Bitdefender 2020 Released

[Divine_Barakah]

For those having trouble, I strongly suggest installing BitDefender on a clean install and you will see the difference.

That what I have always recommended before installing BD.

 

[L0ckJaw]

That what I have always recommended before installing BD.

Doesn't anybody finds this weird ? Have to reinstall a new system image before installing Bitdefender ?
Sounds to me like bad coding in the BD software.
I never had to reinstall my system for any software i use.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Doesn't anybody finds this weird ? Have to reinstall a new system image before installing Bitdefender ?
Sounds to me like bad coding in the BD software.
I never had to reinstall my system for any software i use.

I have always found it best to install Bitdefender on a clean Windows install. Doing that will give you the least compatibility issues. Install Windows and your drivers and Bitdefender then install whatever you like and you're good to go. E.g. On a clean windows install the number of files that need to be scanned by Bitdefender's first system scan is very small compared to an old windows install. I have installed Bitdefender on many systems and I noticed it runs smoother where it was installed on a clean windows install. That's my experience at the end.

 

[L0ckJaw]

I have always found it best to install Bitdefender on a clean Windows install. Doing that will give you the least compatibility issues. Install Windows and your drivers and Bitdefender then install whatever you like and you're good to go. E.g. On a clean windows install the number of files that need to be scanned by Bitdefender's first system scan is very small compared to an old windows install. I have installed Bitdefender on many systems and I noticed it runs smoother where it was installed on a clean windows install. That's my experience at the end.

Yes i know what you mean, but imagine you have to do this for more software packages, then i would stay away from those packages.
So when its better for BD to install on a clean system, that really sounds unbelievable weird to me. BD should be made to install on WIndows, regardless of its a new install of a used one and to run perfectly fine.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

Contrary to popular belief, Windows 10 is a modern operating system with a robust ram/resources management; Pagefile will only be used if there is a need to do so.

Many problems that users have with Windows nowadays is because of "tweaking" and "optimizing", there is no need to do that for the most part, just leave Windows alone.

Bitdefender has a huge database (like many other solutions), so the engine must load this resource somewhere and there is no best place than the RAM.

windows is smart in managing memory usage but some programs don't. They keep pushing/hiding their actual memory usage in pagefile regardless of windows' commands so they look great in task manager. They will use pagefile no matter how much free ram we have left
AVs usually do so
this is not good for SSD

if we install a third-party AV, it's better to use the ones which don't abuse pagefile or they have very low memory usage in total
my experience shows my laptop ran noticeably faster without pagefile because everything was placed in physical RAM
I've never ever got a BSOD with pagefile off due to out-of-memory except in 2 situations
- Emsisoft + gaming: always had BSODs after 20 mins of playing, always!
+ memory optimization pushed memory blocks into pagefile (that's why they say it might perform slower), but since I disabled pagefile, this option didn't do anything for me. Emsisoft still used the exact same amount of memory => emsisoft is always out of my choice because of my personal condition, not because it is not good
- uninstalling panda: huge memory leak and bsod

 

[Nightwalker]

Almost two weeks using BitDefender Total Security 2020. Two days ago I clean installed Windows just because I found a really nice Gaming-Optimized Windows 10 1903 version. The very first thing I installed was BitDefender. Since the very first day of installation of this version I have been amazed. And I'm an ex ESET user, and ex Kaspersky. I really cannot feel this version of the antivirus, it's just like if it was not there. Unlike other AV, you click the icon and it immediately pops up, no waiting times or lags, plus the interface is clean and easy to use. I'd like to detail the pro's and con's I found for myself:

PRO'S:

• Automatic update is smooth now (used to have issues)
• Best signatures in the market
• Amazing resource use (cannot be felt, personally lighter than ESET if configured to scan only on access)
• Quick and smart disinfection (it didn't lag my PC for it)
• Fast quick scan
• Can schedule AppData scans

The following are personal facts I find like PRO's:

• Safe files vault
• Secure Eraser
• Rescue Enviroment
• Wi-Fi Security and Vulnerability Scan
• Ransomware Remediation
• Webcam and Mic protection (can either block or warn it's being used)
• Anti-Tracker (like Kaspersky)
• Notification Center (divided in ALL, CRITICAL, WARNING, INFORMATION)
• Option for a security widget

CON'S:

• System scan takes kind-of long (gets better with each scan)
• Encrypted Web Scan still blocks safe sites (can manually allow)
• Useless Utilities (I personally find them useless, like One-Click Optimizer, Disk Cleanup, although Startup Optimizer seems good)
• Lack of tweaking options (it's really solid but I wish I had more tweaking options, it's just ON or OFF)

What I would really like: they used Kaspersky-like style when tweaking. I wish BitDefender had the option to change the security level within each module, just like KIS allows you to do, for example choosing WEB SECURITY low, medium, or high, please infinite tweaking options to make your own security version out of the product.

