is bitdefender free version any good?

I've heard alot of talk of kav and nod32, but is bitdefender freeversion any good,? since they offer it as free..

 

Yes Bitdefender is very good but beware the free version does not have any resident gaurd- great to use as a back up scanner but will not scan files when you open them.

For that you need to pay for bitdefender 9 or use Kav/Nod etc

Cheers

Jlo

 

Hi there

I run BitDefender free V8 as a backup up anti virus scanner to NOD32 and it works fine - updates can be a little slow but thats probably my machine and I'm also on dial-up.

I see very good reports in threads re BitDefender but I'm sure folks with more experience than myself will give more info. Were it not for the fact that I settled on NOD as resident A/V, I would have looked seriously at Bitdefender in that regard.

Great application for free- hats off to them I say

Cheers

Jon

 

I've never heard of the free version.. how does bitdefender rank?

 

BitDefender does well. The only thing I found annoying about the free version is that it installs a scheduler and other stuff that uses close to 20mb ram. For an on-demand scanner that's kind of silly. Might as well just install a regular resident AV and use a slight bit more ram. Would be nice to have just an on-demand scanner that installs nothing resident at all.

 

I run NOD relatime with Bitdefender as a on demand scanner.

I'd say BD is a top 5 antivirus product with better Anti trojan sigs than NOD.

The co exist fine

 

Yes, I seem to remember something like this when I tried BitDefender Free. I found out it installed new running process, a fact I found highly annoying as I don't need any scheduler or even update-related functions. Are there any ways to disable or prevent it installing any resident process? I only tried it briefly myself.

 

I don't remember exactly what it does, but I imagine you could just disable any services and also remove anything from startup also. That should do it.

 

Only down side is that it takes sooooooooooooooo looooooooooooong to complete a scan. It's one of only two AV's that I've trialed that I never completed a full system scan with the other being McAfee (Enterprise)

 

You can disable the services (or set it to manual) using services.msc (from a run prompt). You can use msconfig to keep it from running anything at start up.

When I need to run it, I just restart the services and start the program manually.

 

k, thanks for the information.

 

I run Avast! and tried last week to run BitDefender8Free. Previously i had always used their online scan. I ,too,was negatively impressed by the cornucopia of processes running in background, an incredible feat for a declared on demand software. In my pc they were three, including bdswitch. I think they were more than 20MB eaters. I did not give BD the permission to run at start up. Then i tried to make a Scan from SafeMode,but i couldnt open BD in any way i tried.
When i noticed two .dat files on my desktop,probably supporting bdswitch.exe, i thought that perhaps if i gave it at least once permission to run at start up i would be able to put things ok,without any .dat file on desktop....but it was not like that, i was still unable to make a scan in SafeMode and,even though i granted autoupdate powers,practically doing anything requested by the install,the .dat files kept being written on desktop.
So i uninstalled and decided that i'd keep using the on line scan.
My question is: can anyone using BitDefender8 Free tell me if it was just my install to prevent a SafeMode Scan or is it a common feature?

 

My BD 9 takes in excess of 30 minutes to scan. I do not find that a problem as I schedule the scan or run a manual scan when I am not on the computer.

Jerry

 

Why would anyone object to BD updating 24 times in 24 hours? I used BD free for a year and one-half as my SOLE av. I certainly never minded the processes running as I did not want an outdated AV! I have recently switched to BD 9 Pro. BD, KIS 2006 and NOD32 are in a three way tie for first place in AVs.

 

Well, there are many views and preferences. Why does BD Free load up programs that eat close to 20mb of ram just to update? AntiVir's scheduler does it in 3mb. Some people are critical about how much ram their programs use and like to keep it to a minimum. Perhaps someone wants to use only an on-demand scanner and update it only when they use it, which may or may not be once a week or more. Just depends on what you want and/or need..

 

I remember BD7 free to have a bit longer license than just 4 months.....what's the deal with BD8, when the license expires can I just re-download, or re-register it like avast?

 

Exactly what I like I have no problems manually updating when I launch the app. I also don't like how apps who do not actually need it are adding running processes, thus consuming memory for no practical reason at all.

 

No - but if you send support an email they will give you a 1 year key.

Or they did when I asked

 

I agree with Kerodo and lordpake regarding useless resources consumption,and in the pc where i had installed BitDefender8 i had absolutely no problems as its got power in excess.
Why would anyone run such a big thing when you can always have an online Scan which should theoretically be the same,if not better?
But nobody replied to my question: is BitDefender8 Free capable of making SafeMode scans?
(it should ,but before considering a new install i want to be sure of it)