uhmm... bitdefender?

hi all,

i would like to know if i should switch av bec i havent read anything good about bitdefender on our forums lately, is it a bad antivirus? i have been using it for about a yr. no probs whatsoever but i would like to play it safe.

it seems that (from what i read here) NOD32, KAV, DRweb etc all kicks BD's arse

any suggestions on what to switch to would be GREAT

still learning and thanks so much

arnee

 

Bitdefender is a very good AV. I would not switch just because you dont see much posted here. There is a forum for it, try google BitDForum. Some have some quirks with it, but as you can see from all of us, we have quirks with all of them.

 

agree

 

arnee, you have to understand how al of this works.
1. We have management here that runs the site.
2. We have the vendors who showcase and trouble-shoot their products here.
3. We have the users, with a wide range of expertise and a wide range of intelligence.

And through this whole muddled process, some magic happens. The site thrives, the products get better for consumers, and we the testers, well, we, wait a minute, just what do we get out of this.

 

I used BD for over a year, maybe close to two. It worked well until some update caused BD to conflict with other programs that I did not intend to remove. BD support told me to remove them, but I removed BD instead.

Accordingly, BD is not one of my favorites, and having gone to other AVs I would not return to BD.

Now having said that, I think as far as protection is concerned you are as well off with BD as Kaspersky, NOD, Avira, or any other. If BD runs well for you, I would keep it unless you just want to trial others.

BD is an excellent AV, and will give you excellent protection. Unless they have changed, they allow one license to be used on 2 personal computers like a laptop and desktop. In addition the price was less than most comparable AVs. Those things are a plus.

If there are no conflicts, it is my opinion that you cannot do better than BD, even though some have a slightly higher on demand detection rate.


Best,
Jerry

 

I've discovered that no news is generally good news. If BD is working fine for you, then I see no reason to bail on it. It's a fine av.

 

bitdefender is a great av with very good heristics and hourly updates if it works for you keep it.
if i wasnt using kis6.0 i would probaly use bitdefender.
are you using bitdefender 10?
or 9.5?
because if you dont know 10 is a free upgrade.
i wish some people from bitdefender would have some imput here at wilders.
all i seem to hear about recently is antivir and dr web and f-secure.
bitdefender needs some more topics.
lodore

 

I've used BitDefender9 for about a year, stopped more than a few bugs both in email and websites, even with Firefox. Frequent updates. Worth the price for sure.
Uses more computer resources than I'd like, but even on the 512MB RAM monster rig I'm typing this on, there's no discernible slowdown because of it. The price you pay to be safe.
Recently, leaving BD "enabled" while running HighjackThis caused my computer to lock up, but this is minor and I'm hoping it will be fixed in a future update.

 

Why haven't you gone to BD10? I don't know anything about it since the last I used was about 9.5, but one would hope for improvements.
Best,
Jerry

 

IME BD10 is actually more resource hungry than BD9....but thats just my experience.

 

some people have found bd10 lighter and it has improved B-HAVE heristics,http scanner,rootkit detector and remover and a better interface.
most people say its lighter than 9.5
lodore

 

More new toys to play with!

 

it really is lighter, the lighest of them all........

sure it has a few bugs now and then, but maybe they have fixed them now, great heuristics and regular updates, i cant find much to fault it.

 

But does BD 10 still conflict with Spybot and Spyware Blaster? Do you still have to remove them? I loved BD9 and I hated BD9.5. I didn't need or want their stupid antispyware module that came in the FORCED upgrade to 9.5 which led to a STOP error on boot caused by BD driver. I was told nastily that I had to remove my two longtime favorite antispyware programs as somehow they were causing the BD STOP error on boot. I asked if I could just use 9.0 Premium as that was great. To my great disbelief, I was told no...the upgrade to 9.5 was required. I didn't care for that arrogance so I removed BD instead of my favorite antispyware programs. I don't know how they could have caused the STOP error anyhow. The STOP error was a WELL KNOWN ESTABLISHED ERROR that had been prevelant with BD 8 and was fixed by BD9 and then I experienced it with BD 9.5. It was strange as the error, which is in their data base, was never caused in version 8 by Spybot or Spyware Blaster so I have always thought that support just didn't want to continue troubleshooting and when they asked me to send a Belarc Advisor report and saw those two applications installed they hastily blamed them. Support was poor and that surprised me. I had used the Free BD for two years prior to acquiring BD 9.0 Premium/Suite (whatever it was called) and loved the free version.

