Webroot Opens Patent Infringement Cases Against Kaspersky, CrowdStrike, Sophos and Trend Micro

[piquiteco]

“Very light on the system”

That’s something that pretty much everyone is in agreement.

People who like Webroot. People who dislike Webroot. People that are indifferent towards the product. And people who think it’s okay. Being light is something they all agree Webroot does incredibly well.

So far, so good

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

Sounds pretty accurate though I should add that their whitelist component has always seemed to me to be even more fundamental to their proprietary cybersecurity architecture than their blacklist. [1]

Also, I've always sided with Prevx on their assertion that professional testing protocols (as they currently exist) just do not work well with their AV approach. In fact, I'm surprised that you say that Prevx always performed very weakly in tests as, as I recall matters, unlike Webroot they resolutely refused to submit to any tests except for those by SE Labs [2]

[1] Fully agree, with the sliders on HIGH it was a perfect whitelist approach with a powerful behavioral tracker/blocker as post infection defense. Problem was that PrevX at that time did not dare to set the defaults on higher values. Using PrevX on default settings it was just a mediocre cloud blacklist AV with a post infection rollback/recovery which was not 100% reliable

Spoiler: Default settings

I remembered, I set the heuristics AFTER Age/Popularity and all other values on HIGH. Worked like a charm and was ultra light

[2] True. PrevX argued that traditional "real world" tests (of AV-Test and AV-Comparatives) did not work, because the post-infection rollback/recovery was not taken into account in these tests. My impression of PrevX being a weak AV was set by security bloggers and video channels which showed often that the cloud blacklist missed a lot of samples and that the post infection recovery of PrevX did not work. PrevX also dismissed the tests of Youtube (and MT) testers, stating that the post-infection recovery was not designed to deal with 10 or more simultaneous infections. (and this was also not a real world scenario for the average PC-user).

 

[Muddy7]

Fully agree, with the sliders on HIGH

Clarifier: I've personally always had Prevx/Webroot on recommended default heuristics settings and never maxed. I was talking rather about the concept of whitelisting in their underlying security architecture.

What you say at the end of your [2] comments paragraph is basically my personal bleat regarding YT (and MT) tests (etc.). Why, after being incessantly plagued with malware issues, did all that stop DEAD the day I changed to Prevx (late 2006) and I've never been infected since? And why have others had the same experience?

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

Why, after being incessantly plagued with malware issues, did all that stop DEAD the day I changed to Prevx (late 2006) and I've never been infected since?

Thanks for sharing a true opening of the sky moment. When the only change was PrevX it must have been PrevX ending the misery caused by malware plague.

 

[Shadowra]

Webroot that sues big companies, without proof in my opinion.
When the lawyers of these companies will send back the complaints for "defamatory remarks", it will calm them down

Webroot killed PrevX, the antivirus I loved when I was starting to use computers. It was one of the few antivirus I bought (with DriveSentry, Kaspersky, Coranti and F-Secure).
When the migration came, I tried it out of curiosity. My mother's PC became in 2 days a real stable of Trojans....

Moreover, Webroot is part of the team of antiviruses that fail all my tests (with Panda and others).
Anyway, I'll take out the popcorn and watch Webroot get ridiculed if there is a court case

 

[Andrezj]

Webroot that sues big companies, without proof in my opinion.

the judge read the briefs and ruled that there is sufficient proof to move the cases forward (allow to proceed and argue the case)

When the lawyers of these companies will send back the complaints for "defamatory remarks", it will calm them down

a counter claim of defamation cannot be asserted base upon a complaint being filed and adjudicated in court itself, the defamation would have to precede the legal process

 

[Zero Knowledge]

You start forum posts about Webroot and the diehard supporters come out. Type of people that would go down with the Titanic thinking it's better to stay on board than jump of a sinking ship. It's one of those products you either love or hate much like Kaspersky or Comodo. In the end if you like something and it works for you then stick with it, just don't try and claim it's as good or better than competitors because evidence shows the opposite.

