There's a great deal of similarity between most antivirus products. They take about the same amount of time to install, update, and scan. They're about the same size when it comes to disk space. And they use signature-based malware detection plus some heuristic or behavioral components. Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus (2014) ($39.99 per year, direct) doesn't fit with the rest at all. It installs in a flash, doesn't require signature updates, scans much more quickly, and takes a ridiculously small amount of space on disk. On top of that, its unconventional techniques do an impressive protection job.

Like Bitdefender, Norton, Kaspersky, and others, Webroot has dropped version and year numbers from its product names. We're calling this (2014) to distinguish it from last year's edition. Visually, it's quite a change, with a new, streamlined user interface. The real-time protection statistics that filled its main window before have been moved to their own window. Now you see simple stats about recent scans and activities, along with an accordion-style collection of panels that offer quick access to the program's security components. Unnecessary settings have been removed; expert-only settings have been pushed deeper.

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Instant Installation
Webroot's installer is famously tiny; it would fit on a 3.5" diskette, if you could find one. The installed program is hardly bigger. Launch the installer, insert your keycode, click a button, and it's off to the races.

The actual installation of the program itself is done in a flash. The installer goes on to perform a number of other tasks. Webroot claims compatibility with virtually every other antivirus, but it does check for incompatible software. It analyzes installed applications, optimizes its configuration for your particular system, and establishes a "system baseline" for reference. Most importantly, it runs a full scan.

The average antivirus takes about 30 minutes to scan my standard clean test system. Webroot does the job in less than five minutes. Installing Webroot and running that scan takes less time than simply installing and updating most antivirus products.

Ransomware on one of my test systems makes the desktop inaccessible, so a normal installation isn't possible. Webroot tech support guided me to their bootable rescue environment. Unlike most, this isn't a Linux based antivirus scanner. Rather, at bootup it contacts tech support directly for a remote-control hands-on repair session. The support agent manually modified Registry entries to prevent the ransomware from launching. After that, I had no trouble with installation. Webroot installed without incident on the other eleven test systems.

After every scan that finds and removes malware, Webroot runs another scan to make sure everything has been cleaned thoroughly. It's actually reassuring, and since the scan is so quick, it's not a big imposition. Every test system required at least one re-scan after the initial install-time scan found malware. A few needed three or even four scans.

Highly Resistant Malware
On two of the test systems, the scan ended with a note saying the product "detected a significant infection... which requires manual assistance" and advising that I contact tech support. A button on this screen is supposed to go directly to support, though at the time of my testing it didn't work quite right. But no matter, I contacted support through the website.

The support agent logged in to each infested test system and ran a specialized tool designed to remote the specific virulent file-infector present on each. In both cases, even after several tries, the threat-specific tool failed. Next he tried a cleanup tool from Sophos; Webroot has a deal with Sophos to supply such tools at need. When those tools failed, he tried freely-available threat-specific tools from another vendor. In both cases, the final solution involved much poring over logs, running one-off antivirus scripts, and rebooting.

Webroot installed in a flash and would normally have earned five stars for installation experience. I had to knock off a star for very lengthy tech support sessions required to complete the cleanup process on two of the test systems.