But, as everyone has said, if it works good for you keep it. I certainly would have kept it if support had let me use 9.0 instead of 9.5 so there would have been no need to remove my favorite anti-spyware applications.

 

It's alright. 7.5/10. I've had personal issues with it, and it has started to conflict with some programs...I hope it improves in the future.

 

@chris,
i was simply stating the new features and the fact ive heard that version 10 is lighter than 9.5
also ive heard there are less conflicts
after the install you get a readme file with known conflicts.
lodore

 

ok, i wasnt sure they had fixed the bugs or not as i havnt tried it since its release.

but it is light on ram, and not too bad either on system performance either.

 

The virus subscriptions will end in a month or so and I will have to see about upgrading. Probably have a look around at the other AV favorites as well. Might check out NOD32. Whichever does the best job, $5-10 either way would not be a factor.

 

yes ronbo613,

that would be the best option, once you pay for your licence... its final.

so, use this time to try out the different ones on the market and 'then' make your decision.

i would recommend trying: Dr.Web of course , F-secure, Norton 2007, Nod32, KAV and AVG Anti-malware.

so you should be busy for a while if you check those out

 

That will be an excellent opportunity to check out some others. Definitely check NOD. You might as well check several others and see which ones run well on your system.
My own favorites are KAV, F-Secure, Avira, and Avast. The new version of F-Prot will be worth trying.

Regards,
Jerry

 

i would try nod32,kav. you might as well try bitdefender 10 since you have a license for it atm if you dont like the new features you can try the rest.
if you dont wanna pay this time round you could try avg 7.5 free or avast
lodore

 

I used BD 9 for about 6 months,and it was great, but I bought BD 10,and bugger me! It Caused my browsing to fail. I kept getting Referer pages,and some other message I cant remember what, but bassically the HTML scanner caused this in BD 10,and probably something else too, I threw it out because of this

 

I only recently began to attempt to complete this PC's Security Shielding by adding a light-as-possible, effective "resident" AV. I started briefly with ClamAV only because one of the HIPS required it, being unfamiliar with that one i soon went back to Avast! and gave it a whirl again. I don't recall any issues but still was looking to trim performance hits to as minimum as possible without losing ability to protect adequately enough. I did another switch this time to BitDefender. Now i really did favor that one, detections, gui and all but just like the posters above DVD+R & btman i started experiencing issues with BD that i simply could not live with. Same with the highly applauded Avira Anti-Vir, now theres an AV that served me well long ago on 98SE and so decided to put it to some good use, but as usual experienced conflicts with other security apps so had to uninstall that one to.
Right now i'm looking at Avast again but really think it might be high time to go the NOD32 or KAV route like others, i dunno, this is becoming harder for me to determine than it should be i think, but suppose it must be because a good solid AV has to achieve so many more tasks than say a HIPS or Firewall for instance.

 

@ EASTER.2010,

to be honest, there are soooo many GOOD av's out there now, there will always be one that suits a users needs, i like dr.web because it does everything i want it to plus more, runs super fast on the machine, low HD consumption, low ram consumption, good support bla bla etc plus i got it at 50% migration discount, fantastic.

bitdefender will be good enough for any user, im sure they have ironed out most of the bugs of BD10 by now, as when it was released, we all knew there were a few, but it offers great support, great detection and great heuristics, id recommend it.

 

I would say that BD would be one of the best AV out there for sure and is rather good on resources, mind you I had it running on a PII PC and ran quite well to be honest. Also I've that their support to be very good as well and they've replied to me probs with quite a quick response.