 

[robboman]

Webroot trying to make a quick buck before they go bust

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

Being a small player, does not mean that they go bankrupt. According to website Statistica Cyber Security revenue in 2022 will be 150 billion US dollar and is expected to tripple in 2030 (source globenewswire). So even with 0.24% market share that would be an interesting turnover (considering the premium brand clients Webroot seems to have in the corporate market)

Spoiler: Datanyze on Webroot

 

[Zero Knowledge]

Anything with 'cyber' and 'security' will get huge sums of capital venture funding and the same companies will have big evaluations. Does that mean these companies have huge market share, are profitable or are widely used? No. Does it mean the software they make is any good? No. It's people gambling with huge sums of money in the search of the next Google, Apple or Tesla. There are a lot of cyber security companies out there that have had seed funding that will go nowhere.

 

[Muddy7]

Type of people that would go down with the Titanic thinking it's better to stay on board than jump of a sinking ship

That's me you're referring to, I suppose . Knock me as much as you wish, but why would I want to abandon the only AV i've used that's kept me free of viruses?

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

I disagree, when you have customers like Cisco, T-mobile, Walt Disney you have excellent references (because they are all leaders in their industry). Also Muddy7 and I have very good experience with PrevX/Webroot (although I upped the settings to make it a whitelist solution).

 

[Zero Knowledge]

That's me you're referring to, I suppose . Knock me as much as you wish, but why would I want to abandon the only AV i've used that's kept me free of viruses?

Not having a go at you, but yes I was thinking of you and others when I wrote it. But honestly my brother as I said if you like it then keep using it. Don't get depressed because some twat like me has a rant on a forum. You like what you like, and you love what you love. Honestly, I have to give you credit because you get so much abuse and criticism for your preference to Webroot it would send most people postal.

Also Muddy7 and I have very good experience with PrevX/Webroot (although I upped the settings to make it a whitelist solution).

I've used it in the past too, Webroot that is (Not PervX) around 10 years ago but my habits changed around that time and I stopped installing pirated software and cracks so i can't really judge its effectiveness. I get my information through tests on here and other forums where Webroot doesn't come out like smelling of roses. Maybe the test and results have changed and improved over time, I don't know I will have to check if any recent tests are available.

 

[Nightwalker]

You know it's over for you as a company when you start patent trolling. Got to string out the income from dead products.

Its exactly what I thought when I read the news, Webroot is dead, patent trolling is just a consequence of that.

Prevx was indeed a milestone for the industry, there was something genuinely exciting and revolutionary about its technology and of course the promises of low performance impact coupled with very high protection against zero-day threats was the highlight of the product.

However, after the acquisition of Prevx technology by Webroot, the latter failed to turn that promising technology into something really good, in the end all you had with Webroot Secure Anywhere was the promise of cutting edge, while in the real world it was a product that had a much lower performance than "traditional solutions".

Furthermore, these so-called traditional solutions embraced the cloud and developed new technologies, adapted to the reality of cyber attacks, becoming modern hybrid solutions with the strengths of traditional solutions and with the help of machine learning, AI, cloud, new blocking techniques behavior and etc, meanwhile Webroot Secure Anywhere failed to fix its weaknesses or even improve on its strengths, which resulted in a mediocre product that ranks below virtually every paid and non-commercial solution on the market today.

 

[Muddy7]

Don't get depressed

Depressed? Me?? No!!!

 

[Sorrento]

I used Prevx for some times maybe hundreds of years ago & then Webroot & recommended Webroot to many, an issue I had was gigantic files WRDATA as I remember esp. caused by slightly rare programs as at the time Pale Moon etc - These required whitelisting by upping them to Webroot (on any update) in time I got fed up of this & wondered why they couldn't do it themselves & eventually moved back to a more traditional AV such as ESET - I always though the idea Webroot was running was good and had potential but it never was implemented - They used to brag about the install fitting on a then floppy then had customers running giant WRDATA files - So: Best of luck to Walt Disney.

 

[Muddy7]

I do agree that, for developers and/or people using rare apps, the WRData .db files can become a real PITA. I don't know if Webroot have since found a more permanent solution for the management of these files.

 

[Popolitus]

Pub. for free, there is no bad pub,there are just pub,and webroot is using it