Bit Defender 2012

[NathanF1]

I managed to get it all working, almost.

As soon as I uninstalled BD, SandboxIE started working properly [I upgraded 3.57]. I then reinstalled BD 2012 again [used the offline installer] and SB kept working, great. Or so I thought - couple of things didn't add up, though:
- BD Sandbox and Browser Add-on were missing from my browsers
- BD Virus Shield service failed to start automatically on the next restart, starting it manually was OK

At that point I did a repair [and put OAP in Learning Mode]. This fixed the BD services issue, but SB failed. At that point I started to get a sneaking suspicion that OAP has something to do with, shut it down and voila - SB worked properly. Shame OA let me down exactly when I needed it on its best behavior .

It seems this was enough because for a few subsequent restarts with OA loading both BD and SB worked properly, in the case of BD almost, because it's sandboxing isn't working [not being able to start a virtualised browser], which to me isn't such a big deal given the issues I was having with Opera. Otherwise, the add-on [TrafficLight] works for sandboxed, "Run Normal" and "Run Safer" instances on IE, FF and Opera. The only impact I've noticed so far is that the searches are perceptibly slower with "Smart Advisor" turned on.

I will keep looking at the BD sandbox issue.

Thank you all for your suggestions and assistance! Much appreciated!

 

[Deleted member 178]

Im not sure if BD has a BB and how it works, maybe it dont like OAP HIPS. if i was you, i ununstall all 3 then:

clean my system of any malware

1- install sandboxie, reboot
2- install BD, reboot
3- install OAP and select "trust all" during the safe check scan. reboot as asked by it.

with that procedure, you will normally have no problem from OAP HIPS, and since SB is installed first you will know if the BD/SB pair is culprit

 

[NathanF1]

Thank you, umbrapolaris.

I knew SB wouldn't be the culprit after being set for compatibility with the other two. And generally, SB would work if I close OA [had all respective executables/drivers/components set to "Trusted" anyway]. Finally managed to get OA to prompt me whether I want to run SB [Start, DcomLaunch and RpcSs] and it's been good since. Of course, deleting SB's folder from the OA exceptions helped as well - :dodgy: on my behalf, I know, must have included it to see whether this could fix the issue.

BitDefender's Sandbox still doesn't work, but I'm OK with that for the time being and will keep looking into it. The important milestone was to get BD 2012 and SB working. I feel like I need to say quite a few good things about BD after all the questions and posts I made, OA was most probably to some extent the culprit for the various issues I experienced installing BD.

 

[Ink]

Not sure what you mean by OAP, but are you trying to use BitDefender Internet Security 2012 with Online Armor Premium?

 

[NathanF1]

Not sure what you mean by OAP, but are you trying to use BitDefender Internet Security 2012 with Online Armor Premium?

Guilty as charged, your Honor !

 

[NathanF1]

BitDefender Internet Security 2012 Impressions

I have been using BDIS 2012 for 3 weeks and decided to share my experience. Some of the points below are comparison between 2011 and 2012 products.

There have been a lot of changes in the settings, with a number of options now missing. I suppose that explains why there wasn't an option to save/import settings as part of upgrading to 2012. Overall, the GUI has improved and it's a lot less complex now - you don't have to navigate through too many screens and dialogs.

1. Simplified settings for scans - there are no options for actions on detections, so you can not fine-tune the behavior. This is either extreme confidence in the detection capabilities or a usability issue. Even the installer does this as part of the initial system scan - all you get is a notification that suspect file(s) have been removed. Nothing is placed in quarantine, there is no trace in logs, etc., just the usual, slightly "conspiratorial" BD behavior.

2. Gone are the numerous scan profiles. You can still create custom scans, but these have a lot of usability issues too. For example, the default name BD will give to a scan profile is the date and the sensitivity of the scan [Normal, Aggressive, etc.]. If you add this to your favorites [obscured process in itself, need to hover mouse over list entries, click a star], you can edit the name, but not the settings [folders to scan, sensitivity, etc.]. So you're better off creating and editing custom scans one-by-one, while remembering what was selected[?!]. I still haven't found a way to delete a custom scan.

