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Webroot Inc. is an American privately-held
cybersecurity Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...
software company that provides Internet security for consumers and businesses. The company was founded in Boulder, Colorado, US, and is now headquartered in
Broomfield, Colorado Broomfield is a consolidated city and county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. Broomfield has a consolidated government which operates under Article XX, Sections 10-13 of the Constitution of the State of Colorado. The Broomfield populati ...
, and has US operations in San Mateo and
San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...
, and globally in Australia,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, Japan and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
.


History

Webroot was founded on 5 July 1997 when Steven Thomas and his girlfriend Boulderite Kristen Tally launched Webroot's first commercial product, a trace removal agent called Webroot Window Washer. Investors include venture capital firms such as
Technology Crossover Ventures TCMI, Inc. better known by the name TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures) is an American investment firm based in Menlo Park, California. The firm mainly invests in public and private growth-stage companies in the technology industry. Background ...
,
Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...
and Mayfield. In 2002, Webroot launched a spyware blocking and removal product called Webroot Spy Sweeper. The company introduced antivirus protection with the launch of Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus in 2006. In October 2007, Webroot AntiVirus with AntiSpyware and Desktop Firewall was released with added firewall protection feature. Webroot entered the enterprise market in 2004 with the launch of Webroot Spy Sweeper Enterprise, which combined Spy Sweeper with technology that enables IT administrators to deploy antispyware protection across an entire network. In October 2008, Webroot launched its first consumer security suite, Webroot Internet Security Essentials, in the United States. The international release of the security suite followed in early 2009. In August 2009, Webroot appointed a new president and CEO, former CEO of
Wily Technology CA Wily Technology, formerly Wily Technology, Inc., is a software company based in California. Founded in 1998, it was purchased by CA, Inc. in March 2006, and CA Wily Technology is now a division of CA's Service Assurance business unit. Histor ...
. In May 2010 Webroot announced plans to open its international headquarters in
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
, Ireland. In July 2010 Webroot Internet Security Complete 2011 was released, including antivirus and antispyware protection, firewall capabilities, online back-up, password management licensed from
LastPass LastPass is a password manager distributed in subscription form as well as a freemium model with limited functionality. The standard version of LastPass comes with a web interface, but also includes plugins for various web browsers and apps fo ...
, protection against identity theft and credit card monitoring for US customers. In September 2010 Webroot opened a regional office in
Leidschendam Leidschendam () is a town and former municipality in the province of South Holland of the Netherlands. Along with Voorburg and Stompwijk, it is part of the municipality Leidschendam-Voorburg. History The town's name has been in use for centur ...
, The Netherlands which is primarily aimed at distributing Webroot's enterprise security-as-a-service (SaaS) products to businesses. Webroot Mobile Security for Android was launched on April 5, 2011 for smartphones and tablets, with a free basic version and a paid premium version. The app is designed to protect against viruses from apps, threats delivered via web browsing and against the threats created when mobile devices are lost. The SecureAnywhere products launched on October 4, 2011, and the mobile security offerings were expanded to include the
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
mobile operating system. In October 2011 Webroot launched a new generation of their products, using Prevx cloud technology. This included three basic products for
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
(SecureAnywhere AntiVirus, Essentials and Complete 2012) and security for Android and iOS mobile devices. In February 2012 products for businesses were added. In July 2014 Webroot announced its BrightCloud Security Services, a new portfolio of services for enterprise-class businesses, including integration for Next-Generation Firewalls and SIEMs. In September 2017, Webroot appointed a new president and CEO, former CEO of
Lancope Cisco is an American computer networking company. Cisco made its first acquisition in 1993, which was followed by a series of further acquisitions. History Founded in 1984, Cisco did not acquire a company during the first seven years of its exi ...
Mike Potts. On February 7, 2019 Carbonite, Inc. announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Webroot. On March 26, 2019, Carbonite closed its acquisition of Webroot, with a purchase price of $618.5 million in cash.Carbonite to Acquire Webroot, March 27, 2019
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Acquisitions and partnerships

