How Good Is Bullguard?

Just obtained 1yr license of Bullguard Internet Security. Is anybody using it? Shall be grateful if forum members share their experience with it.

Presently using Avast Internet Security. May give Bullguard a try if your reports are positive.

 

I got one of those licenses as well. Initially there was a heap of CPU usage just after the installation but after a few hours of use it seems to be running smoothly. BitDefender AV + Outpost firewall is a unique combination.

In the latest AV-Test report it got a great detection score but its repair score was terrible, since there are several effective on-demand scanners available (Hitman Pro, MBAM, SAS) the repair score is negligible compared to protection. Additionally, BullGuard scored on the lower end of average in terms of usability. The report seems to suggest that there will be heavy computer slowdowns for users and this does seem to be true during some on-demand scans I've run so far.

Bull Guard Article

AV-Test Q1 2011 Reports

 

I'm from Gizmo's where the offer was posted.

BullGuard openly admit they concentrate effort towards protection rather than detecting stuff after it has already got into your system. This can be achieved with passive third party scanners so it makes sense to keep it out in the first place with your real-time protection. Comodo adopts the same strategy. The other advantage (with BullGuard anyway) is their support is up to the challenge should you need it. This doesn't apply to all commercial products despite what they might say in their marketing blurb

All tests are subjective depending on your point of view but if you're looking at the AV-Test.org variety, these are system specific so results for XP might be different to W7.

No AV, free or paid, can or ever will protect you from "everything". Terms like "360" (which is just an example) have been thought up by marketing execs to instil a sense of security that can never be achieved with a single piece of software. Most will go far enough though with a little help from their owners. Surf p0rn, cr@ck and red-rated WOT sites in general then no matter what you have installed, it's only a matter of time

 

I used Bullguard about three years ago & I thought it was pretty OK. It was a three month trial period on my Notebook, when that ended, being the cheapskate I am, I decided to go with Norton which was free with my ISP, who then changed to McAfee. I should have stayed with Bullguard! It was not anywhere near as troublesome as Norton (in fact I never had any trouble with Bullguard) & seriously lighter than McAfee. I think an AV suite is OK on a more powerful computer but I don't use them any more.

 

I am an avid lover of Bullguard... It has four seriously good parts.
1. An extremely attractive user-interface
2. Bitdefender AV Engine
3. Outpost Firewall Engine
4. Great Customer Support

Its resource usage shouldn't be a problem in these days as most computers come with min 2 gb RAM these days. Its stable on CPU. I think Bullguard is not a thing for old PCs.

 

its a bit heavy
also repair score very bad in av-test

it is good in detection. i used once and GUI was good and simple. it uses Bit def engine , so its strong

overall , it would not be my first choice

 

Thanks for all the replies. I have an Athlon 3000 processor 1.8 GHz & just 1 GB RAM. So Bullguard does not seem to be the thing for me. I am sticking to Avast.

 

On Windows 7 x32 at any rate, I found this version 10 noticeably lighter than the previous one.

I hope you don't mind but I've fed your system specs to the BullGuard techs and they will off an honest opinion between their program and Avast! for resource use. Even if there's little difference it might not be worth the trouble to change but at least you will have another set of data to consider.

 

Bullguard = Bitdefender without all the bugs ...

 

+1

 

good one

 

I tried it today but it is using 100% cpu resources and my 64bit windows 7 was constantly working. I uninstall it. Its a very cpu hungry program. Anyone else notice high cpu usage with it?

 

did you let it fingerprint files and do all its initial post-install stuff before applying the "cpu hog" verdict? bitdefender is much the same til it's done with all its initial housekeeping stuff, then it's pretty quick.

 

@deadmeat: Agreed, except for AV-Test.org comment. They test on XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Also the link by Duradel is under their Windows 7 category.

 

The interface needs a bit of tweaking. In most internet suites its completely straight forward to do quick scans. On BullGuard the user needs to go into the antivirus section then there is a section called profiles and then the user has to click on another button which then lets then click on one final button to finally initiate a scan.

It would be nice if the firewall could be turned off by right clicking the desktop tray icon as well.

 

I left it for several hours. At first after installation it did not hug the cpu but a few hours later it started to constantly use all the CPU resources without ever quieting down. I even tried and restarted the pc a few times and the same thing after reboot. I have posted in their forum about it and no replies at all since last night.

I have never faced any suite that did this and I tested almost all of them.

 

I installed BullGuard but it conflicted with Sandboxie when it was time
to delete the sandbox. Duradel, SG90, I see you guys are using SBIE,
Have you experience trouble deleting the contents of the sandbox?
Taking a long time to do it.
The program would have been nice but can not use it if it gives trouble
to Sandboxie, in my computer.

Bo

 

The Behavior Blocker is very good as well.

 

Aww. having second thoughts on Bullguard. This is what happens when one is not content with what one posses, but becomes greedy.

 

I didn't have any problems with sandboxie while testing BG IS 10 out. It seemed to run a bit better than BitDefender IS 2011 is for me at the moment in terms of normal browsing.

Are you thinking about trying it anyway? Give it a shot and see how it goes for a day or so.

 

@bo elam: I haven't experienced any such problems with Sandboxie while using Bullguard.

 

As expected, BullGuard are non committal about making a direct comparison with other products resource wise because there are just too many local variables which will affect this.

Certainly Ad-Aware has it's moments on first install as does TrustPort but these are just two I've noticed myself, there are no doubt plenty of others. If resource use really is a problem on your system and not just something you like to keep low for other reasons then I guess the majority of full suites will exhibit similar characteristics.

As with all things though, personal experience is the way forward. If you install it, like it and trust it to do the job it's been designed for then it's for you, otherwise keep looking