What is Webroot WiFi Security?
It’s increasingly common for major internet security software makers to provide VPN services among their product range. In the case of Webroot, a subsidiary of Carbonite, its VPN service is a white-label version of the SaferVPN backend infrastructure, whose operator, Safer Social, is based in Israel.
On top of that, Webroot incorporates its own BrightCloud Threat Intelligence to provide an integrated Web Filtering feature. Unusually, it doesn’t cost more than SaferVPN’s own-brand service.
Related: Best VPN
Webroot WiFi Security – Features and usability
Clients are available for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, but there’s no Linux support, no browser plugins and no instructions for connecting routers or other devices. This is definitely a VPN for typical home users rather than people with more complex requirements.
Note also that the iOS app doesn’t currently have a kill switch to cut off internet traffic and thus protect your privacy if the VPN connection drops unexpectedly. All the others do, but you’ll have to enable it in settings.
The Windows client’s core interface is simple, with an instant connection button and the option of opening a list of endpoints by country, with 34 available locations. There’s also a dedicated UK streaming server although, oddly, there wasn’t a non-streaming UK server listed when we carried out our most recent tests.
It has a somewhat wider range of settings than many of its big-name online security rivals’ VPN apps, allowing you to define trusted Wi-Fi networks, configure startup behaviour and switch VPN connection protocols.
Webroot WiFi Security – Performance
| Endpoints/VPN | UK | Netherlands | United States |
| Webroot WiFi Security HTTP | 129.76Mbps | 126.96Mbps | 53.28Mbps |
| Webroot WiFi Security FTP | 162.90Mbps | 155.70Mbps | n/a |
We were generally disappointed by Webroot’s performance in our transfer speed tests. Although by no means unusably slow, its throughput was consistently below average when compared to rivals. We also found that the client was a little slow to connect and disconnect from endpoints.
Over HTTP, in the US, we got an impressively quick transfer speed of 16.22MB/s (129.76Mbps) and FTP throughput of 20.36MB/s.
This is a great improvement on last month, which was also apparent from endpoints in the Netherlands, with HTTP throughput of 15.87MB/s and FTP speeds of 19.46MB/s – more than double last month’s best score.
In the US, we couldn’t successfully use FTP, seemingly due to endpoint configuration issues – something we saw on UK endpoints last month. HTTP performance was slightly below average at 6.66MB/s, but certainly good enough for even relatively bandwidth-intensive internet use.
However, streaming video performance has gone downhill. We could watch US Netflix and Shudder, but Crunchyroll, BBC iPlayer and All 4 all noticed that we were using a VPN.
Related: What is a VPN?
Should I buy Webroot WiFi Security?
Webroot WiFi Security bills its headline feature as the ability to automatically connect and protect you by routing all your internet traffic via its encrypted tunnels whenever you connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi network. This is actually a pretty standard use case for VPNs and most of its rivals have the same feature built in.
It also provides the usual assurances of protecting your privacy online and region-shifting to access streaming content. Some logs are kept, including session timestamps, the VPN server the user connects to and the country they connect from, as well as housekeeping data such as the number of simultaneously connected devices.
However, Webroot informs us that “WiFi Security does not collect users’ entry or exit IP addresses. It also does not collect their browsing activity, downloaded data (or shared or viewed data), or DNS queries.”
Its initial subscription fees are reasonably priced, working out at around £33.00 per year for a three-device account and £49.50 per year for five devices. However, automatic renewals are enabled by default and are surprisingly steep at £49.50 and £66.00 per year respectively.
Verdict
Webroot’s VPN service has a decent range of security features, although its lack of support for less than entirely typical use cases means that it probably won’t suit anyone except the most mainstream of users.
We were pleased to see that its performance has improved significantly since last month, but we’re distinctly unimpressed by the amount that subscription fees go up when users renew. Private Internet Access is a faster and more prevent alternative, currently available, for less than Webroot’s introductory price.
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