Battle Avira Free or Bitdefander Free for Windows 8.1

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Spurs

Level 1
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Aug 15, 2014
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Hi, better Avira Free vs Bitdefander Free ? Detection and performance ?
 

Oxygen

Level 44
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Feb 23, 2014
3,316
Avira is the only one I have tried, so that's all I can pick right now.. Both of them should be light and have good detection.
 

Atlas147

Level 30
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Jul 28, 2014
1,990
Both have great detections, I would say that Avira has stronger signatures and bitdefender has a stronger behavioral blocker. I haven't tired BD free but I have tried their paid solutions and I was quite impressed by them.

Avira if you want more control over the settings and detections and such

BD if you want a set and forget AV cause there are not much settings in the free version
 

jamescv7

Level 85
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Mar 15, 2011
13,070
If you want an equal blend of protection then go for Bitdefender free, they have a fine tune AVC for block suspicious activity, and none of configuration that needs a tweak.

On the other hand, if you want a strong signature to rely on then Avira Free with their cloud.

In terms of performance then in such clearer view where Bitdefender may light due to fine tune program compare to Avira but that's different on system basis.
 

Piteko21

Level 18
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Sep 13, 2014
874
I used both in the past but I dont like bitdefender UI however has the best web protection, compared to Avira free.
final words, I vote for Avira free because gives you the same engine that paid version + cloud protection, despite ask to you to install the toobar protection...
 
H

hjlbx

I would bet, Avira would be more reliable than BitDefender... especially on W8.1 system.

BitDefender has better overall protection than Avira - because of web-filtering and Active Virus Control. However, a lot of users complain that BD does not function properly on their systems. Protections against malicious scripts is spotty at best. There is no firewall as well - a big security hole. Plus, you have to be signed into your BD Free account all the time for signatures. It uses little to no resources, but scans are really a crawl... something some users are not used to.

Avira is better than BD when it comes to speed, polymorphic detection, but it tanks when it comes to malicious scripts, protecting browser settings, Windows firewall and UAC. It integrates Windows firewall into the user interface... which helps the typical user not one bit as managing Windows firewall (WFwAS) through its interface is not easy for the novice. It can be a network hog if you use a metered connection. Avira is a very reliable advanced scanner. It works well on W8\8.1 and 7.

Signature wise - Avira and BD are about the same.

Reliability is the 1st priority... there is no use in installing a security soft and keeping it if it does not work on your specific system. I've tried both Avira and BD Free in the past. Avira worked, whereas BD Free conflicted with my system (supposedly BD improved W8.1 compatibility).

You're not going to know which one will work best for you, on your specific system, until you try each one out.
 

OokamiCreed

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May 8, 2015
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I've had problems with Avira (it not loading on startup, it not showing up in tray, etc. No problems with Bitdefender as of performance (tested on Windows 7 x64 and 8(.1) x64).

But all that aside, I would choose Avira. Might not be as strong as Bitdefender in terms of overall general protection, but it gives you a choice in what you want to do with a detected file, which neither Bitdefender paid nor free does. It's one of the reasons why I don't use Bitdefender. No choice. I must have full control over what it does to my files. If you don't care that it will delete/quarantine a file without your permission, I'd go with Bitdefender. Much better web protection, better signatures (not by that much though), and it's light. Extremely light.
 
H

hjlbx

I've had problems with Avira (it not loading on startup, it not showing up in tray, etc. No problems with Bitdefender as of performance (tested on Windows 7 x64 and 8(.1) x64).

But all that aside, I would choose Avira. Might not be as strong as Bitdefender in terms of overall general protection, but it gives you a choice in what you want to do with a detected file, which neither Bitdefender paid nor free does. It's one of the reasons why I don't use Bitdefender. No choice. I must have full control over what it does to my files. If you don't care that it will delete/quarantine a file without your permission, I'd go with Bitdefender. Much better web protection, better signatures (not by that much though), and it's light. Extremely light.

BitDefender fixed this by allowing the user to restore auto-quarantined files... for both the paid and free versions.
 

OokamiCreed

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May 8, 2015
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BitDefender fixed this by allowing the user to restore auto-quarantined files... for both the paid and free versions.

Auto restore isn't the same as "we detected this file, what do you want to do with it?" Every AV has the ability to restore quarantined files. Not all of them do that efficiently. For example, you restore something from quarantine on McAfee, it just deletes it again. What's the point?
 
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