NOD32 vs BitDefender

I am a longtime Norton AV user who has finally had his fill of Symantec and their software and am shopping around for a replacement. I don't mean to start a controversy here but I would appreciate feedback from any of you who have experience with both NOD32 and BitDefender. My major priorities are; effectiveness of protection, ease of configuration, small footprint and frequency of virus signature updates.

I will welcome any and all of your insights and (reasoned) opinions. Thanks.

John

 

~snip~
My personal recommendation is NOD32 , of course . Fast , light , efficent . I'd say the fasters , the lightest , the most efficent . The best heuristic technologies to combat new unknown malicious software , frequent update and easy to use . The most important -> excellent support . ESET are perfect with their customers

 

Thanks HiTech. I judge by your screen name that you are more tech savvy than I am and I am very concerned about ease of configuration. Don't want to spend hours figuring out optimum settings for a lot of controls. Is there a "Dummys" mode or is that too much to hope for?

John

 

both products are great.
bitdefender has really good heuristics also and a great detection rate plus hourly updates.
trial both for a few weeks each and choose your winner have fun.
lodore

 

The default configuration of NOD32 is set to be "ask for permission for everything" . If an alert is generated you'll have to answer . However , if you want really automated settings , you can read NOD32's thread "Instal in no time" here

 

I was a beta tester for the latest version of Bitdefenders suite. Yep, those guys remember me. I spent a whole weekend assisting their unofficial forums on a website redesign. And just when the website looked as good as most vbullentin boards, they bailed because I was no longer supporting their product. Sorry to rant. This thread cant really compete. To me Bitdefender has all the things right to be great, they just dont put them together very well. Eset has the tools and the common sense to accomplish this, and does, so there is my 2 cents.

 

ok, heres what i think,

i think, out of all the 'comparison / vs' threads on here, this one is the closest.

as always, whichever you prefer

 

I agree Chris, Bitdefender was my first product and I loved the red cracked egg. But it is really complicated for the layman to setup. Nod can be to if it were not for Blackspears. But it is a solid product, once you finally get it configured.

 

bd10 is simple to set up, hardly any options, if any to configure if you use the slide bars on the main GUI.

nod can be complicated, all these darn profiles

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but i do think, out of all the comparisons, this is the closest one to judge.

 

But 12 0f 12 for Eset, against just 8 of 12 for Bit, on polymorphic viruses, does make a difference.

 

i dont think it makes all that difference, tests tests tests

kaspersky got 8 of 12, as did my dr.web *lol*

and i still figure kaspersky as the best AV on the market today for detection.

 

Tests are important, especially in this area as it is the one that concerns me the most for the future. I have yet to jump on a bandwagon again, but Nod will have a much higher ranking then Bitdefender in my own choice. Now, to let others comment.

 

well i dont think the polymorphic tests are that important, and i dont think they can be if an av with 1/12 detection on them, still managed an ADVANCED rating.

surely, if they mattered and were all important, it would affect the ratings.

 

Keep it simple.
Try them both if you want.
I did. And you would have a lot of trouble getting me to leave NOD32.
Good luck.
J.

 

+1... try them both and see for yourself which you prefer. Both quality products

 

Polymorphic tests are not held in extreme regard due to the advanced code writing knowledge required to write one over your average trojan. But it is indeed important to know that your signature coders are familiar with how to handle them properly for sure!

 

In my opinion BitDefender is slightly better.

* better heuristics
* better detection
* even a better support forum.
* BD is a bit heavier but you'll get a lot more

 

Could you link to back this up? I don't believe i've ever seen BD beat NOD32 in an Av-Comparatives before.

 

Maybe not in AV-Comparatives, but in real life situations.
Ever since the introduction of B-HAVE i've seen like thousands of BehavesLike, XXX.XXX.Gen and Generic.XXX.XXX/Generic.Malware.XXX, DeepScan:XXX.XXX detections when pretty much all others detected nothing...
It's hourly updates and fast response times also help a lot.
It's maybe indeed a bit slower on very old systems, but if you have a shiny new dual core system with at least 1GB of RAM, BD10 will fly like rocket.

 

It is pointless to argue/discuss , RejZoR , but I can say absolutely the same . Since I started using NOD32 I have seen thousands of Probably unknown new heur_PE virus detections and none of the others or just a few detect , including a rootkit NOD32 picked up with emulation .

 

Yeah, arguing with die hard NOD32 fan is really pointless...

 

Just take a look at the latest malware test results.

 

Not exactly what I'd call a "reputable review".

Anyways, I'm not diehard by any means and actually run a different antivirus on each system in my network at home. Currently have F-Prot, NOD32, Avira and KAV running so I wouldn't call myself one sided by any means.

 

well, as i said early in the thread, too close to call.

in my own tests of malware from 2000-2005 ish, 60,000 samples.... bitdefender detected and removed more than nod32.

not saying its reputable, but still .... still a test result *lol*

now that BD have removed their bugs, or most of i tend to learn towards it, but very very midges widges. *lol*

 

Maybe you just are getting old too? Look at the 08-2004 On-demand test by Av-Comparatives.

Btw, you can find more such tests even in here and here, where the test schedule was unknown for all, so that anyone couldn't prepare before these tests too.

Best regards,
Firefighter!