Microsoft Forefront (Discontinued Product) vs. Webroot Antivirus + Internet Security Complete (SecureAnywhere)

In large deployments, I have found Microsoft Forefront to be very effective at combating the majority of threats faced by our users. It provides the base platform for catching threats that would otherwise threaten our users and their data. If you have an environment that is under constant malware threat, then a secondary program may be needed as required.

Incentivized

Webroot can be great if you have many employees using computers. Sensitive business information can be accessed by malicious threats online if your employees are not trained to avoid these problems. In this case, I think it's important to have software to protect you. If working with a smaller team (and not doing any sort of video production or other intensive software/applications) I can't see a need for anything like Webroot. Learning how to use the internet safely and protecting your file storage are things to be done on the cheap and with smarts.

Incentivized

• SCEP is a light weight client which is minimally impactful on the user end.
• Forefront's management console provides excellent monitoring and reporting.
• Setup and configuration is very easy.

Incentivized

• It is very lightweight. You dont even know it is running, yet it is always protecting the endpoint.
• It has protected us from various threats, including ransomware - even when wannacry was hitting companies everywhere.
• They have a good console with multiple provisioning options, so we were able to push it to everyone when we first started using it, and then include it as part of our deployment process going forward.

Incentivized

• Malware detection is not quite 100%. We have to use a secondary program occasionally.
• On low ram and weak CPU systems scanning can freeze the machine.
• The same reporting tools that are on the console version, aren't on the client.

Incentivized

• If there is no network connection to the cloud infrastructure, there will be no protection (drawback if there is no "layer 1" connection).
• Heuristics can only combat some viruses, so it probably needs more methods to combat different viruses.
• There are some instances where the server fails to push out (the server's fault), leaving a small fraction of users unprotected when they are set up for the first time.

Incentivized

It's easy to renew with Webroot, their support is very attentive and highly available. However if you do choose to change products, they even provide means of removing the software from your endpoints via the admin portal which is very convenient.

Incentivized

We have not had to use Webroot support much over the years. The one or two times we did we were referred to online documentation and in a somewhat condescending manner in one case and in another case, the support person did not demonstrate much knowledge of their product and referred us to the user community for support.

Incentivized

The biggest advantage that MSF and SCEP provide over Norton is: One: Far less client overhead required. Both Norton and McAfee are highly intensive client side when in use. Two: We've had far better luck using the Microsoft system with its detection capabilities, versus the others. Three: It is tied right into the Microsoft updating system, which provides central updating capabilities of av/mal/windows updates.

Incentivized

I honestly have not put in enough research and time for alternative products to compare against Webroot. I don't think my opinion would be worth stating since I don't have a good comparison of apples to apples against other products.What continues to keep me interested in Webroot is just not the product - but the technology behind the product that makes Webroot a leading industry standard.

Incentivized

Ease of implementation across various devices is easy and efficient regardless of scale. Whether it is 5 devices or 500 the product continually proves its the best in its class.

Incentivized

• Less turnaround on virus based issues.
• Helps reduce malware issues over time.
• Can breed overconfidence in the system, so people don't always try a second tool.

Incentivized

• It has had a mostly positive impact as we have not had any breaches.
• The only negative impact has been when Webroot Antivirus + Internet Security Complete (SecureAnywhere) changed something on their end that caused one of our business applications to not be usable by end-users. That cost our business a fair amount as it took 4 days before it could be used again.

Incentivized