No reason to ever pay for BD. I can't stand the product, and will never run it other than on my Gateway, it's still 'always' free from the looks of it. I run Bit Defender on my Gateway as part of the paid Untangle package, but I find the software incredibly buggy and at times, unstable on endpoints. So it sits on the gateway. Still.. It's always there free if I want it.. LOL
I used to despise BD proper not the engine or definitions. But about 7 months ago I got a free 9mo BDIS. It's awesome. Afaik to keep on using free keys you have to fresh install or find the registry keys BD writes & or changes. Anyways I got a sealed boxed copy BDIS 2014 3u/2yr for $4 waiting.
This has not been my experience. In fact only the last couple days have I heard a couple people assert this. When over the years hundreds said it can't be done.
For giggles I tried adding this free key to my existing and it wouldn't go, its because I have AVP and this key is for IS.
Keys for paid BD products will stack, but only with the same product i.e. TS with TS, AV+ with AV+, etc. The exception is that you can use an IS key to activate Windows 8 Security (I am not sure it works the other way round). The keys that will not merge are OEM, TRIAL, Beta keys and Promotional keys.
Well I think it is. BD gives more free long-term licenses than any other Security Company I know of. So many I would see no reason to pay for it. Last year I got a One Year Free License to BD IS and later in the year got one for 9 months and now this I guess it improves their malware cloud data base, and likely gets most of it's revenue from licensing out it's engine, but it makes so many free offers, wondering how much consumer sales count towards their bottom line.