The download amounts to about MB, which is normal for an Internet security suite. It takes just a few minutes over a standard cable Internet connection. Once downloaded, the installation takes another few minutes. Bitdefender went for the ultra-modern look and pulled it off well. The UI is intuitive enough, although there is a bit too much info displayed for my liking.
You can manage various parts of the program by clicking through the categories in the center of the screen. Green means good to go. The new edition also lets you filter links received on Facebook and Twitter and keep an eye on your privacy settings. Other new features include rescue mode, for scanning and disintecting hard drives outside of the operating system OS , along with a new virtualized browser, designed to sandbox the browser from the OS if you are visiting a Web site which you suspect might contain malware.
Parental controls are the number one feature that make an Internet security suite worth more in price than a basic anti-virus suite. Its new design, though, should be easy for beginners to understand, but it still maintains plenty of flexibility for advanced users.
Screens are laid out nicely, and at no point did I feel overwhelmed by the settings panes. Clicking the help button in each one denoted with a question mark produces pop-up messages that describe what the settings do. It also dragged our PC down significantly when we copied files over a network, completing that test in 5 minutes, 37 seconds. By comparison, our test machine finished the copying operation in 60 seconds without antivirus software installed.
No individual reviewer can hope to compete with the testing labs for thoroughness, but we were keen to confirm their verdicts by seeing how Bitdefender Antivirus Plus handled a couple of ransomware threats. The first, a real-world ransomware specimen, was eliminated almost immediately, with Bitdefender killing the process before it could cause any harm. The second was a custom ransomware simulator of our own.
It's about as simple a malware sample as you could get, but it's also something Bitdefender would never have seen before, allowing us to evaluate how Antivirus Plus performs when presented with brand new threats. We ran our test software, and in just a fraction of a second, Bitdefender's engine cut in and displayed an alert. Not only had it detected and killed our test process, but Bitdefender's Ransomware Remediation technology successfully restored the ten files our software had managed to encrypt.
The Ransomware Remediation feature isn't turned on by default, for instance. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus prompts you to enable it, but if you're not paying attention, you could lose at least a handful of files in an attack. The package didn't quarantine our simulator, either, despite detecting it performing ransomware-like actions.
We ran it multiple times, and when we scanned the executable later, Bitdefender flagged it as 'clean. The company told us that threats are removed only if they're detected by the signature layer. Ours was picked up by the behavior layer, which will kill an offending process, but not try to remove it. Kaspersky Anti-Virus went further, quarantining our test executable to prevent it running again, and on balance that's the approach we prefer.
But this isn't a major deal, as Bitdefender's gentler approach doesn't seem to have any practical effect on system security, as although we were able to repeatedly run the same threat, Bitdefender blocked it each time.
That's a major improvement on many competitors, which either miss the simulator entirely or aren't able to stop it destroying at least some files Norton Antivirus Plus lost On balance, we think Bitdefender provides very capable and effective all-round ransomware protection.
Bitdefender's web protection module monitors your internet access and blocks malicious and phishing links. We've previously tested Bitdefender against brand new suspect URLs malicious and phishing provided by independent security testing company MRG Effitas. These were so new — many reported only hours ago — that they hadn't all even been verified yet, making them a real challenge to block.
Don't be distracted by the low percentages: this is a measure of how quickly a vendor responds to new threats, not your overall protection against any dangerous links.
The main takeaway point from this test is Bitdefender was giving us significantly better protection than others against even the very latest malicious sites. When you reach a legitimate site, Bitdefender's Anti-Tracker browse extension aims to detect and block the most intrusive web trackers, then displays a count of these in its address bar icon. We pointed our browser at the newspaper site dailymail.
To compare Anti-Tracker's abilities with the ad-blocking competition, we revisited the same site with the excellent uBlock Origin activated, and this time Anti-Tracker blocked only five trackers. You can get much the same functionality for free, then, but it looks like Bitdefender Anti-Tracker does offer some additional privacy benefits.
