Webroot Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus 5.3

What happens when you cross Webroot’s popular anti-spyware tool with well-respected anti-virus software from Sophos? Web User finds out Malicious software is a pain in the neck, whether it’s a virus, spyware or any other type of net nasty. So when we think about doing our regular scans for viruses and spyware, it makes a lot of sense to combine them into a single scan that checks for both. This is the idea behind the latest version of Webroot’s Spy Sweeper, which now comes with the option of adding anti-virus to the mix.

Features
Rather than develop its own anti-virus product, Webroot has teamed up with Sophos (www.sophos.com), which has an illustrious history in the anti-virus world, but hasn’t previously had a product aimed at the home consumer. This obviously gives both companies, and us consumers, something of an advantage – Webroot doubles its protection and adds value, Sophos gets access to the consumer market, and most importantly, anyone buying the products gets respected, corporate grade anti-virus protection directly incorporated into Webroot’s already excellent anti-spyware program.

Performance
Performance is vital for PC-protection software, and this new partnership seems to do the trick. Sophos’s anti-virus definitions haven’t failed a Virus Bulletin (www.virusbtn.com) test since 2005, while Spy Sweeper has an excellent record of protecting against spyware. No-one can claim your PC will be totally safe behind software barriers, but Webroot has a good shout to be among the best protectors.

Ease of use
One of the annoying things about Webroot’s software is that you’ll immediately want to head off into the options and start turning more bits and bobs on – the defaults have been set up to get a reasonable level of performance out of the software, rather than focusing on tight security. Leaving keylogger detection off, for example, seemed a strange option, since most people will want to know if such software is installed on their PC. Scanning for rootkits was also turned off – when turning it on you’re warned that this will make the scan slower, but it seems a small price to pay for total security.

Value for money
As we often say when we review this kind of software, if you want similar levels of protection without paying, free anti-spyware and anti-virus programs are also available. If you’re confident and competent enough to use these then all well and good. The benefits of this combo are that you only need do one scan to cover both spyware and viruses, the software can schedule scans for times when you know you’re going to be doing something else, there’s no clash between the two elements and telephone-based technical support is available.