I'm using it on my older laptop. So far I'm pretty impressed. Quite light with pretty reliable Bitdefender av engine...Kind of surprised frankly.
Probably best to give it a proper whiz yourself first before giving it the thumbs up or down. But am I the only one who is a bit weary of hearing the words Bitdefender engine associated with a "new" product.(I mean I really like Bitdefender Free and all that but ...) Regards Eck
Right, and Bitdefender doesn't mean Bitdefender: The original Bitdefender is always number 1 in tests, the Bitdefender in Ad-Aware is always poor. I guess Avetix is like Ad-Aware.
Installed it in my main system as I am in a mood of testing a new product. Looks lightweight and have a nice & attractive GUI. There are some spelling mistakes in the GUI. Its running smoothly in my PC. I have tested it with a few fresh malware links and it was responding well.
well, tried it and uninstalled it already. after it was ibstalled i rebooted the machibe and it would not download/install or update the signatures no matter how many times i tried.
I faced no such problems in updating the software. It updates automatically everytime. The real-time protection is very much powerful. System impact is low. I am very much impressed so far with this product.
ehh. tested this for the past week. its def not on the same level as the actual bitdefender detection wise. ill say it was not super heavy but not at all very light. kind of in the middle performance wise. i also noticed some spelling issues lol. i did have a few occasions where it did not start properly with windows. it was reported as turned off and when checking it was in fact "off" and i had to manually turn it back on. i thought the gui was decent one of the better styles out today not my top fav but it was pretty nice. overall detection was mid road for me. it did not do well with pup's but did seem to catch most of the actual virus' i threw at it but many did get to the hard drive before being detected. i had to unzip a few before the alert went off.
I guess it doesn't use the behavioural part of Bitdefender, i.e. active virus control, as well as every products that are licensee of Bitdefender. So I would expect much lower detection rate, just like Lavasoft.
@zfactor I agree with most of your observations. But I didn't have any problem ever with program start with Windows. Btw, have you seen anything to conclude that "its def not on the same level as the actual bitdefender detection wise"? The only thing I saw that it doesn't update as frequently as Bitdefender actually does. It normally updates automatically 4-5 times a day. I agree that its performance may be like Roboscan or Lavasoft but I am preferring this because of better interface. Moreover, I always had faced updating issues with Roboscan and Bitdefender Free but this one seems to update without problems. Furthermore, it scans very fast.
i can say there were a few things that the bitdefender suite did detect that this did not. i am thinking it uses the same sigs but as you said is more on the detection level of lavasoft. notice i did not say ot was terrible. but it was not top tier like a few others are. its looks to be a decent mid level av not the worst. i also wonder though with these new "free" av's always popping up what interests do they have behind the scenes and or how long will they be free for...
but how many people pay for an av when there is a free one. i can tell you from being in this business ... not many. unless they feel they are getting better protection or more features they actually want they will use the free version.
I think it does. A lot of BD engine products do use those components. eScan uses BitDefender cloud as well as Active Virus Control, for example.
Really? Then, if you are right, this program should have the same detection rate of the original Bitdefender and it doesn't look so...
It's usually because of different configuration of those components as well as features that are specific to the product, for example AVC may work differently as part of the SDK as compared to being part of the BitDefender suite. Internal configurations also matter, which databases are enabled/disabled, etc. - sometimes the SDK is just not updated fast enough at the developer's end. That's why it makes sense to go with a more reputed company like F-Secure, Lavasoft or eScan compared to cheaper, lesser known licensees like this one. In the case of Ad-Aware, for example, it often scores less probably because certain features are not part of the license agreement or are intentionally disabled so as to not interfere with custom developed technology in the paid/pro versions of the product.
Good observation. Definition updates are critical to BD engined apps that don't otherwise offer ancillary components (cloud, HIPS, etc.). If one keeps track of the version numbers at http://download.bitdefender.com/updates/bitdefender_v9/plugins/update.txt they crank out 10-20 or more a day. Anything more than an hourly update is unacceptable. One can bounce that data off the update.txt file in the local definition folder to ascertain how up to date or not is the current file set. Cheers.
In examining the VB100 April and December RAP charts, specifically the Reactive and Proactive Set ± 1 & 2 metrics, all the BD engined apps return about the same results - variances are 1% and less - as BD AV+. That includes the most particular Proactive Set+2. AVC RWP Test, on the other hand, would present greater discrepancies requiring further scrutiny. In the case of Lavasoft Free with it's 92.3 blocked score would compare with Bullguard and eScan scores of 93.9 and 95.5 but who depend on 4.9 and 3.7% user dependency to reduce their compromised scores. Moving upscale, an additional engine or two and the cloud are significant point snaggers. Whether Lavasoft could score better with their paid versions, particularly Pro and Total with HIPS, is up for speculation. Those two and Personal offer BD's network protection drivers where the tested Free has the browser-only Ad-Aware Security Toolbar. I speculate they would garner better AVC scores - like the other paid BD engined apps. That said, it is additionally apparent that Lavasoft's Ad-Aware Service libraries (making it arguably a dual engine app) don't do much in the current VB100 and AVC tests. FYI - All Lavasoft Ad-Aware apps update the BD defs hourly and are mostly spot-on with the BD releases as reported by http://download.bitdefender.com/updates/bitdefender_v9/plugins/update.txt Cheers.
While I understand where you are coming from given Lavasoft's history, the current Lavasoft product does seem to not just be a BD clone with a new UI and seems to have a dedicated team working on custom tech. I meant reputable in the sense that you can expect continuous and serious support for the product as time passes, we have definitely seen some of that with Lavasoft.
