot pantheon, this product takes the mega-suite position, though it lacks the parental control and spam filtering components found in many competitors.
In truth, this suite has faded a bit since its last review. Backup used to be available for Windows, macOS, and Android; it’s just Windows now. The Android app used to offer app permissions inspection, a battery monitor, a network monitor, and more. Now it’s just a secure browser with antivirus built in. The web console used to include a full antitheft system for your Android devices. Now it just directs you to Google’s Find My Device. All these small cuts add up.
How Much Does Webroot Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Complete Cost?
One thing that hasn’t changed is the price. For $79.99 per year, you can install Webroot on five devices, a lower per-device price than most. Bitdefender Total Security and Kaspersky Total Security also offer five licenses, but they cost $89.99 and $99.99, respectively. At $104.99 per year, Norton 360 Deluxe is a bit more expensive, but that subscription gets you five high-powered suite installations, five no-limits VPN licenses, and 50GB of storage for your backups, twice what Webroot offers. Webroot used to offer a 10-license pack for twice the price of five licenses, no discount. The company has dropped that package. If you need to protect a large number of devices, consider McAfee Total Protection. With McAfee’s suite, a $159.99 subscription lets you install protection on every Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS device in your household.
Security protection on Windows comes from Editors’ Choice pick Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus. This top-level suite product looks identical to the standalone antivirus, until you click the Backup & Sync button. In the antivirus or the entry-level suite, clicking that one just gets you the option to learn more about the feature, and what you learn is that you need to upgrade.
Read Me First
When reviewing a new or updated security product line, I start by evaluating the antivirus. With that review finished, I move on to the entry-level security suite, summarizing my antivirus findings but focusing on the suite-specific features. When there’s a high-level mega-suite or a cross-platform suite, I do the same, summarizing my review of the entry-level suite and moving on to the features that you only get at the top tier.
The differences between this suite and Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus are self-contained enough that a summary of shared features would occupy most of the review. Rather than summarize, I’ll ask you to click the link above and read my review of the entry-level suite. When you’re finished, finish this review to learn about the top-tier features.
Very briefly, Webroot’s antivirus is an Editors’ Choice pick on Windows and a decent contender on macOS. The entry-level suite adds a Webroot-branded edition of LastPass Premium along with an Android security app that lacks most of the features found in Webroot’s previous Android app, as well as an iOS app that does even less. I concluded that the entry-level suite just doesn’t add enough value beyond the standalone antivirus. This top-tier suite doesn’t tack on a huge number of features, but it’s closer to a good deal.
Easy Backup and Sync
To get started using the online backup system, you click a button to log in to your Webroot account online and follow the prompts. As part of the process, you select a storage region: Europe, Japan, or the US. Once you finish, you’ll find that have a new folder named Webroot Anywhere. Whatever you put in this folder syncs to the Webroot cloud, in encrypted form. It also automatically shows up in the Webroot Anywhere folder on your other Windows devices. You can add other sync folders, perhaps for files that need to sync with some, but not all, of your devices.
Yes, I said “your other Windows devices.” In the past, the backup system extended to macOS, and even somewhat to Android. There’s no place for it on Android now, and if you click Backup & Sync on a Mac, you see the message, “Backup is no longer available on macOS.”
If you designate a folder for backup, Webroot backs up the folder’s contents to the cloud but doesn’t sync it with other devices. You can choose whether subfolders get backed up (they do by default) and specify file types for inclusion or exclusion. By default, Webroot includes all file types and doesn’t exclude any. If you regret the edits you made just before backing up, fear not. Webroot retains the last 10 versions of backed-up files. For sync folders, it keeps the last five versions.
Note that you can’t directly edit files in the Anywhere folder. If you try to open such a file, Webroot warns that you’ll be opening a read-only temporary copy. For permanent changes to a file in the Anywhere folder, you must make a copy, edit the copy, and put the new file back in place.
Webroot updates new and changed files in sync folders immediately, and it pushes its updates to all your devices. It processes backup folders once a day, by default. In Advanced Settings you can set the time of day for the daily backup, choose days of the week when backup will run, or configure Webroot to back up files every so-many hours, from one to 999. Note that you don’t control scheduling from the Backup & Sync settings page, but rather from a separate page devoted to the Scheduler.
From the online console you can view and manage your synced and backed-up files. Conveniently, you can log in from any secure computer and download a local copy of any file or folder as a zipped archive. There’s no restore function like what you get with Norton 360 Deluxe and others, just the ability to download files and folders. You can, however, de-authorize a lost or stolen device, to ensure the thief can’t also steal your backed-up files.
