Bullguard first impression: 19.0.355.9

Product name
Bullguard Internet Security 19.0.355.9
Pros
  • - Low system impact
    - Doesn't slow down system startup
    - Good detection rates (uses BD engine)
    - Helpful support
    - Fast scan speed.
CONS
- "Ugly" interface (just my opinion)
- Some bugs in the interface
- Spam protection discontinued in late 2017
- No manual "add to quarantine" option which allows you to directly send suspicious files. Instead, you have to zip the file and send it to support@bullguard.com
BOTTOM LINE
It is decent and it is worth the try.
Protection
Very Good
Usability
4 / 5
User Interface
3 / 5
CPU/RAM/Storage
Fair Usage

Al-Faqir

Level 8
Thread author
Verified
Jul 24, 2018
379
I have been using Bullguard Internet Security 2019 for 2 days and so far so good!
2 days are somewhat enough to have a first impression on a "humble" security product like Bullguard. I liked many things about the product and was annoyed by others.
Most importantly, in my opinion, the product is very light on the system and system startup. It does not slow the system startup and this seems the case with every product in 2018. They're lighter and less resources-demanding than they used to be earlier.


The first thing you'll find annoying, of course after you finish the "stupid" installer and the more stupid update process which I believe should be demanded after the installation and not as a part of the installation, is the "Ugly" interface. Some people like it, but I don't especially when it come to the used fonts and the worst idea of scrolling horizontally. If you don't want to scroll, you'll have to enlarge and end up with much empty space in the interface.
BIS 19.0.355.9 interface.PNG


I did a "Quick Scan" which is very fast but resources-hungry. But this is not a problem because it takes a minute or two to finish with scanning. There's a low-resource option on the scanning window but I did not bother to tick it.

The full-system scan is fast and less demanding for resources unlike the fast scan. I was browsing and did not feel any slowdowns. Overall, Bullguard is very light. I know it is not correct to judge a product performance by resources usage and that's why I said the product is very light.

After I just finished the full scan I received a warning from Bullguard about a non-signed driver.
driver 1.PNG
driver 2.PNG

The unsigned driver is "Trufos.sys" which located under system32>drivers. I googled it to find that it is part of Bitdefender Antivirus engine according to this link
And according to this link, it is also a part of Bullguard. I have contacted Bullguard support regarding the driver and asked them if it is part of Bullguard or not. The first question the support agent asked is "Did you have Bitdefender installed before Bullguard?" I confirmed that Bullguard was installed on Fresh Windows 10 install. The agent remained silent for about 3 mins that I thought the connection was lost. The support agent said that he's there but was looking up the driver for me. After some few more mins he confirmed it is part of Bullguard and there's no need to worry about it. I asked why it is not signed and he answered: "Sometimes there is a delay between the request for signing and approval". Interestingly, the support agent was not able to provide me with what this driver does and how it works.

Bullguard has no extensions which I like. It does block phishing pages without the need of extensions that might slowdown the browser and cause the pages to load slower.

Update: Today I found a bug that affected Bullguard's usb drive scanning; it shows %0 completed but the scan is actually running and reached %99 in Bullguard's notification centre.
One more thing, Bullguard seems to block all grey-market websites like G2A.
 
Last edited:

amico81

Level 21
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jan 10, 2017
1,061
Thx for your review. I'm acutally testing Bullguard IS too and my first impression is good. It's really light and the game booster works now.
But I have found 2 things , what they should change as soon as possible.

1. the GUI is no standard for the year 2018
2. There are no definitions updates after boot..the earliest sig.update arrives after 1 hour in idle
 

Al-Faqir

Level 8
Thread author
Verified
Jul 24, 2018
379
Thx for your review. I'm acutally testing Bullguard IS too and my first impression is good. It's really light and the game booster works now.
But I have found 2 things , what they should change as soon as possible.

1. the GUI is no standard for the year 2018
2. There are no definitions updates after boot..the earliest sig.update arrives after 1 hour in idle

I have adjusted the updates of Bullguard to be installed every hour and sat the update notifications to always notify and everything is working as expected
 

amico81

Level 21
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jan 10, 2017
1,061
yes i have the same settings....but that is not optimal. Kaspersky, Avast, Gdata and other AV's make the def-updates after 10 minutes.

So i do a manually update after every pc start to get the last signatures.
 
F

ForgottenSeer 58943

Bullguard, my old sort of want to like it but can't fall in love enough to use it product.

The firewall is quite good. The BB is sleepy. The interface is an absolute abomination. It does slow down 'some' aspects of a system, such as large directory loads and cross network (domain) file transfers over mapped drives. Also the Firewall, while good, isn't really fully capable of 1000/1000Mbps traversal without some loss of speed. Web Filtration is quite good on it, if not excellent. Privacy is amazing with Bullguard. They don't draw ANY telemetry from your system. It's cheap, I find 80% off coupons often.

If they woke up the BB, recompiled their FWD to handle 1000/1000 raw speed and redesigned the interface I would switch to it and never consider anything else.
 

Al-Faqir

Level 8
Thread author
Verified
Jul 24, 2018
379
Bullguard, my old sort of want to like it but can't fall in love enough to use it product.

The firewall is quite good. The BB is sleepy. The interface is an absolute abomination. It does slow down 'some' aspects of a system, such as large directory loads and cross network (domain) file transfers over mapped drives. Also the Firewall, while good, isn't really fully capable of 1000/1000Mbps traversal without some loss of speed. Web Filtration is quite good on it, if not excellent. Privacy is amazing with Bullguard. They don't draw ANY telemetry from your system. It's cheap, I find 80% off coupons often.

If they woke up the BB, recompiled their FWD to handle 1000/1000 raw speed and redesigned the interface I would switch to it and never consider anything else.

You covered it all :D What are your thoughts regarding Trufos.sys?
 
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D

Deleted Member 3a5v73x

2017 version was better, ever since then and bragging about new and improved modules they went downhill. G Data and Emsisoft is better in every aspect, period. Then might as well suggest keep using Windows Defender instead of Bullguard. They don't consider there's any problem in BB reaction, feels like employees themselves don't use product they work for. System can easily be infected because triggers only parent process connecting out in firewall, idk if it even scans traffic and react to dropped payloads. I have no idea what Bullguard does in background and it's Sentry other than just relying on bitdefender sigs.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Al-Faqir

Level 8
Thread author
Verified
Jul 24, 2018
379

Mahesh Sudula

Level 17
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Sep 3, 2017
818
@davisd Bullguard's BB seems to work just fine. Anyway the 3 samples are not enough in any way to judge the performance of Bullguard's BB. I wish I could do more playing around with Bullguard but this is not possible at the time
Quite good..rare to see BB in action
Can you run a bit more like ransom to get a better over all view
 

Al-Faqir

Level 8
Thread author
Verified
Jul 24, 2018
379
yes surprising to me as well
but continue hte tests a bit far to get accuracy
The three pieces of malware ran automatically once I plugged in a friend's USB drive. Bullguard's BB detected the suspicious activities and blocked them immediately except for one file that requested to access the internet and Bullguard asked whether to allow it or block it. Of course I blocked it and after a few seconds Bullguard's BB took an action by blocking it.
 

Al-Faqir

Level 8
Thread author
Verified
Jul 24, 2018
379
The same samples were executed on my other PC running SHP. The PC is badly infected! After scanning the system with SHP and restarting the system for the third times (as requested by SHP), I still get notification from SHP.
 

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