Entered CNET Catalog: 11/02/2006
SKU: K11012002EN-M2
Manufacturer: Softwin
Manufacturer description
BitDefender Antivirus is a powerful antivirus and antispyware tool with features that best meet your security needs. Ease of use and automatic updates make BitDefender Antivirus an 'install and forget' product.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 11/01/2006
We downloaded and installed BitDefender Antivirus 10 in a matter of minutes. While other antivirus apps provide single-user licenses and one-year subscriptions, for $10 less than other antivirus applications, BitDefender Antivirus 10 provides two user licenses and two years of updates. Unlike
Once installed, BitDefender requires 60MB of disk space, twice as much as -->CA Antivirus 2007, comparable to McAfee VirusScan Plus, yet one-third the size of Norton AntiVirus 2007. In terms of system resources, BitDefender Antivirus 10 (using its default scan settings) is neither a resource hog or nor is it lean, falling somewhere in the middle instead.
Should you decide to uninstall BitDefender Antivirus 10, a handy uninstall icon accessible from the Windows All Programs list should remove all trace of the application from your PC. After a reboot, however, we found several files, folder, and even system registry entries left behind, so the uninstall process could be cleaner.
After our installation of BitDefender Antivirus 10 we noticed a tiny black box in the lower-right corner of our desktop screen, just above the system tray. This is BitDefender's Scan Activity monitor. A green line indicates when files are scanned for viruses and spyware; BitDefender Antivirus 10 Plus customers will also see a red for firewall activity. A right-click hides this feature but never fully removes it. To remove the monitor, which we found to be distracting, you'll need to go into the system configuration settings. Also on the settings page, you can change the skin of the application from the default red to a much calmer blue.
Inside the main interface, there are navigation controls along the left side for General, Antivirus, Antispyware, and Update. The General section includes Quick Tasks, such as Scan Now, the default scan setting, and Update now. Further down the page is the security level, which is configurable, with the ability to throttle back BitDefender's scanning resources and customize what is protected and what is not. The default security level is Advanced Protection Plus.
The Antivirus section includes another graphical activity monitor and the ability to throttle back the antivirus scan to cover only the bare minimum of files or ramp it up to scan everything. The Antispyware section includes a Privacy Protection feature, disabled by default but enabled by clicking the Advanced Settings link and entering, for example, your personal credit card numbers. Should a Windows application try to send that credit card number out over the Internet, you'll see a warning message asking permission to continue. The Update section allows you to request a manual program update or to schedule the automatic updates, which can be set to download hourly. New in version 10 is built-in antirootkit protection, as well as port 80, Web traffic scans (to prevent drive-by downloads).
Unfortunately, BitDefender Antivirus 10 is a bit of a sloth, scoring lower than expected in our CNET Labs real-world application testing. While performing a BitDefender scan, it took us 242 seconds to open our iTunes application and 348 seconds to open Sorenson video compression; BitDefender ranked dead last in both tests. On single-file scans, BitDefender did much better, attaining second place at 102 seconds (fast), and its boot time tied Norton AntiVirus 2007's at 66 seconds (average).
In terms of protecting your PC, we refer readers to two leading independent antivirus testing organizations. In the latest test results from AV-Comparatives.org, BitDefender 9 earned an Advanced + (highest) rating, catching 95 percent of all malware tested. Previous versions of BitDefender Antivirus have also been certified by CheckVir.com and the German Association for Technical Inspection (TUV).
Help is, for some reason, a separate feature, accessible from the Windows All Programs list, not within the program itself. We found it hard remember that it was a separate application, and we hope that future versions of BitDefender integrate it into the program. The selection online is sparse. At the time of this review there were only seven FAQ articles on the BitDefender site; three had to do with registering or installing BitDfender 10 and one explained how to upgrade an existing license. Beyond that, we found little or no other documentation available for online access or download. Online Chat services from Romania are available 24/7 and require name and e-mail address, along with a short description of the problem. E-mail is available after supplying your first name, last name, e-mail, and telephone number. Live telephone support is available through a phone call to Romania; international phone call rates apply.
BitDefender Antivirus 10 is a solid little antivirus and antispyware application, and for the money, you get more here than with other traditional antivirus applications. That said, we'd like to see a faster scan engine and perhaps a lighter and leaner program profile in the next version, along with a built-in help file.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47
User Rating: 
1/10
software worked ok, did not like auto renewal
Pros: worked as it should.