When you click the Get More Storage button, it opens a web page that invites you to purchase the product again and encourages you to add the Webroot WiFi Security VPN to your purchase for a discount. However, even when you proceed to checkout there’s no offer to add storage. You used to have a choice of 50GB, 100GB, or 500GB of storage for roughly $80, $100, or $200 per year.
With Norton, you get 50GB of storage, period. If you want more, you must upgrade to a higher-level suite, which also gets you more licenses, more access to LifeLock features, or both. For example, with Norton 360 with LifeLock Select, you still get five VPN and suite licenses, but backup storage doubles to 100GB and you get basic LifeLock identity protection. At the Ultimate tier you can install on as many devices as you like, you get maximal LifeLock protection, and you can use 500GB of storage for your backups.
Norton does offer more options, with the ability to store backups on any local or network drive, without using the cloud. Kaspersky only offers local backup, though you can set it to store your archives on Dropbox. BullGuard Premium Protection, too, focuses on local backup. It can store your archives on local, network, or removable drives, or send them to your DropBox, Google Drive, or OneDrive account.
The online backup component in most security suites aims to protect your most important files, not to back up your whole computer. If you want more than 25GB of online storage for your synced and backed-up files, you should probably look at a standalone backup utility. Editors’ Choice pick IDrive, for example, gives you four times the storage of Webroot’s top tier, for around a quarter the price.
Bonus: Secure Erase
If you right-click any file or folder in Windows you’ll find a new menu option, Permanently Erase With Webroot. A secure deletion tool like this is handy when you want to erase a file and ensure it can’t be recovered using forensic software or hardware. It’s especially useful when paired with encryption software—after encrypting a sensitive file, you securely delete the original. Webroot doesn’t offer encryption, but you may still find uses for this tool.
Here’s a little background. When you delete a file in Windows, it isn’t really gone. It just goes into the Recycle Bin. Even if you bypass the Recycle Bin, or empty it, the file’s data still isn’t gone. Those data sectors remain on disk, unchanged except for a marker that says they’re available, not in use. Simple forensic software can often recover these files—Windows 10 itself includes a file recover feature. That’s fine when you deleted the file accidentally, but not if your intent was to eliminate the file completely.
The typical secure deletion utility foils forensic recovery very simply. It overwrites the file’s data sectors with random data before deletion, so the recovery software gets nothing but gibberish. Even lab-quality hardware-based forensic recovery systems can’t recover data that’s been overwritten seven times.
Unfortunately, Webroot’s Secure Erase does not perform secure deletion out of the box. All it does is delete the selected file or folder without sending it to the Recycle Bin. To enable actual secure deletion, you must dig into settings and raise the security level at least to Medium. At this level, Webroot overwrites the data three times, in three different ways, before deletion. That’s a level of security that satisfies the Department of Defense, so it should be good enough for almost all consumers.
For those who deal with illegal or otherwise sensitive data, the Maximum security level goes all out. It overwrites the data seven times, which, as noted, means there’s no possibility of recovery even with the fanciest hardware. It also overwrites the unused bytes at the end of the file’s last data sector and wipes other traces around the file system. This level of secure deletion takes longer, of course, so don’t use it unless you really need it.
If you’re using Webroot on a Mac, you’ll find this feature on the System Optimizer page. All you need to do is click Delete Files Securely and select files or folders for destruction. Interestingly, on macOS Webroot defaults to the Medium level, meaning it does overwrite file data before deletion.
Offers Less Than Before
The best part of Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Complete is the powerful, unusual antivirus component. Upgrading to the entry-level suite adds a third-party password manager, as well as limited protection for your mobile devices. In past years, you had to upgrade to this top-tier suite to get the tune-up tools for macOS and Windows, but those got moved to the basic antivirus. The main thing you get by upgrading to this suite is an online backup system for your Windows boxes, along with 25GB of hosted storage for those backed-up files. Also gone is the option to expand beyond that basic 25GB of storage.
Installing protection on an Android or iOS device uses up a license and does little to enhance your security. If you have five Windows or macOS devices to protect, though, this suite can be a Webroot bargain. The per-device price is almost the same as if you bought a three-license subscription for the antivirus, so you get the backup system effectively for free.
However, most users looking for a security suite want something more substantial. Our Editors’ Choice pick for security mega-suite is Bitdefender Total Security, which packs a phenomenal collection of features and gets near-perfect scores from the antivirus testing labs. With its support for Mac and Android, Webroot could also be considered a cross-platform multi-device suite. In that realm, our Editors’ Choice products are Norton 360 Deluxe and Kaspersky Security Cloud. These two cost a bit more, but they give you much, much more in terms of security features.