3. Removable media scans now start automatically - the prompt whether to scan an external drive or not is now gone, the only indication is a quick notification the drive will be scanned and the second BD icon [blue] in the notification area. Preemptive actions seem the order of the day for BD 2012.

4. Firewall settings can prevent from engaging the Auto Pilot, e.g. if FW is set in Paranoid mode. Attempting to turn AP ON wouldn't work, but there is no feedback why. Usability issues again, after all, the logic is already in place and working, by the look of it, it is not that hard to display a popup or balloon notification to explain a behavior which may be perceived as a defect.

5. A good point about the Firewall in Auto Pilot mode is that it will employ a "default-deny" policy - applications without rules will not be allowed to access the Internet. This is definitely better than the old Silent Mode, where the Firewall will switch to "Allow All" mode.

6. Missing also are the Script/Registry/Cookie control options in Privacy Control.

7. Browsing Security - ambitious departure from the security toolbars as know them. Using a handle is a welcome way to release real estate in the browser window. Wrapping pages after scrupulously scanning HTTP traffic [and throwing lots of CSS in the mix - web developers beware], utilizing host and cloud signatures for safer browsing experience, but at the cost of performance. While search results are displayed almost instantly, the link/page validation takes a long time - Search Results Analyzer is very slow. BD should take a leaf out of Avast and its minimalistic approach to page ranking - WebRep is blazingly fast. I suppose BD has a way to go to fully start relying on its cloud services and need time to generate the repositories of their competitors.

9. Rescue Mode can cause issues with boot manager on dual-boot machines. I didn't realize this was caused by BD, would need to look into it to figure out a way to include BD's self-contained Linux to my boot options [if I'm still using it].

Bottom line - granularity and fine control options lost, the intention and focus for this release seem to have been on improving ease-of-use and overall dependability. Still some usability issues, which hopefully will be fixed soon, so that the user experience gets even better. GUI is down to Intermediate View of BD 2011 and exhibits some sluggishness [compared to BD 2011] . Maybe a bit too dark and too matte for my liking, some of the screens resemble IObit products.

Idiosyncratic package - good intentions for even more protection layers [Virtualized Browser, etc.], blighted somewhat by performance and usability issues. I expected this to really be technological "tour-de-force" and a proof that BitDefender can optimize their products and speed them up to the level of F-Secure, for example. Although the protection is excellent, BD 2012 is still capricious and petulant at times. Compared with the ease-of-use and intrinsic cohesiveness of Norton, Avast and Kaspersky, for example, BitDefender still requires a bit more of a dedicated effort.

 

[NathanF1]

A few more points.

Deep Scan
There doesn't seem to be considerable gain in subsequent scans, it looks like the persistent cache either hasn't been built or isn't as effective compared to the likes of Avast and Norton.
In a period of 3-4 days and over a few scans it improved by just over 21% in my case. Scanned more files, but the skipped items count actually went down?

BD 2011, by comparison, could drop almost half of the scan duration over time, although over a much longer period [with skipped files reaching over 270 K]. So maybe I'm just a bit impatient?

Then, there are the highly inaccurate remaining time estimations, something I haven't experienced with BD 2011:

Example

Auto Scan

7. Auto Scan (Scan Dispatcher)

What does it do?
Although the name may suggest On-access scanning or Real Time Protection, it’s nothing like that. It’s a new type of scanning, very similar with an On-demand scan, but it is extremely light, nearly invisible as resource consumption. It quietly scans all your data for malware and takes the appropriate actions for any infection found. It only works when your PC is idle, or close to it. Auto Scan only initiates after one hour of computer up time.

