Bitr Defender

It may be happening when it updates, but there are a lot of checks by Tea Timer, and Start up Monitor, and Lookn Stop regarding changes in the start up of BD. In general the BD switch agent is the subject, and the question is that there is a change in startup and do I want to allow it.

The problem is that there is not sufficient explanation to understand what the change is. BD is the only program that seems to change to that extent.

The items currently activated at start up are bdmcon.exe and bdnagentexe.

I think that at one time the BDswitch agent was also activated, but not now.

I have emailed the BD support group, but in the meantime is there anyone here wih sufficient knowledge of that program to give advice.

Thanks,
Jerry

 

I am sure someone will come along to answer you, Jerry. I use BitDefender, but only as a "on-demand" so I don't run into those particular problems. I do think it takes a looong time to scan, but it has caught a couple things, my other AV didn't so............?

 

I dont know whats happening, JerryM.

I think that maybe its just that BD is starting up in a different order, and so Tea Timer and others alert you.

If BD is working fine, and your system is working fine, then I dont see any reason to worry.

SOMEONE can help you, I'm sure

@Marja - Jerry uses the BitDefender 8 commercial version, and I presume you run BD Free edition right?

Also, Do you mean to say that BD caught a few nasties which McAfee did not find?

 

Hi Firecat. My concern has to do with the purpose of the particular element of BD. Since it changes enough to cause both Tea Timer, LnS, and Startup Monitor to question the change, I would like to know what it does, and it is necessary to be active.

Hopefully I will get an answer today, and I will post it.

Regarding the time to scan it takes about 24 minutes on my PC. For a comparison, mwav escan took 17 minutes this AM for a thorough scan.

I continue to wonder if AVG or Avast are not just as good for me, and at less cost and less trouble if my history of their use is an indication.

Good to hear from you. I figured you had reached an age that the world decisions took too much of your time.

Have a good day,
Jerry

 

Actually I'm in the middle of my annual exams and thats why I'm not so active now. I will be rocking again from the 21st.

You have a great day too

 

Do well, my friend. I have no doubt that you will.

Jerry

 

I have experienced an additional problem with BD 8.0. Twice it has disappeared from my sys tray (is that the section at the right hand section of the task bar?). When I try to open it from the icon on my desktop it does not respond. It may be active, but when I check Win Patrol only the console is active. I am concerned about security since I am on DSL.

I am not sure what is going on with Bit Defender. So far my queries to their Tech support has gone unanswered. I realize they are busy, but when they claim 24/7 suppport I would expect answers in a couple of days.

At this point in time I am not happy with the BD or its support.
I downloaded and installed Avast today and am using it as my active AV. I have BD disabled through Win Patrol.

Jerry

 

Well I tried to contact the BitDefender Live Chat program but every time I tried it said that the support staf is off-line.

Maybe someone else has better experience with BD's support - If you decide on a new AV in the end, I would recommend ArcaVir or NOD32 for you, as support of both these AVs is excellent.

The support experiences with BD recently is going to make a huge difference in my big decision between NOD32 and BitDefender...and naturally I like to talk to support personnel a lot regarding suggestions - so if BD does not have good support I probably wont take it.

 

Thanks for the try to get support.

When I am shopping for a car or computer or anything else, the most important things are reliability and support assuming several will do a satisfactory job.
There are some excellent AV out there, and I don't see any need to bother with one which has a poor tech support rep.

I sent a follow up this evening, and will see what that brings.
It is good to have forums such as this where we can learn the ins and outs of the various programs.

I know you are considering an AV for your own use.

Take care, and get the exams out of the way.

Jerry

 

bit defender has had known issues with this. thier update setup was causing a lot of problems they were supposed to have fixed this, but still see it all the time. when bd updates it will shut down then restart. sometimes upon restart of the services it does not appear in the tray or did not start at all. i had to reboot for the restart to occur. also sometimes bd will update and not really update as another known issue.
as far as the change in the files. bd does not just upgrade the virus defs, they commonly do upgrades to the program to fix issues etc.. soemtimes you can see this when updating. if this is done and they load a "new" file over an old one that say lns or outpost has already been aware of it will ask for permission again.

some said to try a clean bd install after removing all fragments of bd. i tried this with no luck, and firecat good luck as far as online help goes they are always "off-line" as far as i could tell

i dropped the program for so many reasons and its a shame cause i really did like it.

 

jerrym
i have used bitdefender for quite some time and had no problems atall.it is a fantastic product with lot of potential .as u may be aware of ,it updates regularly upto 2 or 3 times a day.it even has the ability to update /upgrade product components if they are corrupted/damaged in any way so that u dont have to reinstall it ..

now coming to the problem at hand
1)regarding the complaining of teatimer and look an stop and others...
bitdefender updates/upgrade it its engine version very frequently.there are upgrades of other components too during the update process.that is its not the virus defenitions that is included in the update process.there are program components too.of course they are minor upgrades to improve the scan engine and program itself..u can check it under the status tab after the update process.u will see a diff no for the engine version(minor).the def version also changes too.when there is such a change in the program its quite natural that look n stop and others may complain about change in the dll and other files..u just click ok and go..infact i havent seen any program with such a frequent change in the scan engine after the update..they are constantly improving it..