Overall, I'm amazed with it. BitDefender has overcame theirselves this year and are offering the very first version of 2020 with a whole new horizon. I'm pretty sure that a couple of more patches will make them back to the top. For those having trouble, I strongly suggest installing BitDefender on a clean install and you will see the difference.

Spoiler: SCREENSHOTS

Spoiler: Notification Center

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Spoiler: Safe Files

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Spoiler: Antivirus Settings

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Spoiler: Firewall

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Spoiler: Advanced Threat Defense

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Thanks for sharing this, I have almost the same experience as you after using Bitdefender TS in a clean install W10 machine for one week.

I really like how light and unobtrusive it is, even the updates are now light on system impact/disk activity.

 

[Nightwalker]

windows is smart in managing memory usage but some programs don't. They keep pushing/hiding their actual memory usage in pagefile regardless of windows' commands so they look great in task manager. They will use pagefile no matter how much free ram we have left
AVs usually do so
this is not good for SSD

if we install a third-party AV, it's better to use the ones which don't abuse pagefile or they have very low memory usage in total
my experience shows my laptop ran noticeably faster without pagefile because everything was placed in physical RAM
I've never ever got a BSOD with pagefile off due to out-of-memory except in 2 situations
- Emsisoft + gaming: always had BSODs after 20 mins of playing, always!
+ memory optimization pushed memory blocks into pagefile (that's why they say it might perform slower), but since I disabled pagefile, this option didn't do anything for me. Emsisoft still used the exact same amount of memory => emsisoft is always out of my choice because of my personal condition, not because they are not good
- uninstalling panda: huge memory leak and bsod

I understand your point, but writes to the Page File are unlikely to make a difference in a SSD lifespan.

SSD reliability in the real world: Google's experience

Using data from millions of drive days in Google datacenters, a new paper offers production lifecycle data on SSD reliability. Surprise! SSDs fail differently than disks - and in a dangerous way. Here's what you need to know.

www.zdnet.com

Key conclusions

• Ignore Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate (UBER) specs. A meaningless number.
• Good news: Raw Bit Error Rate (RBER) increases slower than expected from wearout and is not correlated with UBER or other failures.
• High-end SLC drives are no more reliable that MLC drives.
• Bad news: SSDs fail at a lower rate than disks, but UBER rate is higher (see below for what this means).
• SSD age, not usage, affects reliability.
• Bad blocks in new SSDs are common, and drives with a large number of bad blocks are much more likely to lose hundreds of other blocks, most likely due to die or chip failure.
• 30-80 percent of SSDs develop at least one bad block and 2-7 percent develop at least one bad chip in the first four years of deployment.

Ps: Even with 16 GB of RAM plus a SSD NVMe I wouldnt disable Windows Page File.

 

[Evjl's Rain]

I understand your point, but writes to the Page File are unlikely to make a difference in a SSD lifespan.

it will increase write cycle and will definitely affect SSD lifespan in long run. We can't notice the effect now because the SSD is still working flawlessly

I always try to reduce write cycle as much as possible by everything I can
disabling pagefile is one of them
Downgrading to windows 8.1
Removing disk abusing AVs
placing browser's caches in ramdrive
overprovisioning of ssd

 

[Wraith]

I aIways try to reduce write cycle as much as possible by everything I can
disabling pagefile is one of them
Downgrading to windows 8.1
Removing disk abusing AVs
placing browser's caches in ramdrive
overprovisioning of ssd

I try to do the same too. Can you please tell me how to move Brave's cache in ramdrive? And what software do you use for creating ramdrive? If you dontymind me asking can you name some of the disk abiding AV's? It'll be helpful for me.

 

[Andrew3000]

Almost two weeks using BitDefender Total Security 2020. Two days ago I clean installed Windows just because I found a really nice Gaming-Optimized Windows 10 1903 version. The very first thing I installed was BitDefender. Since the very first day of installation of this version I have been amazed. And I'm an ex ESET user, and ex Kaspersky. I really cannot feel this version of the antivirus, it's just like if it was not there. Unlike other AV, you click the icon and it immediately pops up, no waiting times or lags, plus the interface is clean and easy to use. I'd like to detail the pro's and con's I found for myself:

PRO'S:

• Automatic update is smooth now (used to have issues)
• Best signatures in the market
• Amazing resource use (cannot be felt, personally lighter than ESET if configured to scan only on access)
• Quick and smart disinfection (it didn't lag my PC for it)
• Fast quick scan
• Can schedule AppData scans

The following are personal facts I find like PRO's:

