Bitdefender 2022 review
Our Verdict
Bitdefender'south Windows antivirus software offers first-class protection along with a slew of features meant to secure your family'south systems and identities.
For
- Splendid malware protection
- Top-tier suite includes unlimited VPN
- Password manager, parental controls
- Easy-to-utilize interface
Confronting
- Let a few threats through
- Lacks file encryption
- Heavy groundwork organisation load
Tom'south Guide Verdict
Bitdefender's Windows antivirus software offers first-class protection along with a slew of features meant to secure your family's systems and identities.
Pros
- +
Excellent malware protection
- +
Top-tier suite includes unlimited VPN
- +
Password managing director, parental controls
- +
Easy-to-apply interface
Cons
- -
Let a few threats through
- -
Lacks file encryption
- -
Heavy background organisation load
Bitdefender 2021: Specs
Malware protection: Excellent
System impact, background: Moderate
Organisation impact, scans: Moderate
Windows compatibility: 7 through 10
Anti-theft: Yes
Backup software: No
File encryption: No
File shredder: Yes
Firewall: Yes
Game mode: Yes
Hardened/secure browser: Yes
Parental controls: Yes
Password manager: Yes
Performance scanner: Aye
Ransomware rollback: Yes
System optimizer: Yes
Webcam protection: Yes
Virtual keyboard: Yes
VPN: Yes
Wi-Fi scanner: Yes
Support options: 24/vii phone, email, chat
Bitdefender's antivirus protections are but a hair backside those of industry leaders Kaspersky and Norton amidst the best antivirus software, but its programs pack in more than useful features at lower prices.
Nosotros recommend the entry-level Bitdefender Antivirus Plus for any Windows 10 user who doesn't demand parental controls. It's one of the best Windows 10 antivirus programs, hands-down.
Bitdefender has made only modest adjustments to its lineup for 2021. In that location is however the same five-production range, from the bare-bones Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition (ane of our top picks for all-time free antivirus) through Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, Bitdefender Internet Security and Bitdefender Total Security to the flagship Bitdefender Premium Security with its unlimited VPN use. All 5 utilise the same malware-detection technology.
The biggest change for 2021 is that Bitdefender now seems to have longer to fully scan a organisation. Still, the programs evangelize excellent malware protection and are the rare antivirus programs that can be purchased in a bundle with home networking hardware. Read on for the rest of our Bitdefender 2021 review.
- Apple fans, check out our Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac review
- VPN your priority? See our ranking of the all-time VPN services
- Read our Bitdefender Mobile Security Review
Bitdefender 2021: Costs and what's covered
The everyman rung of Bitdefender's line is Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition, which provides bones protections in a no-frills but constructive bundle.
The cheapest paid program, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, offers a lot for its price. It includes Bitdefender'south Network Threat scanner, a file shredder, an unlimited password managing director, the company's Safepay hardened browser and an anti-tracking feature. Yearly subscriptions range from $40 for one PC to $80 for 10 PCs, although steep discounts are ofttimes available.
The adjacent step upwards, Bitdefender Internet Security, is again only for Windows machines; yearly costs range from $60 for one PC to $90 for x. It adds a two-way firewall, parental controls and dedicated webcam and microphone protection. The file-encryption characteristic has been dropped for 2021.
Bitdefender Full Security adds software for Macs and Android devices, plus a new system optimizer to squeeze a footling extra functioning out of your organisation. It covers v devices for $90 a year or 10 systems for $100, and it's one of our top picks among the best internet security suites. The Bitdefender Family Pack is Full Security for up to fifteen systems, with a list toll of $120.
The Mac antivirus software is also available as the stand-lone Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac starting at $twoscore per year. There are two Android antivirus apps, the stripped-down Bitdefender Antivirus Free and the $fifteen-per-twelvemonth feature-rich Bitdefender Mobile Security. Bitdefender Mobile Security for iOS as well costs $xv per twelvemonth, but Apple won't let it do much.
Except for the free option, all these programs requite y'all 200MB of data daily on Bitdefender'due south VPN service. Unlimited data costs an additional $7 a calendar month or $40 a year, or you can get Bitdefender'southward Premium Security antivirus suite. That package costs $150 a twelvemonth for ten systems and comes with priority support.
There are besides 2 ways to get Bitdefender antivirus protection with home networking hardware.
Netgear's newer routers, including the Orbi mesh systems and the Nighthawk line, have optional protection chosen Netgear Armor that protects smart-habitation devices and also includes an unlimited-device license for Bitdefender Total Security.
Some new Netgear routers come with 1 to 3 free years of Armor protection. After that, information technology's $lxx a yr. You can also add together it to routers that accept already been purchased.
That's quite a deal considering you're getting the aforementioned coverage as the $120 Bitdefender Family Pack. (Netgear has a full listing of routers that support Netgear Armor here.)
You can also become Bitdefender Total Security for unlimited devices with the Bitdefender Box network-security appliance, which retails for $200. Like Netgear Armor, the Box protects smart-dwelling devices. Subscription is gratuitous for the beginning yr and costs $99 a twelvemonth after that.