2)-regarding the disappearance of the systemtrayicon and the nonresponding of the desktop icon during the sametime..
bitdefender during the updates process needs to be restarted (i mean the gui and i guess the program too)/or need a reboot of the computer(very rarely- in the case of major program component upgrades -may be every 3 weeks or so)
bitdefender does this automatically if u set the update on automatic.. the program just restarts itself during the finalisation of the update.this will take typically 3 secs on my computer.i am on dialup btw..its during that time the tray icon disappears and the desktop icon becomes unresponsive..u dont need to worry in this case,just make sure that the option -"keep protection active on console exit" is checked ..it is somewhere under the general tab or so ..pls check it..
further u can customise whether u want to allow bitdef to reboot the computer or should it ask or should it wait till you are finished in the updates tab..there is an option..just play around the gui..u will find it.

3)-regarding the update problems suggested by zfactor
i believe that is only in the free version .i havent seen anything likethat in the std version during my usage ..mind you i am on dialup..it updates everyday without a problem..atleast for me..

the only thing u should be careful is that dont run scandisk/defragmentor and other utilities like that while the onaccess scanner is active .there is a chance of data corruption.so make sure to disable the virus shield while u run these programs..this is a known issue with bitdef and u can find details about it it in the read me file..

long post. hopes that helps you..
regards clansman.

 

clansman77,
Thanks for the information. I have liked BD, and it does update frequently. The times that it has seemed to be non-op has been minutes rather than seconds. I was not aware of the defrag issue.

It is a problem with me that it is not clear what is happening, and whether or not BD is securing my machine. I don't really understand why it should be so with BD, and not with other AV.
The lack of a responsive Tech Support will probably cause me to drop it when my license expires.

I do not have the expertise to be able to determine how these programs operate, so they must be pretty straightforward for me to find them satisfactory.

I am on DSL, and I do not feel confident at this point in time that if I am away from the PC, and I am a lot, that BD is not going to update or whatever it does in those cases, and be "off the air" long enough to get infected.

I have installed Avast, and have mwav escan as an on demand scanner. My BD is disabled. I will probably use it as an on demand scanner. I have had BD about 45 -60 days so my subscription has a long time to go. If it was within the 30 days I would ask for a refund. Not sure how effective that would be since it seems no one can contact them.

I do appreciate your information and help. I'll wait and see what the BD folks do, and hopefully they will get the issues resolved. I agree it is a good AV, and that is why I chose it based on published results. It seemed to me that it was better than NOD in detection.

Many thanks,

Jerry

 

NOD and BD are now pretty much equal in detection

But NOD has better heuristics

 

Thanks for the reply, Firecat. I think that at this point I would go with NOD between the two.

I received replies to the two problems that I had presented to BD. Here are the replies.
I had asked about switch agent being activated at start. Here is the reply.

[You can prevent "BD Switch agent" from running at start-up if there are not multiple accounts set on your computer and you don't use the Fast Switch feature of Windows XP.

Best regards,
Victor Chirita
BitDefender Technical Support Engineer]


Regarding BD not active here is the reply.


[Please open BitDefender, go to General -> Settings and uncheck the option "Send virus reports" -> click Apply to save the changes. Tell us if the issue occurs again.

Best regards,
Victor Chirita
BitDefender Technical Support Engineer]

I did as directed. Then I decided to disable Avast and reactivate BD. With that my email and computer in general hung up. I rebooted with no improvement. I figured that it had to do with the two AV, but they were not enabled at the same time.
In desperation I uninstalled Avast, rebooted and now all is working well.
I had a similar experience with NAV and AVG on my old machine.

Now we will see how everything and particularly BD work.
If any trouble I'll post.

Thanks for the help, All.
Jerry

 

Well it seems he told you to uncheck the option for sending virus reports. I believe this feature is used for sending virus reports to Softwin. I love features like that and it just makes me angry when it causes a problem with your PC if a particular feature of an AV is used.

 

Now another problem has surfaced. I have emailed them regarding it as follows.

[An additional problem has surfaced. After following instructions regarding the problem, ticket 200504141001769, I attempted to scan my system. Normally this takes about 27 minutes. However, it is not scanning, and estimates that the scan will take over 10 hours.]

Man! Am I getting disenchanted with BD. Maybe I should have uninstalled BD instead of Avast. From one problem to another!

Jerry

 

I just completed a chat with Vince of BD. I started a scan and for whatever reason it will complete in about 30 minutes total time. That is in line with previous scans. I have no clue why it would not scan earlier. I will try again later today and see how it does. Once before it acted up, and I closed it and then started another scan. It worked OK that time.

I'll hope it acts as it should now. Time will tell. I did like the real time chat. Wish it had been operational earlier.

Jerry