• Safe files vault
• Secure Eraser
• Rescue Enviroment
• Wi-Fi Security and Vulnerability Scan
• Ransomware Remediation
• Webcam and Mic protection (can either block or warn it's being used)
• Anti-Tracker (like Kaspersky)
• Notification Center (divided in ALL, CRITICAL, WARNING, INFORMATION)
• Option for a security widget

CON'S:

• System scan takes kind-of long (gets better with each scan)
• Encrypted Web Scan still blocks safe sites (can manually allow)
• Useless Utilities (I personally find them useless, like One-Click Optimizer, Disk Cleanup, although Startup Optimizer seems good)
• Lack of tweaking options (it's really solid but I wish I had more tweaking options, it's just ON or OFF)

What I would really like: they used Kaspersky-like style when tweaking. I wish BitDefender had the option to change the security level within each module, just like KIS allows you to do, for example choosing WEB SECURITY low, medium, or high, please infinite tweaking options to make your own security version out of the product.

Overall, I'm amazed with it. BitDefender has overcame theirselves this year and are offering the very first version of 2020 with a whole new horizon. I'm pretty sure that a couple of more patches will make them back to the top. For those having trouble, I strongly suggest installing BitDefender on a clean install and you will see the difference.

Spoiler: SCREENSHOTS

Spoiler: Notification Center

View attachment 217526
View attachment 217527

Spoiler: Safe Files

View attachment 217528
View attachment 217529
View attachment 217530

Spoiler: Antivirus Settings

View attachment 217531
View attachment 217532
View attachment 217533
View attachment 217534

Spoiler: Firewall

View attachment 217535
View attachment 217536
View attachment 217537

Spoiler: Advanced Threat Defense

View attachment 217538

I don’t agree with "Best signatures in the market". It seems that they take ages to add malicious files to their databases.

 

[marcopaone]

I don’t agree with "Best signatures in the market". It seems that they take ages to add malicious files to their databases.

I don’t agree with you, Bitdefender has one of "Best signatures in the market"

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Yes i know what you mean, but imagine you have to do this for more software packages, then i would stay away from those packages.
So when its better for BD to install on a clean system, that really sounds unbelievable weird to me. BD should be made to install on WIndows, regardless of its a new install of a used one and to run perfectly fine.

I do understand your point. I know installing Windows is a time-consuming process. This is how Bitdefender works, it will cost you an hour or two installing windows but at the end you'll get decent protection and very responsive system.

 

[uduoix]

Fresh windows install just for BD? Make no sense. So what is going to happen after 2 months or more when you install all kind of stuff on system? Fresh install again?
Can you imagine if all software were designed that way?

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Fresh windows install just for BD? Make no sense. So what is going to happen after 2 months or more when you install all kind of stuff on system? Fresh install again?
Can you imagine if all software were designed that way?

I do a clean install of Windows and some times restore an image before trying a new security product but that's me. Anyway it was just a recommendation based on my own experience with Bitdefender. I am sure that there are some members here who installed Bitdefender on an old windows installation and experienced no issues.

 

[marcopaone]

I'm using BD 2020 with no issues

 

[Pkjfkknm]

Doesn't anybody finds this weird ? Have to reinstall a new system image before installing Bitdefender ?
Sounds to me like bad coding in the BD software.
I never had to reinstall my system for any software i use.

Yes i know what you mean, but imagine you have to do this for more software packages, then i would stay away from those packages.
So when its better for BD to install on a clean system, that really sounds unbelievable weird to me. BD should be made to install on WIndows, regardless of its a new install of a used one and to run perfectly fine.

this is not just a bd issue
remnant registry keys and file system objects will cause kaspersky, comodo, norton and bd install and function problems
have to clean install windows 10 to avoid problems with own feature upgrades so it is not so unusual
the reason clean install is so unusual is that most people know not how to do it or they are unwilling to do it
in my experience most of the time av and softs runs better on clean install of windows
evetually changing software all the time results in problems that cannot be solved except by clean install
i am not willing to spend hours days weeks trying to find fixes i do not waste my time
to solve problems routinely clean install windows a few times per year

 

[Nightwalker]

Now my only complaint about BD 2020 is that it still doesnt support TLS 1.3 and downgrade your HTTPS connections to the old 1.2 standard.

 

[Venustus]

There is no way I will do a fresh install of Windows just to cater to the needs of a particular piece of software!

 

[mlnevese]

There is no way I will do a fresh install of Windows just to cater to the needs of a particular piece of software!

Reinstalling all my software, re-configuring everything and restoring my backup takes me over 3 hours. The only reason I will do a fresh install of Windows is if something messes up my Windows install to the point of causing instability or becoming unusable and that hasn't happenned in a long time..

Anyway I have installed Bitdefender on a few machines before and never needed a fresh install for it to work. I don't think this 2020 version will be any different and would look for other cause for instability/slow down.

 

[Venustus]

Agreed..For me to reinstall would be a nightmare!