Bitdefender's Windows antivirus software works with Windows 7 (with Service Pack 1), Windows 8/eight.i and Windows 10. The Mac software requires macOS 10.10 Yosemite or later. Mobile devices require a minimum of Android 4.one Jelly Bean or iOS 11.2. Like most antivirus makers, Bitdefender doesn't offer a consumer Linux programme.
Bitdefender 2021: Antivirus protection
Whenever Bitdefender's malware-scanning engine encounters what may exist a new piece of malware, information technology uploads the suspicious particular to Bitdefender's online testing lab for analysis. New malware signatures are distributed several times daily to the 500 million systems protected past Bitdefender products.
These uploads will include some data about your system and what it was doing when a new threat was detected. If you lot'd rather Bitdefender not know that, you can opt out of this data collection. (Yous'll even so get the malware-signature updates.)
Bitdefender blocks potentially unwanted applications (PUAs), fileless malware and bootkits. It also guards the integrity of files and automatically copies files nether attack from encrypting ransomware so that you lot have backup copies.
The Profiles characteristic monitors what you're doing and tailors the protection accordingly. In that location are preset profiles for work, moving-picture show, games and public Wi-Fi.
Bitdefender no longer offers the complimentary downloadable Bitdefender Rescue CD, which booted a severely infected system into Linux for a complete scan and cleaning. Bitdefender paid software still creates the similar Bitdefender Rescue Environment in a hidden hard-drive division during installation, but the Rescue Partition at present uses a sandboxed version of Windows 10 instead of Linux to remove persistent threats.
Bitdefender 2021: Antivirus performance
| Malware detection rates | AV-Test zero-solar day | AV-Examination widespread | AV-Comparatives | SE Labs |
| Bitdefender | 100% | 100% | 99.vi% | n/a |
| ESET | 100% | 100% | 99.three% | n/a |
| Kaspersky | 100% | 100% | 99.7% | 100% |
| McAfee | 100% | 100% | 98.five% | 100% |
| Microsoft | 100% | 100% | 99.5% | 97% |
| Norton | 100% | 100% | 99.5% | 100% |
| Sophos | 100% | 100% | 98.3% | 86% |
| Tendency Micro | 100% | 100% | 100% | 92% |
In November-December 2020 testing by the Germany-based AV-Examination lab, Bitdefender's malware-scanning engine detected 100% of both make-new "zippo-mean solar day" malware and known "widespread" malware.
But it picked up 12 fake positives, a rather high number and by far the virtually of all seven brands of paid antivirus software we review. Those other brands — ESET, Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, Sophos and Trend Micro — also all got 100% scores across the lath.
Bitdefender has done very well in most of AV-Test's 30 monthly evaluations since January 2017, declining to detect 100% of nil-day malware just three times and failing to detect 100% of widespread malware merely one time with a 99.9% score.
In tests conducted past the AV-Comparatives lab in Austria, Bitdefender's defenses allow a few threats through. It caught 99.6% of the "existent-globe" online threats in cumulative tests from July through October 2020. Tendency Micro had a perfect 100% score, and Kaspersky 99.7%.
Bitdefender had iv faux positives over the entire period and Kaspersky had two, but Trend Micro had an astounding 63 faux positives. Its malware scanner may be a piffling also sensitive.
We also utilize results from London-based SE Labs, in which Kaspersky normally comes out on height, but Bitdefender is no longer tested by that lab.
Bitdefender 2021: Security and privacy features
Each Bitdefender paid program blocks web-tracking in the Net Explorer, Firefox and Chrome browsers, only not in Edge.
There's also a powerful file shredder that's quick and easy to use. Bitdefender'south File Vault encryption characteristic has been discontinued, but files encrypted with older versions of Bitdefender programs can still exist retrieved if you call back the password.
Bitdefender'southward password manager works with Net Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Bitdefender's own Safepay hardened browser, but not Edge or Apple tree's Safari.
Safepay protects online cyberbanking and shopping sessions by blocking browser extensions and making certain you're using a secure HTTPS session. Information technology has an on-screen keyboard so you lot can type in passwords and credit-card numbers without having to worry about keyloggers.
Bitdefender Internet Security, Total Security and Premium Security still have one of the industry'due south easiest and best webcam- protection features, which not simply blocks access simply lets you choose which applications have webcam access.
They also include a two-way firewall, which can be set to Stealth mode to make sure nobody from outside your home network gets admission.
Parental Controls come up with Cyberspace Security, Full Security and Premium Security and piece of work beyond all platforms for seamless control and monitoring.
The new OneClick Optimizer makes recommendations for speeding upwardly your figurer, such every bit getting rid of junk files or fixing Registry bug.
