I will never use bitdefender again

ncage

Level 3
Thread author
Verified
May 20, 2017
103
So i will never (well unless they change) use bitdefender again. I've been using bitdefender for years. While i'm happy with the protection what i'm not happy is the way it gobbles up memory. I'm actually quite surprised reviews don't every notice this. I've generally seen on reviews that bitdefender is not that heavy. In what terms memory or cpu? In the CPU camp i won't say its light but nothing i can complain about. I've used kaspersky too and i've heard its generally heavy. I haven't seen this both memory & cpu usage aren't that bad. I've eagerly updated to each new version of bitdefender hoping they would have worked on the memory issue. I actually think its progressively got worse. Other than that bitdefender has spammy tactics. Bugging me with their VPN & other features (even though i'm a paying customer). Unfortunately I bought a 5 year license about 7 months ago. Here is my proof:
Windows 10:
1615147041731.png



Mac (Big Sur):



1615147027350.png




As can see on my mac workstation its consuming about 2GB of memory. Crazy right? Right now i'm evaluating both Sophos Home Premium & Eset. I know Sophos Home Premium is not necessarily light in terms of memory but anything is compared to Bitdefender. My issue is i need lots of license. Bitdefender was really affordable for a large number of licenses because i have lots of VMs i use and bitdefender is consumer so much memory its lowering how many VMs i can safely run. So far, of course, eset is REALLY light on windows but not so light on Mac but not all that bad.
 

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Frib004

Level 2
Verified
Nov 17, 2018
78
Do you tried to reinstall the software or contact their support?
McAfee and Avg offer protection for 10 devices. Avira Prime offers protection up to 25 devices.
Mcafee and AVG are the worst AV... I saw a lot of infected machine with AVG and Mcafee. Avira is a pretty good AV, but it installs a lot of bloatware without user consent.
 

EndangeredPootis

Level 10
Verified
Well-known
Sep 8, 2019
461
Bitdefender is quite light when it comes to CPU, but its memory usage has always been pretty insane, aslong as your memory isnt maxed it should be fine.

Also, Resource usage =/= light, its simply the performance impact and CPU usage.

I also believe you can turn off promotional messages/notifications somewhere in its settings.

I do agree however that I dont understand why people and test sites keep saying its light, it slows down my computer more than Kaspersky, its even on par with Malwarebytes
 

TairikuOkami

Level 35
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Content Creator
Well-known
May 13, 2017
2,452
I've generally seen on reviews that bitdefender is not that heavy. In what terms memory or cpu?
When you talk about performance, there are 4 things to consider. CPU, RAM, Disk, Data. Sometimes software uses more RAM to avoid writes/reads to disk, it saves CPU and SSD.
So unless the computer in question has like 4GB RAM, I do not see a problem. Then again BD is known for downloading many signatures, so I would definitely check writes and data.
 

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Captain Holly

Level 5
Verified
Well-known
Jan 23, 2021
227
That is huge memory use. I wonder if it would do better if you removed and re-installed BD? I tried BD Antivirus Plus last year and the security components worked OK but it had similar problems, telling me to sign up for the VPN and Password Manager, even though I had both disabled in settings. It also kept warning me about Windows updates and scans that either I did not need to do or had already done. No matter how many times I deleted the notifications they would be back again the next day. For my use I just found BD to be far too overprotective but did not have any memory or CPU problems with it. From what I understand their tech support is very good. Sophos has multiple licenses but I have no idea how good or bad the AV is.

C.H.
 

ncage

Level 3
Thread author
Verified
May 20, 2017
103
Do you tried to reinstall the software or contact their support?

Mcafee and AVG are the worst AV... I saw a lot of infected machine with AVG and Mcafee. Avira is a pretty good AV, but it installs a lot of bloatware without user consent.
Which i think AVG & Avast are prett
Bitdefender is quite light when it comes to CPU, but its memory usage has always been pretty insane, aslong as your memory isnt maxed it should be fine.

Also, Resource usage =/= light, its simply the performance impact and CPU usage.

I also believe you can turn off promotional messages/notifications somewhere in its settings.