In November 2007, Webroot acquired UK-based Email Systems (EMS) and announced itself as a provider in the security
software-as-a-service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...
(SaaS) market. In December 2009, Webroot announced a partnership with virtual private network software provider AnchorFree. A version without advertisements of AnchorFree's VPN software with protection via Webroot's antivirus and antispyware software was produced. In March 2010, Webroot announced the acquisition of Swedish corporate Internet security company, Email Systems Scandinavia (ESS). In July 2010, Webroot acquired San Diego, California-based web content classification and security services provider, BrightCloud, adding its web reputation and content classification technology to existing products. In November 2010, Webroot acquired UK cloud-based anti-malware company,
Prevx Prevx is a discontinued anti-malware utility. There are separate real-time and on-demand versions. It can remove low-risk adware for free, but the user has to purchase and enter a license key if it is more serious. Scanning can take anywhere from ...
. In July 2011 a partnership was struck with global distribution firm
Tech Data Tech Data Corporation (commonly referred to as Tech Data) was an American multinational distribution company specializing in IT products and services headquartered in Clearwater, Florida. It merged with competitor Synnex to form TD Synnex. Sy ...
, making Webroot products available to Tech Data's network of 125,000 channel partners in 100 countries around the world. In July 2013, Webroot and
RSA Security RSA Security LLC, formerly RSA Security, Inc. and doing business as RSA, is an American computer and network security company with a focus on encryption and encryption standards. RSA was named after the initials of its co-founders, Ron Rive ...
formed a partnership to enhance both firms' real-time
phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwa ...
detection. In September 2016 Webroot acquired the assets of CyberFlow Analytics, a company applying data science to network anomaly detection. In February 2019 Webroot announced that it would be acquired by Carbonite. In March 2019, Carbonite confirmed the purchase. In December 2019 Carbonite was acquired by
OpenText OpenText Corporation (also written ''opentext'') is a Canadian company that develops and sells enterprise information management (EIM) software. OpenText, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, is Canada's fourth-largest software company ...
.


Reviews

AV-Comparatives gave nine vendors, including Webroot, its highest award in its July 2012 Anti-Phishing Test, in which Webroot took 9th place among 18 products tested for efficacy in blocking phishing websites. In AV-Comparatives's Performance Test for October 2012, Webroot had the best
PCMark PCMark is a computer benchmark tool developed by UL (formerly Futuremark) to test the performance of a PC at the system and component level. In most cases, the tests in PCMark are designed to represent typical home user workloads. Running PCMar ...
score, having the lightest impact out of 20 products tested on a Windows 7 64-bit machine. Webroot had the worst results out of 20 products tested by
AV-Comparatives AV-Comparatives is an Austrian independent organization that tests and assesses antivirus software, regularly releasing charts and reports that are freely available to the public and the media. Antivirus vendors have to meet various requirements r ...
in the September 2012 File Detection Test of Malicious Software, both in terms of malware detection rates and false alarms. Webroot detected less than 80 percent of viral samples, much worse than the 94.4 percent rate of the second-lowest detecting product. Webroot inappropriately flagged 210 clean files, raising as many false positives as the other 19 products tested combined. According to AV-comparatives, the "results and misses have been confirmed with several tests and also by the vendor." '' PC Magazine'' has awarded Webroot SecureAnywhere 19 times with Editor's Choice and Security Product of the Year, its highest award given to security and software programs. In PC Magazine's test for 2013, Webroot was found by PC Magazine staff to have the best score in malware blocking tests, malware removal tests, speed of scans, and installation speed. In the 2014 test, PCMag found "Webroot's detection rate of 89 percent and overall malware cleanup score of 6.6 points are both tops among products tested using this same malware collection."
Gartner Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its client ...
listed Webroot in its Visionary Quadrant in its 2014 assessment of Endpoint Protection Platforms. In 2014, PassMark Software, a software and hardware performance benchmarking company, benchmarked Webroot SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection and Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus using 13 performance metrics. In both tests, Webroot products were found to outperform competitors in a variety of metrics, including scan times, CPU usage, and others, earning the highest overall score in both tests. During November 2016's evaluation of mobile security products for Android
AV-TEST AV-TEST is an independent organization which evaluates and rates antivirus and security suite software for Microsoft Windows and Android operating systems, according to a variety of criteria. The organisation is based in Magdeburg, Germany. Ever ...
has given Webroot's SecureAnywhere Mobile product a "Protection Score" of 3.5 out of 6, placing it near the bottom of all 26 products evaluated in this test in terms of protection against malware. Both the "Detection of the latest Android malware in real-time" and "Detection of the latest Android malware discovered in the last 4 weeks" scores were below the "Industry Average" score. In October 2017, AV-Comparatives performed a "Head-to-Head Comparison" between products from VIPRE and Webroot, the Webroot SecureAnywhere product was only able to achieve 86.4% "Protection Rate", compared to VIPRE Cloud's 100% rate. The test was performed using a test set of 316 live malicious URLs found in the field. During the January 2018 test of 84 various Android antimalware apps by AV-Comparatives, Webroot Security Premier has detected 99.7% of all antimalware samples, placing it below 30 other tested apps which showed better detection rates.


See also

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AntiVirus Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the nam ...
*
Comparison of antivirus software This article compares notable antivirus products and services. It is Wikipedia list article rather than a deep analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Legend The term "on-demand scan" refers to the possibility of performing a manual ...
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Comparison of computer viruses The compilation of a unified list of computer viruses is made difficult because of naming. To aid the fight against computer viruses and other types of malicious software, many security advisory organizations and developers of anti-virus softwar ...
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Software as a Service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...


References


External links

* {{Antivirus software Computer security software companies Software companies based in Colorado Companies based in Broomfield, Colorado Software companies of the United States Content-control software Antivirus software Software companies established in 1997 American subsidiaries of foreign companies 2019 mergers and acquisitions