Bitdefender 2021: Operation and system impact
| Organisation striking | Postal service-installation | Total browse | Quick scan |
| Bitdefender | 19% | 33% | 31% |
| ESET | ii% | 12% | n/a |
| Kaspersky | 12% | 26% | 22% |
| McAfee | 9% | 96% | 37% |
| Norton | v% | 51% | 22% |
| Sophos | half dozen% | 47% | n/a |
| Tendency Micro | four% | 57% | 35% |
Bitdefender Full Security had a moderate affect on system performance.
To measure the performance touch on, nosotros used our custom benchmark test, which clocks how long a PC takes to match 20,000 names and addresses on an Excel spreadsheet. The Lenovo ThinkPad T470 laptop we used had a 2.5GHz Core i5-7200U processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of solid-state storage with 61.2GB of files.
Before nosotros installed Bitdefender, the T470 took an boilerplate of 10.iv seconds to complete the benchmark, a result we used as a baseline. The completion fourth dimension increased to 12.4 seconds after Total Security was loaded merely before whatever active scanning took place, indicating a a rather heavy 19% reject in functioning.
Past comparison, Kaspersky Total Security's postal service-installation operation reject was only 12%, and other brands had even less.
During a full scan of the entire computer, it took our benchmark test thirteen.8 seconds to finish — an 11% percent reject in performance compared to the postal service-installation score, and a 33% turn down from the pre-installation baseline.
The criterion completion time during a quick browse was 13.6 seconds, indicating a 10% performance drib from the post-installation score and a 31% drib from the baseline.
Kaspersky Total Security and ESET Smart Security Premium both had lighter impacts overall. But the other brands nosotros tested had heavier tolls, with McAfee nearly doubling the system load during full scans.
The Bitdefender scanning engine took 35 minutes and 41 seconds to consummate the first full scan, looking at a comprehensive i,208,083 files. That's more than twice as long as the 2020 edition's time of 15:01 to do roughly the same task. But the 2nd fourth dimension through the arrangement, Bitdefender's engine learned what to ignore and examined 826,635 files in eight:38.
By contrast, Kaspersky Full Security 2021 took 17:34 to scan through 400,571 files on the first pass — i-third as many every bit Bitdefender Total Security. Subsequent Kaspersky passes were lightning-fast at 1:26, faster than Bitdefender Total Security'due south Quick Scan.
Speaking of Bitdefender Total Security's Quick Scan, information technology took iii minutes and 58 seconds to run through 9,121 cardinal files that might be infected. That time dropped to 3:35 on subsequent scans. The older version took 1:58 to look at nine,117 files.
While Kaspersky Total Security ran through 1-tertiary every bit many files, it took 1:26 to check for malware that dropped to 1:12 on the second pass.
Bitdefender 2021: Interface
Bitdefender's desktop interface has been slightly updated and tightened up. The Dashboard shows the program's major categories on the left, including Protection, Privacy, Utilities, Notifications and Settings.
On the correct, you can start a scan and also fire up the VPN or open the Safepay hardened browser. You tin can add together another "activity" of your choosing or replace an existing one.
Bitdefender'southward Taskbar icon lets you open the main program or update its malware definitions, but it can't get-go a scan.
You tin check your subscription, get tech support and use the Parental Counselor feature on your Bitdefender Key online account, which has a two-factor-authentication option.
Bitdefender now offers Digital Identity Protection, which checks your online personal information exposure and alerts yous to threats, data breaches and identity theft. Information technology costs $60 a year for up to three phones and 5 computers.
Bitdefender 2021: Installation and support
Loading Bitdefender on a fresh system starts with creating an account at Bitdefender Primal, then downloading the nearly-500MB installer file.
Every bit the program installs itself, it runs a quick device assessment and lets you run a Quick Scan. It took us 13 minutes to get and install Bitdefender Total Security 2021, roughly twice equally long equally the previous version took.
Bitdefender'south paid programs include total 24/seven tech support, and yous can call, email or employ the visitor'due south chat window. With Bitdefender's Premium Security suite, you become priority back up. (We've heard several complaints most Bitdefender tech support over the years.) The Bitdefender website has a slew of FAQs, self-service material and instructional videos.
Bitdefender 2021 review: Bottom line
Bitdefender's 2021 Windows antivirus lineup returns to the top tier of security programs with fantabulous defenses that comes close to air-tight protection. Bitdefender's scanning engine let a few threats through and took up a moderate amount of organisation resource, but it remains ane of the best antivirus software options available and the near-equal of Kaspersky's and Norton's products.
For consumers who need more just antivirus software, Norton 360 with LifeLock also delivers identity-theft protection and unlimited VPN use, just your wallet may feel the striking. Kaspersky Total Security remains our acme choice for pure antivirus software – but that'south only if you need everything it offers.
If yous're looking for a bargain, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is a practiced residuum betwixt cost and features, starting at $40 for a unmarried PC. By the same token, Bitdefender Total Security is a practiced buy because all information technology includes, and you tin can get it for even less with Bitdefender's Box security appliance or Netgear Armor router protection.
Updated to reverberate new lab-test results. This review was originally published in October 2020.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/bitdefender
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