Bitdefender Free - Personal Opinion

[EndangeredPootis]

My opinion of when I once had Bitdefender Free on my school laptop and my desktop

 

[Syafiq]

If I can remember correctly, Bitdefender Free does have its own Behavior Blocker.. Called Active Virus Control(Now it's called Advanced Threat Defense) But you can't manage any settings except enabling/disabling real time protection and adding exclusion

 

[EndangeredPootis]

If I can remember correctly, Bitdefender Free does have its own Behavior Blocker.. Called Active Virus Control(Now it's called Advanced Threat Defense) But you can't manage any settings except enabling/disabling real time protection and adding exclusion

It doesnt have that in the free version, only in the paid, and its pretty much accurate saying it has no settings whatsoever.

 

[amico81]

It doesnt have that in the free version, only in the paid, and its pretty much accurate saying it has no settings whatsoever.

I think you are wrong

 

[EndangeredPootis]

I think you are wrong

In what way? by saying it has no settings whatsoever? yes I know it does have settings, but you can only add exclusions and disable it, nothing else, so I dont consider it to even be settings, again, this is my personal opinion.

 

[Venustus]

I'm pretty sure ATD is available in the free version.

 

[EndangeredPootis]

I'm pretty sure ATD is available in the free version.

Oh, then forgive me, I wasnt aware of that.

 

[Venustus]

Oh, then forgive me, I wasnt aware of that.

No problem...Thanks for the review!

 

[Pat MacKnife]

Yes there is advanced threat defense in BD free, click on windows protection to compare products

Bitdefender Free Antivirus for Windows - Download Software

Bitdefender Antivirus Free offers powerful antivirus protection that is light on computer resources. The only free antivirus that you'll ever need!

www.bitdefender.com

 

[Moonhorse]

Buggy setup that often doesnt even install it and gets you stuck in a restart loop.

Is very true, should be installed after clean install of windows

Cons from me; its very hard to pair with other security software like anti-malwares, firewalls ...should rather just run it alone or pair with OSArmor like tool / system hardeners

 

[stefanos]

I tried the free version a while ago. Compared to a year ago when I had tried it again the virus signatures was very good. The last time the detection rate was very bad. I thought the problem was because of free version. And Bitdefender has not renewed the free version for years. And the well-known delay in virus signatures on Bitdefender free. But with Evjl's Rain tests I can see that Bitdefender has been downgraded overall.

 

[amico81]

5 seconds with google if bitdefender free has a behavior blocker

 

[EndangeredPootis]

Y

View attachment 224098

yeah, I noticed.

 

[monkeylove]

I just went back to it, and it felt heavy. In my system, it took around 2 GB of disk space and 230 MB of memory.

 

[roger_m]

I just went back to it, and it felt heavy. In my system, it took around 2 GB of disk space and 230 MB of memory.

The disk space and RAM usage have no bearing on how heavy or light an antivirus is. What actually causes slowdowns is high CPU and or high disk usage. Sometimes more RAM usage is a good thing as it allows an antivirus to keep more data in the RAM at once, rather than swapping it to the hard drive/SSD.

Why antivirus uses so much RAM - And why that is actually a good thing!

Learn why freeing RAM doesn't necessarily speed up your computer. In reality it's often quite the opposite.

blog.emsisoft.com

 

[monkeylove]

The disk space and RAM usage have no bearing on how heavy or light an antivirus is. What actually causes slowdowns is high CPU and or high disk usage. Sometimes more RAM usage is a good thing as it allows an antivirus to keep more data in the RAM at once, rather than swapping it to the hard drive/SSD.

Why antivirus uses so much RAM - And why that is actually a good thing!

Learn why freeing RAM doesn't necessarily speed up your computer. In reality it's often quite the opposite.

blog.emsisoft.com

You're right! Unfortunately, I'm not an expert, so I could only look at the task manager. Is there a study for free AVs that look at these factors?

 

[roger_m]

You're right! Unfortunately, I'm not an expert, so I could only look at the task manager. Is there a study for free AVs that look at these factors?

Both AV Comparatives and AV Test, test the performance impact of antiviruses. However these results can't be taken too seriously, as often their results differ to what I've experienced on multiple computers. The system impact of an antivirus often can vary greatly from one computer to the next, so what is light for someone else may be heavy for you. As a result, the best way to test system impact is to install an antivirus and see if it causes noticeable slowdowns or not. So you really need to try an antivirus yourself to see how it will perform on your system. Also it's worth noting that some antivirus are usually very light and then on rare occasions will unexpectedly cause slowdowns.

The following antiviruses, will be very very light on most systems and provide very good protection. They're not free, but you can buy very cheap licenses for ESET and Norton on eBay.
ESET
F-Secure
Norton

Having said that, make sure you install a trial version and run it for a few weeks, before buying one of them, to make sure you are happy with it.

360 Total Security is a very light free antivirus, which I use myself. However the previously mentioned antiviruses provide better protection.

 

[legendcampos]

I think it has the best anti-phishing on the market.