Cons: AutoRenewal. Just like some SLEAZY porn site Bitdefender auto charges your credit card when it is time to renew. If you are not watching what is happening with your charges i suppose they would charge you for all eternity. I
User Rating: 1/10
worst virus scan available
Pros: I honestly can't name anything
Cons: Isn't antivirus supposed to be reliable. Well, BitDefender won't work consistently for a month. Go figure!!!
User Rating: 1/10
Horrible STAY AWAY
Pros: None I can find . I dont normally write bad reviews but this software is total junk
Cons: Very bloated piece of garbage ! best to avoid
User Rating: 1/10
Communication sucks. Can't opt-out.Are they even legit?
Pros: I used bitdefender on old computer. No need to renew with new computer. I suppose it worked okay on the old computer. Who knows?
Cons: Renewal time came and I could not opt-out. Now I've been charged and I cannot contact anyone at tech support or customer support. Email forms get no response. Chat buttons just spawn another email form. I've been on hold for 15 minutes, my dime.
Guess I'll contact my credit company and try to reverse the charge.
User Rating: 1/10
Not worth the hassle of Administration of the software
Pros: It protects as it states.
Cons: Unmanagable one you forget or loose passwords.
Tech support is impossible!
Need to send your computer's life story and secrets to tech support, I am not comfortable with that.
Tech support is impossible and cannot understand the English.
User Rating: 1/10
Stay Away from this..
Pros: Cant really think of any, but a decent detection rate id say
Cons: Bad UI / usability
System resource hog.. list goes on and on..
User Rating: 1/10
The WORST piece of crap I have ever had on my computer!
Pros: NOTHING! And I mean NOTHING!!
Cons: Great at identifying problems, worthless at fixing them. I've uninstalled, reinstalled, cleared registries, deleted cookies and basically done EVERYTHING BitDefender's "support" team suggests. And a day or two later, I get to do it ALL again.
User Rating: 1/10
PLEASE DONT GET CONNED INTO BUYING THIS!
Pros: non, it shouldnt even be called an antivirous scanner
Cons: slows donw computer, doesnt delete trogen virous or malware, this is crap! no phone support or online support, (i waited 2 hours for phone support)
User Rating: 
5/10
Software not bad, customer service terrible!
Pros: What I did like about Bitdefender was the fact that the full system scans were quick & in-depth,it also had the ability not to slow the system down to much even when in full swing & was very secure in finding viruses, trojans, spyware or malware.
Cons: Poor customer service & the software installation process is a pain to deal with.
User Rating: 1/10
Very poor support
Pros: Good, unattended use with minimal interference (once set up).
Cons: Non existant support.
Very slow scans (8 hours on a fast PC).
However I am less enamoured of the more recent 2009 version. It is much more intrusive - with no real extra benefit. It also adds about 3 minutes to my boot time. Most important of all, it doesn?t seem to protect my system very well. Just 2 days after Christmas, my work laptop became infected by a series of Trojans and worms, all sourced from RealAV.
I immediately did a scan but Bitdefender didn't find or remove anything (?) ? even though it was now totally controlled by several Trojans.. I then tried to send an email to their support and this is where I got problems.
Bitdefender has now instituted a very poor 'help yourself' support facility. I am sure this is in order to save costs (by preventing access to their support). Regardless of this, it is ineffective, difficult to use and ultimately useless. I finally managed to navigate my way past this and sent an email documenting the problem to Bitdefender. I duly received an auto response telling me they would get back to me within 48 hours. Well despite setting their level of service very low, they still haven?t managed to meet this. In fact it is now 12 days later and they still haven?t contacted me, In the meantime, the Trojans totally took over the pc and I was forced to reinstall it from scratch.
So, all in all, I was wondering, if I was protected by Bitdefender, how did I get infected in the first place? Looking at their site there is no mention of this type of Trojan (or any others actually), but I did find out about it from all of the other vendor?s sites. Anyway, once I was infected, I expected Bitdefender support to help me fix things and instead I was simply ignored. I would recommend checking out other products (and their service) before buying.
