Advice Request Some misc Bitdefender 2017 Total Security questions

[ncage]

Hi guys. New bitdefender 2017 Total Security user here (just bought a 3 year license for the family plan). After using it i do have some questions:

1. I've been trying to figure out the autopilot thing. From bitdefenders site:
What is Autopilot mode?

• Antivirus protection, provided by on-access scanning and continuous scanning.

What is "continous scanning" exactly? Do you still need to schedule quick/full scans of your entire system manually or will bit defenders "auto pilot" do that automatically at the times it determines are best? I of course occasionally want both to run and don't want just on-demand scanning and hoping autopilot will take care of everything for me rather than having to configure it on a bunch of computers.

2. Is there any way to determine when the last full / quick scan was done. I don't want to have to scroll through the notification area which is quite busy. Is there some type of scan log area? I couldn't find it.

3. Is there any threads with best practices on settings of bitdefender or are the defaults pretty good? I found a great one on kaspersky. Of course i don't want to affect system performance to much.

One of the small things i don't like about bitdefender so far is it just tells you "up to date". It doesn't tell you the date or version of the definitions you have (which most products do).

 

[ForgottenSeer 19494]

Autopilot is basically a marketing term. There are products who have a standard HIPS which asks you block/allow questions on detection of potentially dangerous actions. Then there are ones which have algorithms and correlate different detected actions against a threshold and if it is deemed too much suspicious program is blocked. However Bitdefender is not the only one which works that way. But autoscan is just what is says it is - automatic updates, automatic on-demand scans, automatic actions against detected malware with no questions. I'm not using Bitdefender but I do have an idea of what it's settings looked like. The only thing that you might want to check is the ransomware protection for settings you might want to change/add important folders etc. Not sure of the 2017 interface but you should be able to filter the logs by some select dropdown menus. For your third question the most important thing is to use brain.exe.

 

[brod56]

Autopilot is basically a marketing term. There are products who have a standard HIPS which asks you block/allow questions on detection of potentially dangerous actions. Then there are ones which have algorithms and correlate different detected actions against a threshold and if it is deemed too much suspicious program is blocked. However Bitdefender is not the only one which works that way. But autoscan is just what is says it is - automatic updates, automatic on-demand scans, automatic actions against detected malware with no questions. I'm not using Bitdefender but I do have an idea of what it's settings looked like. The only thing that you might want to check is the ransomware protection for settings you might want to change/add important folders etc. Not sure of the 2017 interface but you should be able to filter the logs by some select dropdown menus. For your third question the most important thing is to use brain.exe.

Ditto. AutoPilot mode is just a term used for a protection with automated actions, no questions.

 

[Parsh]

1. I've been trying to figure out the autopilot thing. From bitdefenders site:
What is Autopilot mode?

• Antivirus protection, provided by on-access scanning and continuous scanning.

What is "continous scanning" exactly? Do you still need to schedule quick/full scans of your entire system manually or will bit defenders "auto pilot" do that automatically at the times it determines are best? I of course occasionally want both to run and don't want just on-demand scanning and hoping autopilot will take care of everything for me rather than having to configure it on a bunch of computers.

Once you've installed BTS on your systems, a Full Scan is recommended. Then onwards, you need not schedule such scans for anytime soon. Quick scan can be scheduled once a week, though it's not necessary if you did not disable the protection for some reason in the intermediate period.
Auto-pilot as said above, just automates tasks of responding to threats (and more) so you need not bother with any alerts.
However, I would suggest you disabled Auto-pilot (this does not decrease the security in any way) so that you atleast get to know when some file/application got blocked. Auto-pilot has nothing to do with real-time protection and you're protected either way.

2. Is there any way to determine when the last full / quick scan was done. I don't want to have to scroll through the notification area which is quite busy. Is there some type of scan log area? I couldn't find it.

Simply view the log in "Notifications section" >> "Information"

3. Is there any threads with best practices on settings of bitdefender or are the defaults pretty good? I found a great one on kaspersky. Of course i don't want to affect system performance to much.

The default settings of BD is usually effective. If you want to make it more aggressive in threat detection (though this will increase the number of False Positives), you can set "Active threat Control" to "Aggressive". There's also a "Custom" level in ATC where you can manually change the insider settings.
I currently have BTS 2018 with newer settings & UI, hence cannot share tweaks or screenshots for ATC.
Consider adding important folders to the "Protection list" of the Ransomware Protection.

You can set custom scan modes to be scheduled in the Antivirus section.
In the settings section at the bottom, you may enable "Paranoid mode" so that an alert will be displayed prompting you for action every time one of the following situations occurs:
● An application tries to connect to the Internet.
● An application tries to perform an action considered suspicious by the Intrusion Detection module.
The "Battery Mode" profile causes Bitdefender to lag frequently even in newer machines. Better disable it if you encounter lack of responsiveness.

One of the small things i don't like about bitdefender so far is it just tells you "up to date". It doesn't tell you the date or version of the definitions you have (which most products do).

Right-click on BD icon in system tray >> click on "About"
and here you are:

 

[kamla5abi]

Turn on ransomware protection (it is disabled by default)
The other posters already said this, but they didn't mention that this protection is disabled by default. So enable it asap.

1. When you open the main window, go to the Protection (first) tab on the left side (should say “protection” under the “your device is protected” area – to show you are in protection tab)
2. Under “autopilot” area, click “view modules”
3. Click “ransomware protection” on lower right side > then turn it on at the top. I also turn on “protection at boot” (I have SSD I put in my few year old laptop, and it had almost zero effect on boot times)
4. Typical folders under your username and “public” should already be added by default under protected folders, but you can add other custom folders here if you have any to add

Turn on AMSI service interaction under Windows 10
I am not sure if this was on by default or not, can't remember
Under Settings tab on the left > General > Antimalware Scan Service > ON