The Webroot study is just the latest in a salvo of company-sponsored studies that seek to undermine the credibility of competing security products.

In September, study by 3Sharp compared antiphishing toolbars by Google/Firefox, AOL, EarthLink, Geotrust, McAfee, and others and found the Internet Explorer antiphishing technology the most accurate. The Mozilla Foundation fired back in November with that found the Firefox antiphishing technology better than that of Internet Explorer. A subsequent independent concluded that few of the available anti-phishing products are very reliable.