Update:
I have now emailed Bitdefender support three times in the last month. To date I have received one response, telling me that my feedback would be noted.
Still NO RESPONSE from support, No solution for my previous problems.
User Rating: 
2/10
Bugs, slowdowns and browser crashes make this a loser.
Pros: Has a "game mode" that keeps your games running a full speed. This feature works as advertised.
Cons: Causes periodic browser crashes, especially on sites that drop frequent cookies. Causes significant slowdown on a fast, dual-core system with 2GB RAM!. Scheduler cannot reliably set a time for full scans. Many context-sensitive menus don't work.
I really have to wonder if the so-called "reviewers" of this software actually USED it for a few days on their own. For reference, my system has Intel dual-core, which each core running at 3.0 GHz, 2 GB ram, a pair of 7500rpm drives, and an upper end nvidia 8800 series graphics card. The OS is XP Professional with SP3. All drivers and dx9 are up to date as of this writing (Nov '08). The version I am running is BitDefender Antivirus 2009.
User Rating: 
8/10
Might be superior on xp but problems on vista
Pros: Hourly updates, rock solid anti-virus and firewall. Never failed me.
Cons: Does not work quite right on two (2) separate Vista machines
Updated on Aug 28, 2008I did forget to mention one negitive to this product that i have found. I use Desktop Scout, a computer monitoring app (keystroks and other activity) on my kids computers. Iv added Desktop Scout to its ignore list, however (on multiple computers) it still scans and deletes this software so iv had to dissable its weekly system scans. This seems to be the only way to prevent it from wiping this app, which is great for people who might suspect that they may have spy software on their machine but bad for this parent which has to monitor his kids computer use.
User Rating: 
9/10
I love it, excellent
Pros: good coverage, good protection
Cons: service better than before, great
I love it. I had Symantec before, not happy.
They penetrated this tough market against big boys and and get good results. Good for bitdefender and us.
Abysmal
User Rating: 1/10
Their service SUCKS!
Pros: zero that I know
Cons: no response
User Rating: 9/10
Works just fine
Pros: Does not slow down my computer, uses little resources and it's effective.
Cons: None. It works.
User Rating: 1/10
Sucks resources!
Pros: Reasonable anti-virus?
Cons: You won't risk getting virusses since your PC is too slow to use!
Very disappointing! Also, the reviews are correct, it is a total pain to uninstall and I am considering a reformat of my hard drive.
User Rating: 
10/10
good product bitdefender antivirus plus purchased in india from www.bitdefenderasia.com
Pros: instant removal of virus
Cons: none as such
approximately 15 us dollars $.
The product is excellent value for money . All my virus n malware related probs were solved
User Rating: 
3/10
Endless Loop Hell
Pros: Don't know - never got that far
Cons: Don't Know - never got that far
User Rating: 5/10
Latest upgrade slowed things down
Pros: Decent protection, very good price
Cons: Slow, slow, slow
Starting with ver. 10 however, it seems to have gotten just as bloated, and now causes a very significant performance hit.
The protection is still good, the price is much better than some, and performance doesn't seem worse than the big guys.
But there are now better choices out there. If you're looking to protect a lower end machine, or any machine where you can't afford to lose significant performance, look elsewhere.
User Rating: 3/10
Non-Existant Customer Service
Pros: Seems to find Viruses
Cons: RUDE Customer Service/Slows My computer!
I called back and they told me I shouldn't call-they will Email me. When??? 5 years later? Then it was blocking My incoming Emails-Once again you're on your own if you have a problem. No Customer Service!!! I really wanted to like this product but to me if I have problems I need Customer Service that is helpfull and responsive!!!
User Rating: 1/10
junk do not buy this junk n headache
Pros: headaches
Cons: worst headache
User Rating: 3/10
made computer slow and killed my internet
Pros: no virus infected couputer
Cons: made IE7 crash alot
User Rating: 1/10
VERY BAD , VERY SLOW, and too many pop ups...
Pros: I can't find any after experiencing so much frustration
Cons: apart from being slow in everything , the installation part didn't match with the instruction brochure. Lots of pop ups distracting you all the time...
We had to ask Microsoft office to help us to uninstall it.
Ema
User Rating: 
6/10
Never again!