How can it be tested?
As Auto Scan only uses a limited amount of resources, it can take quite a long time to finish so testing detection rate or the actions taken on malware is not very efficient. What you can test is the actual resource consumption and how responsive your PC feels when Auto Scan is on. It will be very helpful for us to know how to tune the resource pool in order to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

I would have expected Auto Scan to be instrumental in building the persistent cache by being run at idle, but this doesn't seem to be the case so far. It also has nothing to do with real-time scanning - It's just a light on-demand scan and interestingly enough you still get notifications that a Deep Scan hasn't been run, even if Auto Scan is ON. Makes you question the auto scanning scope and predefined options [sensitivity, objects to scan, etc].

I appreciate the fact that a scan is executed when my resource usage is low, and I haven't experienced any slowdowns because of it whatsoever - so it is definitely sensitive while attempting to be unobtrusive, but why not integrate it further and make future full scans faster and more effective?


Updating Software
BDAgent is crashing on updating software. I have experienced it with Firefox 6 and Zemana AntiLogger 1.9.521. After the crash, Internet access for the upgraded applications is blocked because the Firewall doesn't display a prompt [at least it blocks the access though ]. This is with Firewall set to Paranoid, I'll test it again with the setting OFF to verify whether it's happening as well.

Manually adding the rules will allow access for these apps. Restarting is the other option to start getting prompts again. This to me has to be the biggest drawback so far.


Other
Intermittent settings changes

• Active Virus Control would quite often change sensitivity to Normal from Aggressive, and the events entries are very "monosylabic" - not a great deal of information as to what may have caused this.
• On-access scanning would also change levels - I'll set it on Aggressive and it will switch to Custom - obviously a predetermined switch based on another event, but the logs wouldn't say what exactly.

It's this ultra-intricate, complex and encapsulated logic that takes a bit too much of the control out of my hands and makes me question the protection quality :s

 

[House_maniac]

i tried it yesterday,well i must say its much lighter than 2011 version,but what i don't like is that bit defender always slow down your browsing speed.something that many user been complaining for years on their board.my suggestion is that there are way better suite that it.eg avast,comodo,nis2012,eset.

 

[NathanF1]

I played with the BitDefender 2012 VHD image last night and after a 110+ MB update to 15.0.31.1282 [it's been over 3 weeks since I last used it] it's running smooth now. Even the BD toolbar didin't seem to slow browsing as much as it did before. And my perception has definitely improved - I appreciate and enjoy BitDefender a lot more now, instead of just suspiciously looking at it.

What I'm happy and relieved with is the fix of the BD Agent crash when updating software - all is working as it should, no crashes, no disabled Internet access for the updated applications, only the expected prompt that they have changed and whether to keep the existing rules or not

BitDefender is definitely getting to where it should have been when released, shame it is happening so slow and with a lot of headaches for their customers.

 

[Wordward]

By the post above it seems Bitdefender 2012 products are working well, but is that the consensus now? I have been wanting to give Bitdefender Total Security 2012 a try, but the browser slowness and the quirks BD seems to have has kept me from doing so. Thanks.

 

[NathanF1]

By the post above it seems Bitdefender 2012 products are working well, but is that the consensus now? I have been wanting to give Bitdefender Total Security 2012 a try, but the browser slowness and the quirks BD seems to have has kept me from doing so. Thanks.

There is a bit of unpredictability with BD and chances are you wouldn't know whether it works for you until you try it. The last few builds have been very light, the only perceivable lag I get occasionally is interacting with BD interface itself. They've improved the toolbar performance and its impact should be fairly minimal now, but I can not comment on the YouTube issues and whether this has been resolved.

You're looking at 240+ MB download [download speed is pretty good generally, if using the web installer], the actual installation is also quick [nothing compares with Symantec's 2 minute installations, though]. Suspicious items may be dealt with automatically during the install [BD performs a scan as part of the installation process].

TuneUp blog post about BD 2012 performance test.
MT thread about AV-Comparatives performance test.
2012 security products benchmarks by PassMark - PDF.