And of course, as we did in our tests, you can run Anti-Tracker alongside your existing ad-blocker to get the best of all worlds. Wallet is Bitdefender's password manager. Along with regular website logins, it's able to store credit card details, wireless network passwords, application logins and license keys, email server credentials and details, and assorted personal information name, date of birth, address, email, phone number s , and more.
Wallet is able to create multiple password databases and sync them across all your Bitdefender-equipped devices. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus automatically installed the Wallet extension on Internet Explorer and Firefox, and gave us the option to install it on Chrome, but paid no attention at all to Edge or Opera. We found Wallet wasn't as easy to use as top competitors like Dashlane : it didn't add icons to text fields, didn't always capture username and password fields as we entered them, sometimes failed to fill in forms correctly, and couldn't automatically submit forms.
However, it just about handled the basics, and is a worthwhile addition to the package. Safepay is a secure and isolated browser which protects online banking and other transactions from snoopers — or maybe even malware which has somehow installed itself on your system.
Many other security vendors also claim to have similar secure browsers, but Bitdefender goes further than most. Safepay makes real efforts to isolate itself from other processes on your PC, running on a separate desktop and preventing screen grabbers and keyloggers from recording what you're doing. We checked this by setting up a custom keylogger of our own, and using a commercial screen capture tool to take snapshots of our activities every 15 seconds.
Safepay worked perfectly, with no recorded keystrokes and plain white screenshots only. Bitdefender has considered long-term storage, too. Once the session is closed, Safepay clears all temporary files and leaves no trace of our activities. Much like the safe browsing competition, Safepay doesn't support installing third-party extensions, as they open you up to many more privacy problems.
But it does have a handful of useful built-in extras, including a virtual keyboard as an extra defense again keyloggers, and a pop-up blocker to protect you from web trickery. Safepay isn't just some throwaway extra, then - it's a real highlight of the suite, and using it for the most confidential web tasks could go a long way to keeping you safe. A Vulnerability Scan checks your system for missing application updates and critical Windows patches, as well as weak Windows account passwords, simple Wi-Fi network issues, and now includes more checks for altered and poorly configured system settings.
We turned Autorun on, a risky setting which can automatically run software when you plug in a removable drive or media, and the Vulnerability Scan warned us and offered to fix the issue. It also spotted some far more obscure options - our system wasn't restricting access to site management policies for security zones, for instance - and, more usefully, spotted missing Java and Firefox updates.
This is a basic tool, with one or two usability issues. There's no 'Fix All' button, so you must choose an action for each individual item. You can't tell the Vulnerability Scan to ignore a particular issue, either; even if you're entirely happy with having unrestricted access to site management policies, it's going to warn you about the 'problem' each and every time.
Still, there is value here, particularly with the checks for missing updates, and overall, the Vulnerability Scan is a worthwhile addition to the suite. Last, but not least, there's the VPN. With the free plan limiting you to only MB a day, it's only suitable for the lightest of uses, picking up email or carrying out some confidential web transaction via public Wi-Fi. But it's easy to use, has servers that cover 51 countries, and support for Hotspot Shield's Catapult Hydra protocol ensures decent speeds.
It's worth having, even in its limited form but check out our full Bitdefender Premium VPN review if you'd like to go further. This is a strong all-round antivirus tool which does a good job of keeping even brand new, undiscovered threats at bay, and throws in some useful extras, too.
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is an absolute must for your PC security shortlist. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus has way more functionality than most antivirus apps, but it's still missing some key security suite features.
And that's where Bitdefender Internet Security comes in, adding essentials like a firewall, spam filter and parental controls. A privacy layer protects you from webcam hijacking by stopping unauthorized apps from accessing your webcam, and a microphone monitor identifies all the apps using the microphone.
As we mentioned at the outset, Bitdefender Internet Security is reasonably priced and only marginally more expensive than Antivirus Plus. You could spend more than that on a commercial parental controls package or spam filter alone.
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