Pros: virus detection, user interface
Cons: very difficult to completely uninstall, uses more resources than some competitors
I'll stick with Kaspersky or NOD32 even though BitDefender has a better user-interface than both and far better tech support than the latter. On the plus side, BitDefender's virus detection seems to be every bit as good as Kaspersky's or NOD32's overall.
User Rating: 1/10
Slow my Pc
Pros: I was able to uninstall program
Cons: It slowed my computer instantly after installed
I removed Bit Defender which by the way took almost 30 mintutes to remove. Most programs remove in a few minutes but again one click and wait from control panel to remove programs and waiting for the program to remove almost 30 minutes.
I don't need a program to give me grief. I took it back got my money back and bought Norton internet security. Now I'm back to click and go instead of click and SLOW.
User Rating: 1/10
a waste of money
Pros: no redeeming qualities
Cons: keep getting the same spam
User Rating: 3/10
Technical Support Nonexistent
Pros: Appears sophisticated and thorough
Cons: Technical Support Non-Existent
User Rating: 1/10
don't, just don't buy it
Pros: MAKES SOME NICE NOISES
Cons: IT WILL MESS UP YOUR LIFE
User Rating: 
4/10
Not Vista compatiable
Pros: not a CPU hot
Cons: not compatiable with Vista, crashes often, keeps windows upates from installing
User Rating: 10/10
Simply the best
Pros: Well worth the price
Cons: It has no cons
User Rating: 9/10
Easy. Works well, Good price,
Pros: was fast & simple to install and caught an attack symantec didn't
Cons: haven;t found any yet. still testing
I've tried most of the major antivirus and anti-spam products over the years. when my symantec expired, i decided to try something new. first off, the price was right -- it's buy one year, get one free. the upload was very fast. typically, i have time to make an entire breakfast while uploading a sw program but this was done before i had a chance to crack an egg. lol. right off the bat, it found a potentially harmful attack that symantec didn't. we loaded a few hundred pics from our family reunion off our digital cam stick a couple of weeks ago & i had not yet backed them up to another drive. it would have been devastating to lose those to a virus. so, thank you, bit defender!!!
User Rating: 1/10
Just wouldn't work.
Pros: Don't know. Never worked right.
Cons: kept getting a failure to initialize error, my internet connection stopped working
User Rating: 10/10
Very good product
Pros: Does what it should do.
Cons: a little so but so what
User Rating: 9/10
Best anti virus i've tried.. most virus's removed
Pros: I work for a IT shop, we always get pc's in with all manner of antivirus suites installed, they are usually upto date, and with almost all of them we've found and removed virus's... bitdefender rules!
Cons: Well the only con i see is the bad ratings you's are giving the software...
sure the scans take a little while, but
it really does a proper job of it! Buy it NOW!
User Rating: 2/10
This program is not worth your time, let alone your money
Pros: I couldn't find any
Cons: Everything was poor
User Rating: 10/10
The best Antivirus ever!!!
Pros: Easy to Use and very effective antivirus scan!!!
Cons: Not much, I wish it could be free
User Rating: 2/10
Still trying to get rid of all the files...
Pros: Good product, for the price...
Cons: Uninstaller.. where is it?
User Rating: 2/10
Incredibly Slow and Dumbed Down Software
Pros: Good Price if it fits your needs.
Cons: SEVERAL...DO NOT DOWNLOAD
User Rating: 9/10
BitDefender Antivirus 10 is a Superior Antivirus application
Pros: Quick notification to user of a virus threat
Cons: Purchasing through a 3rd party
User Rating: 2/10
Horrible,DO NOT BUY
Pros: can't think of any
Cons: makes pc run slow during an update.
User Rating: 9/10
One of the best Antivirus software!
Pros: Protection on the same level as Kaspersky, Easy to use. Just install and forget about it. Cheapest antivirus out there and simply the best buy.
Cons: Scan speeds are a little slow compared to others.
The only flaws I can see, is that the scan time is slower than other antivirus like Kaspersky and NOD32. And updates are on average about 800 KB which is a bit large by my standards.
Overall, BitDefender provides the most value for its performance. It is the cheapest antivirus but it performs on par with Kaspersky. definitely for those who want to save or are on a tight budget.
