Webroot Internet Security Complete

While it’s not universal, there’s a common pattern in the product lines of many security companies. They offer basic antivirus that wipes out any malware you may have picked up and carefully monitors your system to prevent fresh infestations. A basic security suite bolsters the antivirus with components such as a firewall, spam filter, parental control, and so on. At the top, a mega-suite adds such things as backup (the ultimate security), VPN protection, or support for multiple platforms. Webroot’s entry-level suite adds little beyond the basic antivirus for Windows and Mac. It also includes limited mobile apps for Android and iOS. Now that Webroot Internet Security Complete no longer offers backup, the incremental value of upgrading to this top-tier suite is even less.

Bitdefender, by contrast, packs so many features into its basic antivirus that it outmatches many suites. Bitdefender Internet Security is an Editors’ Choice winner for entry-level suites, while Bitdefender Total Security is our Editors’ Choice for a top-tier mega-suite. Note, too, that Bitdefender routinely earns perfect and near-perfect scores from four independent antivirus testing labs.

How Much Does Webroot Internet Security Complete Cost?

For $79.99 per year, you can install Webroot on five devices, a lower per-device price than most. A five-device subscription for Bitdefender Total Security costs $94.99, for example. But Bitdefender’s top suite has vastly more useful security features than Webroot.

Avast One charges $99.99 for five licenses, and Norton 360 Deluxe goes for $104.99. Both offer no-limits VPN protection for your devices, along with a wealth of security features. Norton comes with a full backup system and 50GB of online storage, twice what Webroot used to offer. Yes, you pay more, but you get more as well.

With most security suites, you can choose the number of licenses you want, with better per-license pricing at higher numbers. For example, paying $10 more gets you 10 Bitdefender licenses rather than five, and ZoneAlarm Extreme Security’s multiple license options go all the way up to 50 licenses for $549.95 per year. Webroot doesn’t work that way. You can buy one antivirus license, three suite licenses, or five licenses for the top-tier suite reviewed here. If you want more, you buy more at full price.

It’s worth noting that for both suites the per-device price is about $20, half the price of a single antivirus license. The biggest reason to buy either Webroot suite is to get the equivalent of a volume discount on the antivirus.

Trend Micro’s product line follows the same one, three, and five hierarchy as Webroot, but upgrading gets you more enhancements and added features. With Norton, if you want more licenses or more backup storage, you upgrade to one of the three levels of Norton 360 with LifeLock Select, which tops out at a yearly fee of $349 for unlimited suite and VPN licenses, 500GB of storage for backups, and maximal identity theft features.

McAfee+ at its lowest level gives you unlimited licenses. For $139.99 per year, you can install McAfee on every Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and ChromeOS device in your household. Paying for higher tiers adds a full collection of identity theft remediation features.

What’s Up With Webroot's Backup?

At the time of my previous review, this top-level Webroot suite integrated cloud-based backup and file sync for your Windows devices, with 25GB of hosted storage for your backups. However, even that offering was diminished compared to previous years. Backup once worked across Windows, macOS, and Android. You used to be able to purchase additional storage, 50GB, 100GB, or 500GB for roughly $80, $100, or $200 per year respectively.

With the current edition, backup is gone, and the online control console has completely changed. One major change is the disappearance of the remote monitoring and control system. You used to be able to log in and remotely check the status of your Webroot installations. You could even trigger events like a malware scan or system reboot. Not any longer.

The new console is branded both with Webroot and Carbonite logos, which makes some sense given that both Webroot and Carbonite are owned by the same parent company, OpenText. Carbonite subscribers above the Basic level get a one-device Webroot AntiVirus subscription. One might expect some reciprocity, but there’s none at present. My Webroot contact agreed that a version with backup by Carbonite is logical, but could not commit to any specific timeframe. For now, this suite remains seriously diminished by its lack of backup.

Read Me First

When reviewing a new or updated security product line, I start by evaluating the antivirus. With that review finished, I move on to the entry-level security suite, summarizing my antivirus findings but focusing on the suite-specific features. When there's a high-level mega-suite or a cross-platform suite, I do the same, summarizing my review of the entry-level suite and moving on to the features that you only get at the top tier.

The differences between this suite and Webroot Internet Security Plus are minimal enough that a summary of shared features would occupy most of the review. Rather than summarize, I'll ask you to click the link above and read my review of the entry-level suite. When you're finished, finish this review to learn what you get by upgrading. (Spoiler alert: It’s not much).

Webroot’s antivirus was an Editors’ Choice, but recent feature cuts and some test failures brought it down from that pedestal. It’s still quite good and has a unique system for rolling back any changes between infestation by zero-day malware and recognition of the problem. The entry-level Webroot Internet Security Plus adds a partner subscription to LastPass Premium. Since the breach problems at LastPass, that partnership doesn’t have the glow it once did. The Plus edition also adds very limited mobile security for Android and iOS.

