Over the years, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus has been an excellent antivirus program. However, this year, they've moved in the wrong direction in a few areas.
Bitdefender still receives high scores in virus protection from independent testing labs, but our own tests revealed a different story.
On the interface side Bitdefender usually delivers an excellent product. This one, unfortunately is cramped with small text, making it less than ideal.
Bitdefender's technical support still needs a lot of work, especially when they're charging $99 for manual virus removal.
Considering all these factors, we can give credit to Bitdefender for (usually) offering solid antivirus protection. But we have to criticize them for poor technical support and a less than stellar user interface.
Certified by:
- AV Comparatives
- AV-Test
- ICSA
- VB Bulletin
- WestCoast Labs
Virus and Spy Protection
Bitdefender earned top scores among most independent testing labs for virus protection, identification, and removal. In our own tests, however, Bitdefender scored well below average with only a 60% success rate.
Seeing these results, we thought it must be a fluke. But when we repeatedly tested the same set of malware against competing antivirus software, Bitdefender didn't perform as well.
It's possible Bitdefender was having a bad day (even though our tests take way more than one day) since it's known for being consistently good software, but we have to report our honest test results.
Factor those in with top independent scores, and Bitdefender Antivirus Plus comes out with moderate protection power.
Resource Usage
The overall system resource usage footprint for Bitdefender was average. When running idle, CPU usage was below 1%, and memory stayed around 185MB.
When running a full system scan, CPU was acceptable, ranging from 50%-70% with few peaks above 80%. Memory, on the other hand, ranged as high as 160-300MB during a scan. That's higher than most consumers will expect and higher than we like to see on our 2GB RAM testing PCs.
User Interface
The user interface for Bitdefender is acceptable but not ideal. The contents are somewhat cramped and dark-looking overall. It can be difficult to find what you need sometimes, since the text is quite small.
On the plus side, there are only a handful of areas to select from if and when you need to make adjustments.
One thing that really annoyed us was the number of pop-ups Bitdefender uses.
Nearly every link within the main interface window opens up a new pop-up window. What's more, when you hit "close" or "cancel," Bitdefender will ask you if you're "sure" you want to close it. Yes, I'm sure. That's why I clicked "close." Just close the window. We don't need a second button to click.
Technical Support
Bitdefender's technical support continues to be a problem for us again this year.
Within the interface is a small link that offers you a choice to contact them, or search their support page for help.
The "contact" form only collects data on your system, then sends that off for them to try to fix your problem. You have to wait for them to contact you after that. There's no further contact options at this stage.
Their searchable knowledgebase will answer most questions, but if you need to speak to a real person, it's difficult to connect with them.
There is an email form, but you'll need to provide your license key as proof you're a paying customer (ridiculous). And there's no indication when (or even if) someone will get back to you.
If these options aren't adequate for you, there are some very small buttons on the page for phone or chat options (small buttons most would easily miss).
If you do get infected with a virus, and Bitdefender Antivirus can't get rid of it automatically, you can pay a technician to remove it for $99. Fees like this are too high, especially when other companies like VIPRE and ESET do this for free.
Most consumers will likey come to one conclusion: Bitdefender doesn't really want to talk to its customers.
Conclusion
- Good virus protection
- Average resource usage
Despite the fact that Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 didn't score too well in our tests, we're willing to consider it a strong antivirus solution based on its scores in other independent tests, and because Bitdefender has been such excellent antivirus software historically.
Their tech support still needs an overhaul, and we hope they drop their virus removal fee in the future.
There are however, some very nice, and useful extra features making Bitdefender an antivirus solution worth considering this year.
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