User Rating: 4/10
Disappointed and Don't Feel Secure
Pros: Updates and Scans Automatically Each Day
Cons: Didn't Detect Any of the Spyware on My Computer
User Rating: 5/10
Top Virus Protection, but NOT PC Friendly! Tends to Overload CPU!
Pros: Protects From Everything!
Cons: Annoying Installation Process. Rogue Software Components Slows Down CPU!
Then I bought two new computers a DELL XPS 200 & an IBM ThinkPad T43 (both with 7200RPM hard drives, 2GB of RAM, and fast Pentium Duo chips).
I got Bitdefender 10 (the expensive super duper full version) and installed it on my new investments right away.
First of all, The software, like CNET says, does not fully install unless you UPDATE it & fill all the annoying product registration forms immediately. If you don't do it right away you'll be stuck with a temporary trial version even though you paid for the full thing.
After some confusion, I found that their online email customer help was really quick and helpful. But still the installion process was extremely frustrating and time consuming.
Now I've been running it on my PCs for about a month now and whiles the software protects my PCs fine, I'm disappointed in the way it abuses my CPU power and slows everything down.
Even with the fastest computer on the market, Bitdefender 10 somehow manages to update itself everytime the PC is powered on (slowing boot up time), or every few hours whiles you are working. When this happens all the other programs screech to a halt. This confused me and initially I thought it was a virus but when I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and went into Task Manager I saw bdss.exe (the bitdefender update software) was using 99% of my CPU power. I cancelled it from running in task manager and went to the bitdefender prompt settings and cancelled any automatic updates. This worked fine for about 12 hours and then it was back to doing its own thing even when the antivirus program was not running in the background.
I got no help from tech support on this matter and now I have to go into Task Manager every few hours (or when I turn on my PC) to stop "bdss.exe" from overloading my CPU power.
A few times my PC has locked up, crashed and needed a hard reboot because of the overload.
Although I like that Bitdefender protects well and is the best software for all round proctection in one package, I can't risk losing my PCs and my work to constant system lock ups and overloads. I'm definately getting rid of it and getting the next best thing I can find.
This has also happened with a few of my friends whom I recommended BitDefender to after I was happy with using version 9. The "bdss.exe" seems to be an inherent flaw in the software but tech help at Bitdefender are puzzled by it.
Because of that I can't recommend this
software. I'm an advanced computer user & programmer and I can't imagine how immensly perplexing this antivirus software would be for a general or new computer user.
User Rating: 1/10
Warning! Do Not Download This Program!
Pros: Nothing more than any any other AntiVirus
Cons: Impossible to remove from your computer
User Rating: 9/10
The very best antivirus
Pros: Detects every virus and has powerful heuristics to detect new ones.
Cons: Sluggish scans
User Rating: 6/10
Good AV, but slows down browsing and opening apps.
Pros: Great price, excellent detection and interface
Cons: Slows browsing, scheduler doesn't work right, light website documentation.
There's also a problem with the antivirus scheduler. Apparently, it doesn't like Daylight Savings Time, so I have to set the scan time 2 hours ahead of what I want(I still don't understand why 2 instead of 1!). There was also a time where it apparently did a full scan on its own without my command and it wasn't on the day for my weekly scheduled scan. I contacted LiveAssistance and he wasn't much help.
I do like the interface and the real-time chart of file scan activity. The indicator above the system tray is useful when you're trying out BitDefender, and it can be disabled w/o too much fuss.
I wish there was much more documentation online, although the pdf manual is very thorough. I'm also a stickler for proper English grammar and I found BitDefender's documentation (both online and pdf) to be better than Kaspersky's, though now I'm considering trying out the latter.
User Rating: 4/10
Using Bitdefender 9, not that great
Pros: ? not sure yet ?
Cons: cannot remove infected items
i have had no problems until i turned on the anytispyware option and found that when i access a certain folder on my computer there is a spyware file in there (which i did not know was spyware).
it brings the prompt up saying it has blocked the spyware from access to the internet, but in every single scan, it detected the file, and could not delete it or clean it or even quarentine it !
i had to use my 10+ years of windows know-how and start windows in safe-mode and manually delete the file in a dos prompt.
i contacted support about my problems before i deleted the file on my own, and after the first email response to my issue, they never replied back to any of my queries regarding the same problem ticket #.
well i will no longer be buying anything by bitdefender again...that's for sure.
