Solved

Webroot SecureAnywhere Essentials issue.

  • 2 July 2012
  • 5 replies
  • 50 views

Hi,
To Start off, both me and my mom were updated to Webroot SecureAnywhere Essentials about 6 months ago. We both currently have version 8.0.1.203 (we're on the same license) and we both use PCs that run Windows 7. Before the update (aka the old version of Webroot), we would run scans, and it would catch everything, and it worked great. However, after the update, we both noticed that our scans would not detect any threats. I thought this was normal at first, but six months later, and after 50 or so scans, Webroot has not detected a single thing. I know that this cannot be pure luck, because Webroot was always catching things, on the old version. We checked to see if our subscription had run out, but we still have 279 days left on it. So...all in all, we're a little confused as to why nothing has been caught, ever since we were updated to the new version. Any help or input is appreciated! On a side note...we both have all of our Webroot firewalls and shields activated.
icon

Best answer by YegorP 2 July 2012, 23:53

View original

5 replies

Userlevel 7
Hey ctapp,
 
Welcome to the Webroot Community and nice avatar, BTW! :D
 
I understand your concern as you're not the only one to bring this question up before. Truth is, our SecureAnywhere product is very different from any antivirus that came before (including our older product) in that it takes a wholly different (and much more effective/efficient) approach to protecting your computer from threats. In fact, I wrote up a much more https:///t5/Webroot-SecureAnywhere-Antivirus/Old-Webroot-vs-WSA-A-friendlier-brisker-safer-take-on-internet/td-p/5155 on this a while back so feel free to check it out.
 
I think the inherent issue here is that people are just used to seeing antivirus programs take forever to scan and eventually throw out some results based on outdated definitions and often in the form of harmless cookies. We realized that this approach was just wasting time and slowing computer performance without any added protection so we decided to build SecureAnywhere around the idea that your protection is our main concern. By centering our efforts on this goal, we were able to eliminate all the "fluff" and scare-tactics often associated with typical antivirus programs. In fact, this is why SecureAnywhere https:///t5/Webroot-SecureAnywhere/Why-doesn-t-SecureAnywhere-find-cookies-anymore-like-the/ta-p/380 with cookies in the first place. (Our old program picked up a lot of cookies which definitely plays a role in your "catch everything" description)
 
Basically, it all boils down to this: The fact that Webroot SecureAnywhere isn't finding any threats on your computer is great! That means we are doing our job at protecting your computer. And if your computer does manage to get infected, we stand by our promise and provide free virus and malware removal services for all of our customers.
 
So back to your original concern: Is there anything that is leading you to believe Webroot is missing something in it's scans? Are you experiencing performance issues, browser slow-downs, redirects, etc? If not, I can assure you that Webroot is functioning properly and that if there is a threat, it'll let you know (in the rare case that it doesn't, see the previous paragraph)! If you do believe you may have an infection we're not catching, please let me know and I'll gladly continue to assist you!
 
Hope that helps. Let me know if there's anything else I can help you answer!
Oh okay, thank you! That clears it up a little bit. And yes, to answer your question, I've always had a few issues (performance wise) with Webroot, ever since I got my new laptop last August (which runs Windows 7; my old laptop ran Windows Vista). It tends to go in phases (issues for a few weeks, then a couple months free of issues, etc..) the main issues tend to be browser slow-downs, and disk problems. I don't believe I'm infected with anything (because other than performance issues, I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary)..it just seems to have some issues with my operating system.
Oh, also, do you mean that it will only notify me (or show as "threats found", on a scan), if it finds something that is 'really serious' or 'harmful'?
Userlevel 7
Hi ctapp,
 
Honestly, performance issues could be caused by the "widest variety of factors" and vary from one computer to the next. Due to the "bulky" nature of traditional antivirus programs, Webroot SecureAnywhere was designed with performance in mind. Because our software is so small, fast, and un-intrusive, we typically do a very good job operating in the background and not affecting your computer's performance.
 
Are you sure that the performance issues you describe are being caused by Webroot SecureAnywhere. A good way to check is to temporarily shut down or even uninstall Webroot and see if the issue persists. However, because you say the browser slow-downs and disk errors you're experiencing are inconsistent, it's hard to know exactly what's going. If it's not happening right now, that's a good thing, but if you start to experience the performance issues again, please try the aforementioned solutions and see if that resolves it. After that, the next step would be to submit a support ticket as we may need to analyze logs from your computer to pinpoint the issue and troubleshoot accordingly.
Userlevel 7
Hey ctapp,
 
Just wanted to touch base and see how you were doing regarding the performance issues you described on this thread about a week ago. Are you still experiencing the browser slow-downs and disk errors? If so, did you get a chance to submit a support ticket? I checked using the email address you registered with here on the Community, but it didn't bring up a ticket in our support system so perhaps you used a different email address? Anyway, let me know! I want to help you get to the bottom of this!
 
Regards,

Reply