Webroot System Analyzer and Optimizer

With the departure of the backup system, there’s nothing on the main window to show that you’re using the Complete version than the Plus version of Webroot’s suite. However, if you click the Utilities item in the main window, you’ll find new items. Where the Plus version has buttons for Reports and System Control, the Complete version replaces those with buttons named Optimize Now and Run System Analyzer. Note that these features are already present in Webroot AntiVirus for Mac.

The system optimizer itself is simple. You click the Optimize Now button, and it quickly wipes out useless files, thereby recovering the space occupied by those files. There’s no preview of what’s to be deleted, nor is there a report on completion. If you want to see what this component did, click the settings gear icon in the Utilities panel, click System Optimizer, and click the View Log button at the bottom right. Be warned; the log is just a raw blow-by-blow list of what Webroot removed. On the same settings page, you can invoke Webroot’s scheduler to run optimization on a daily or weekly basis or run it at a regular interval, up to every 24 hours.

Digging into Advanced Settings, you can see why the optimizer is so fast. All it does out of the box is clear temporary files and empty the Recycle Bin. Most users won’t open Advanced Settings. Those who do can configure the optimizer to remove a handful of other types of data, among them the history of user logons, the storage folder for files burned to CD, and any memory dump files.

As on the Mac, System Analyzer looks for possible system-level problems and runs a quick scan for malware. On my virtual machine test system, it reported all clear for Software, meaning the OS is up to date and the system isn’t clogged with junk files. In terms of Threats, it reported that it found no malware and that both antivirus and firewall are enabled.

The Hardware section came out almost all good. Webroot reported the system free from frequent crashes and noted that all attached devices are functioning. Its only gripe was the relatively low amount of graphics RAM.

If the System Analyzer reports something wrong, you must figure out how to fix it for yourself. Some items are easy—you might need to update Windows or turn the firewall on. But if it reports frequent crashes or devices not functioning properly, you won’t necessarily know what to do.

Bonus: Secure Erase

If you right-click any file or folder in Windows, you'll find a new menu option, Permanently Erase With Webroot. A secure deletion tool like this is handy when you want to erase a file and ensure it can't be recovered using forensic software or hardware. It's especially useful when paired with encryption software—after encrypting a sensitive file, you securely delete the original. Webroot doesn't offer encryption, but you may still find uses for this tool.

Here's a little background. When you delete a file in Windows, it isn’t really gone. It just goes into the Recycle Bin. Even if you bypass the Recycle Bin, or empty it, the file’s data still isn’t gone. Those data sectors remain on disk, unchanged, except for a marker that says they’re available, not in use. Simple forensic software can often recover these files. Windows 10 and 11 have a simple file recovery tool built in. That’s fine when you deleted the file accidentally, but not if meant to eliminate the file completely.

The typical secure deletion utility foils forensic recovery in a very simple way. It overwrites the file’s data sectors with random data before deletion, so the recovery software gets nothing but gibberish. One overwrite pass is sufficient to foil software-based recovery, and even lab-quality hardware-based forensic recovery systems can’t recover data that’s been overwritten seven times.

Unfortunately, Webroot’s Secure Erase does not perform secure deletion out of the box. All it does is delete the selected file or folder without sending it to the Recycle Bin. You can do that yourself by holding down Shift during deletion.

To enable actual secure deletion, you must dig into settings and raise the security level at least to Medium. At this level, Webroot overwrites the data three times, in three different ways, before deleting the file. That’s a level of security that satisfies the Department of Defense, so it should be good enough for almost all consumers.

For those who deal with illegal or otherwise sensitive data, the Maximum security level goes all out. It overwrites the data seven times, which means there’s no possibility of recovery, even with the fanciest hardware. It also overwrites the unused bytes at the end of the file’s last data sector and wipes other traces around the file system. This level of secure deletion takes longer, of course, so don’t use it unless you really need it.

Not Complete, Despite the Name

The best part of Webroot Internet Security Complete is the antivirus component. Upgrading from antivirus to the entry-level suite adds the LastPass password manager, as well as limited protection for your mobile devices. The only thing you get by further upgrading to this top-tier suite is a simple system optimization system and a secure erase feature that’s not terribly secure by default. Oh, and you get five licenses rather than three. The removal of backup as a feature leaves this suite incomplete.

Most users looking for a security suite want something more substantial. Our Editors' Choice pick for security mega-suite is Bitdefender Total Security, which packs a phenomenal collection of features and gets near-perfect scores from the antivirus testing labs. With its support for Mac and limited mobile apps, Webroot could also be considered a cross-platform multi-device suite. In that realm, our Editors' Choice product is Norton 360 Deluxe. Both cost more than Webroot, but they give you much, much more in terms of security features.