Why we switched our antivirus software from VIPRE to Webroot

For the first half of 2015, almost all of our customers’ devices depended on VIPRE antivirus software to protect them from malware and other cyber security threats. A year later, we now protect the devices we support with Webroot SecureAnywhere.

Why did we make this change?

In late spring 2015, we started receiving support requests from our customers that were identical across all companies. Outlook would get stuck “loading add-in 7/9: VIPRE antivirus object” and never move past that screen, even after a full reboot. The only way to resolve the issue once it had occurred was to disable VIPRE, leaving their mailboxes unprotected.

At the same time, many of our customers were hit by CryptoWall 3.0, a variant of the Cryptolocker ransomware virus, after opening infected email attachments. This occurred on systems that had antivirus software fully enabled, meaning that VIPRE simply wasn’t able to detect the malware. Fortunately, none of our customers lost any data, as we were able to restore their files and systems from our off-site backups, but affected individuals still suffered downtime as we worked to remove the infection from their systems.

We quickly realized that we were using an antivirus software that not only couldn’t protect our customers from the most malicious virus out there, but was also actively causing issues with known, safe programs and seriously disrupting workflow.

We immediately began looking for a replacement. After extensive research, we decided to go with Webroot. It’s the smallest antivirus software on the market, using just over 1MB of disk space, and received top ratings from two independent testing labs in 2015. It also received a perfect score in PC Magazine’s hands-on malware blocking test.

More importantly, Webroot doesn’t interfere with universally important applications like the Microsoft Office Suite – and our customers didn’t have a single email-related malware infection for the rest of 2015.