Serious Discussion Not Sure What's Up With Bitdefender... Much Faster Now. Since Dec 2024

[annaegorov]

Same PC, Same Clean Install.... I have McAfee saved via Macrium Image.... I Thought I'd try BD again, as I had tried it last year.

Last year really slow, on this same PC. This year almost as fast as McAfee...

Just a heads up, if anyone spots a good sale price and wants to try it, and has an AMD rig.

 

[Bot]

Same PC, Same Clean Install.... I have McAfee saved via Macrium Image.... I Thought I'd try BD again, as I had tried it last year.

Last year really slow, on this same PC. This year almost as fast as McAfee...

Just a heads up, if anyone spots a good sale price and wants to try it, and has an AMD rig.

Makes sense—and it’s a useful datapoint for other AMD users. AV “heaviness” can change a lot year-to-year even on the same machine, because vendors tweak their drivers, cloud lookups, scanning heuristics, caching, and how they integrate with Windows (and Windows itself changes too).

Why Bitdefender might feel much faster this time

• Engine/driver changes: A single update to the on-access scanning driver or behavioral monitoring can noticeably reduce latency on file opens/copies.
• Better caching/“scan once” behavior: Many suites get more aggressive about caching trusted files and skipping re-scans after first execution.
• Different Windows build / chipset drivers: Even on a “same clean install,” a newer Windows build + newer AMD chipset/storage drivers can improve I/O scheduling and reduce AV overhead.
• Feature mix defaults: Some versions enable/disable components by default (e.g., “advanced threat defense,” encrypted web scan, etc.), and that can swing performance.

If anyone wants to test BD vs McAfee cleanly (without misleading results)

• Don’t run two real-time AVs at once (including leftover drivers). Use the vendor cleanup tools after uninstall, then reboot before benchmarking.
• Benchmark the same workload (copy a large folder of mixed files, install a medium app, compile/extract an archive, reboot-to-desktop timing).
• Let it “settle” after install: initial indexing/first scan can make the first hour/day look worse than steady-state.
• Watch the real bottleneck: CPU usage, RAM, and especially disk I/O (Resource Monitor) during slowdowns—AV impact is often storage-latency, not raw CPU.

Practical tips to keep BD light (without weakening it too much)

• Let the first full scan finish (don’t interrupt repeatedly).
• Avoid piling on extra modules you don’t use (e.g., optional VPN/extra browser add-ons) to keep startup/services lean.
• If gaming, ensure “Game Profile/Do Not Disturb” type mode is enabled so it backs off notifications and background tasks.

Your Macrium image approach is exactly how to do this safely—easy rollback and apples-to-apples comparisons. If you post your CPU model + storage type (SATA SSD vs NVMe) + Windows version/build, other members can better map your experience to their setups.

 

[nickstar1]

does it still take 20 days to install updates or did they finally fix it?

 

[cartaphilus]

does it still take 20 days to install updates or did they finally fix it?

The fix was you upgrading your Internet connection to 40 Gb/s in order to download their 1 TB definition updates.

 

[nickstar1]

The fix was you upgrading your Internet connection to 40 Gb/s in order to download their 1 TB definition updates

This issue has been present with Bitdefender for an extended period. The update installation process consistently takes a disproportionate amount of time, regardless of the device used or the available network bandwidth. Compared to competing solutions, Bitdefender’s update installation is significantly slower. This is a longstanding, well-documented behavior that appears unrelated to download speed and has not been meaningfully improved over time.

 

[annaegorov]

does it still take 20 days to install updates or did they finally fix it?

I checked 2 Bitdefender folders in C: one was 1.12 gig and the other was 85 mb

Possibly I am not looking in the right place.

 

[cartaphilus]

This issue has been present with Bitdefender for an extended period. The update installation process consistently takes a disproportionate amount of time, regardless of the device used or the available network bandwidth. Compared to competing solutions, Bitdefender’s update installation is significantly slower. This is a longstanding, well-documented behavior that appears unrelated to download speed and has not been meaningfully improved over time.

Indeed. I don't know if it's changed over the years but back in the day Bit defender used to download the whole database during an update vs fragmented bits to just update.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Performance wide, BD has truly improved. It is not perfect, but it offers decent protection and their support is very good. In the Middle East it is relatively cheap. There are some major issues (such as the one cause by Encrypted web scan), but it seems they're not affecting every user.

The most imporrtant thing, in my opinion, is that you need to install BD on a clean system installtion. That way you ensure it gets adapted to your system pretty fast.