I do agree however that I dont understand why people and test sites keep saying its light, it slows down my computer more than Kaspersky, its even on par with Malwarebytes
Ya that really should compare memory usage these days. Sometimes it getting to crazy level.
 

Kongo

Level 35
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Well-known
Feb 25, 2017
2,481
Thanks that gives me a few more options. One of the reasons i was looking at SHP is because its pretty affordable for 10 licenses.
I know Sophos Home Premium is not necessarily light in terms of memory but anything is compared to Bitdefender.
Actually Sophos Home doesn't use that much RAM. On my system it's around 300mb, which is average I guess. As you want quite a lot of licenses I think Sophos Home might be a good pick. Its web dashboard is really easy to navigate. It even has an app on which you can change settings for ur devices and run remote scans when you are not at home. Protection wise it's really good too, they pretty much implemented every significant module from their Intercept X endpoint version.
 

ncage

Level 3
Thread author
Verified
May 20, 2017
103
When you talk about performance, there are 4 things to consider. CPU, RAM, Disk, Data. Sometimes software uses more RAM to avoid writes/reads to disk, it saves CPU and SSD.
So unless the computer in question has like 4GB RAM, I do not see a problem. Then again BD is known for downloading many signatures, so I would definitely check writes and data.
I respectfully disagree :). Yes when you talking about the general lay person that just does normal everyday task then "maybe". They just do some web browsing. Maybe they use a little office. Then its probably not going to matter. So lets take on of my virtual machine servers. I have bitdefender install on the host and then bitdefender installed on each guest. Its a compounding issue. Its just not using 1GB of memory more. Its using 1GB for the host & each VM. T he affect is density of each server is greatly reduced (how many VMs you can run per server). Usually AV server products are just home editions other than the interface is a little different, and there is some type of management interface. I had hate to see if their server products are the same. When you install this on a Database the machine memory is needed to cache database stuff (query plans, data, ect...) You don't want the AV to be stealing all your memory. Same is true for a web sever.
 

ncage

Level 3
Thread author
Verified
May 20, 2017
103
Damn, recently someone had the same problem with Emsisoft which also uses Bitdefender engine. Wonder what the cause is...
Actually emsisoft used to be my favorite AV. The only reason i didn't continue using it is because its just so expensive. It was going to cost me almost $100 for 3 licenses. Not thanks. If i only had one or two licenses i needed then i probably would still be using it. If i remember correctly (if they have removed it) there was something in the advanced settings the reduce memory consumption by a LOT. After activating this feature the memory consumption was at or if it was more just slightly than eset.
 

The_King

Level 12
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Well-known
Aug 2, 2020
542
I have never experienced any memory usage problem with BIS in the past year.

I checked my task-manger now and the max usage was only 387MB

That usage did go up when I did a system scan but stayed under 480MB of ram usage on my PC.
 

ncage

Level 3
Thread author
Verified
May 20, 2017
103
I know I shouldn't but i just tested Avast for mac and i'm impressed. It's very light. It only has 1 single process. Its even lighter than eset (well at least on the mac). I wish i could pay a nominal fee and bee assured they were doing any tracking but even if you pay for it i don't think there is any type of guarantee. I know avast generally does pretty good in tests.
 

blackice

Level 38
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Apr 1, 2019
2,731
I know I shouldn't but i just tested Avast for mac and i'm impressed. It's very light. It only has 1 single process. Its even lighter than eset (well at least on the mac). I wish i could pay a nominal fee and bee assured they were doing any tracking but even if you pay for it i don't think there is any type of guarantee. I know avast generally does pretty good in tests.
There's no guarantee any of these companies aren't tracking things. At least AVAST is now under a microscope and great scrutiny. I'd say they are less likely than before to be one of the trackers.
 

tipo

Level 8
Well-known
Jul 26, 2012
353
I have a paid bd is snapshot on my laptop and I use it from time to time for testing purposes but never saw 1.2gb used by bdservicehost. Tops max at 300mb. Don't know what is causing this on your pc. You should talk with the support team. I had to wait 3 min or so to get in contact with a memeber of their support team so the're pretty quick and helpful, at least in my country. (Wanted to switch from av to is).
 

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