Pros
Excellent results in antivirus lab tests and our own malware cleanup tests. Effective phishing protection. Accurate antispam. Remote management through MyBitdefender portal. Quiet firewall. Multi-device parental control. Antitheft. Online backup. PC Tuneup. File encryption and shredding.
Cons
Cleanup of infested systems can take a long time. In testing, cleanup caused some collateral damage. Some impact on system performance.
Bitdefender scores better overall with the independent test labs than almost any other company. It earned the top rating in all tests by AV-Comparatives and outscored all others in real-world tests by AV-Test. Scores from other labs were likewise exemplary. For details about the independent labs and their tests, see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.
Bitdefender Total Security 2013 lab tests chart
Bitdefender took quite a while to clean up my malware-infested test systems. Its preinstall scan found threats on every system and, in some cases, requested a Rescue Mode scan. That's an alternate operating system scan much like using a Rescue CD, but without the pain of burning a CD. While cleanup on several systems caused collateral damage like an unresponsive keyboard or no connectivity, Bitdefender tech support quickly solved those problems.
Bitdefender's detection rate (87 percent) and overall malware cleanup score (6.4 points) beat out all other products tested using my current malware collection. Some products scored better under the previous malware collection; we'll see how they do when their new versions get tested. For details on my malware removal test and scoring system, see How We Test Malware Removal.
Bitdefender Total Security 2013 malware removal chart
When I tried to re-download my current malware collection, Bitdefender's URL filter prevented download of over 90 percent, better than any other product tested with those same samples. Its score of 8.9 points for blocking installation of already-downloaded samples wasn't the highest, but still better than many. For an explanation of my malware blocking test, please read see How We Test Malware Blocking.
Bitdefender Total Security 2013 malware blocking chart
Other Shared Features
Bitdefender's antivirus has "plus" in its name, and it really does offer more than just antivirus protection. To start, its detection and blocking of phishing sites is among the best. It scored just one percentage point behind Norton, and beat Internet Explorer's SmartScreen Filter by 52 percentage points. Considering that nearly three quarters of current products don't even match IE's accuracy, Bitdefender made an impressive showing. For an explanation of my antiphishing test metholodology see the article How We Test Antiphishing.
Bitdefender Total Security 2013 antiphishing chart
The antivirus includes a vulnerability scan whose report includes action items to fix found problems. You can set up encrypted instant messaging with other Bitdefender users. When you navigate to a financial site, it automatically offers to open that site in the Safepay secure browser. The Safego app checks for malicious links and security problems in your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Naturally Bitdefender's suite also offers all these features.
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