When you want supreme security and uncompromising performance, there is no better choice than Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2018. It protects against even the.

• Pros

  Outstanding scores in independent lab tests and our web protection tests. Multi-layered ransomware protection. Active Do Not Track. Password manager. Banking protection. Offers a virtual private network, or VPN. Many security-centered bonus features.

• Cons

  Unlimited VPN access requires separate subscription. With all real-time protection disabled, ransomware-specific features missed one uncommon sample.

• Bottom Line

  With outstanding antivirus test results and a collection of features that puts many security suites to shame, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is an excellent choice for protecting your PC.

Antivirus tool Bitdefender Antivirus Plus has long boasted a feature set that puts some complete security suites to shame, and the latest iteration adds a new anti-tracker component to keep your browsing history private. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus remains a top choice when it comes to protecting your PC's security.

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Some antivirus products, such as Cylance Smart Antivirus and F-Secure, stick strictly with the essential task of an antivirus: removing existing malware infestations and foiling new attacks. Bitdefender, by contrast, packs a huge collection of security-centered features, among them password management, enhanced security for online transactions, multi-layered ransomware protection, and even a VPN. To be sure you realize how much you're getting, the installer runs a slideshow detailing the features while doing its job.

At $39.99 per year for one license, Bitdefender's pricing is in line with the competition's. More than a dozen others go for roughly the same price, among them Kaspersky, Webroot, Trend Micro, and ESET NOD32 Antivirus. F-Secure charges $39.99 too, but gives you three licenses for that price. Three Bitdefender licenses will run you $59.99 per year. You can also get five licenses for $69.99, or 10 for $79.99. McAfee costs $59.99 per year, the same as Bitdefender's three-license price, but sets no limit on the number of Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices you can protect.

Bitdefender's main window displays a security dashboard by default, with a left-rail menu that offers detailed access to features. Security recommendations occupy the top half of the rest of the window, with a collection of what the product calls Quick Actions below. By default, you can start a quick scan, open the VPN, install protection on another device, and turn on Safepay online protection. You can make your own choices from a list of eight possible quick actions, for a total of five visible at any time.

Clicking Protection, Privacy, or Utilities in the left menu brings up detailed pages of features and settings, though some of the features aren't available in the basic antivirus. For example, on the Protection page the Firewall and Antispam items require an upgrade, and everything on the Utilities page requires Bitdefender's top-tier suite, Bitdefender Total Security.

For years now, Bitdefender's Autopilot mode quietly handled security issues without requiring user intervention. More recently, Autopilot evolved into a more active role. The aim is to make sure you get the full benefit of this product's many, many features. For example, during this review it suggested that we run a scan for outdated (and hence vulnerable) applications. Autopilot might also suggest that you explore the Wallet password manager, or check the privacy of your online accounts.

Glowing Lab Test Scores

Three of the four labs that we follow include Bitdefender in their testing. In the three-part test regularly reported by AV-Test Institute, Bitdefender earned 6 of 6 possible points in all three categories, for a perfect 18 points. F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, and Norton also earned the maximum points.

The researchers at AV-Comparatives perform a wide variety of tests; we follow four of them. Products that pass a test earn Standard certification, while those that do significantly better receive Advanced or even Advanced+ certification. Bitdefender took Advanced+ in all four tests. Kaspersky did nearly as well, with three Advanced+ and one Advanced.

The tests performed by London-based MRG-Effitas are a bit different from the rest. To pass this lab's banking Trojans test, a product needs a perfect score; anything less is failure. Another test using a wide variety of malware offers two passing levels. If a product absolutely blocks every installation attempt, it passes at Level 1. If some malware gets through, but is eliminated within 24 hours, that earns Level 2. Anything else is a fail. Bitdefender passed the banking test, along with Avira, ESET, and Kaspersky. It also received Level 1 certification in the broad-spectrum test, along with Kasperky, Trend Micro, Symantec Norton AntiVirus Plus, and six others.

SE Labsattempts to simulate the real world of malware as closely as possible for testing purposes, using a capture/replay system to present each product with a real-world Web-based attack. Certification from this lab comes at five levels, AAA, AA, A, B, and C. Alas, Bitdefender doesn't appear in the latest report from SE Labs. When last tested, it took AA certification.

I have contrived an algorithm that maps all the test results onto a 10-point scale and returns an aggregate lab score, as long as the product has results from at least two labs. Avast, Avira, and Kaspersky Anti-Virus are among the products that appear in reports from all four labs. In terms of aggregate score, Kaspersky rules that group, with 9.9 of 10 possible points. Bitdefender, tested by three labs, holds the top score overall, a perfect 10.

Impressive Malware Protection

Even though the labs heap praise on Bitdefender, we still need our own hands-on experience. Our malware protection test starts when we open the folder containing an eclectic collection of malware samples whose behavior we've analyzed. At this point, Bitdefender displayed a notification, saying, 'Disinfection in progress…please wait until complete.'

This proved to be a long wait—more than five minutes. When the antivirus finished, it offered a link to display just what it accomplished. The real-time on-access protection system eliminated 65 percent of the samples on sight. We continued the test by launching those samples that survived the initial massacre.

Bitdefender caught many of the remaining samples at or shortly after launch, though in several cases it didn't prevent the installer from planting executable files on the test system. Bitdefender detected 85 percent of the samples, down from 93 percent when last tested. It scored 8.0 of 10 possible points, which isn't great. However, when the labs praise a product to the skies, we give their results more weight than our hands-on tests.

Tested with this same set of samples Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus achieved 100 percent detection and scored 9.7 points, the best so far. Norton also scored 9.7, but it earned that score against our previous set of samples.

Because gathering and analyzing malware takes a significant effort, we use the same sample set for many months. To check how well an antivirus handles the very latest attacks, we use a feed of malware-hosting URLs kindly supplied by MRG-Effitas. Typically, these are no more than a few days old. We launch each one in turn, discarding any URLs that are already defunct, and record whether the antivirus steered the browser away from the dangerous URL, eliminated the malicious download, or sat on its hands doing nothing.

Bitdefender's Online Threat Protection turned in a decent performance, blocking access to 83 percent of the malware-hosting URLs. The regular antivirus component wiped out another nine percent at the download phase, for a total of 92 percent protection. That's good, but Bitdefender managed 99 percent when last tested. {Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security currently tops the list, with 99 percent protection. McAfee and Sophos Home Premium are close behind with a 97 percent score.

Phenomenal Phishing Protection

Malware attacks your computer, or your data, to rake in cash for its creators. Phishing attacks go straight for the most vulnerable component—you, the user. If you encounter a fake PayPal site and don't notice that the URL in the address bar isn't right, you could wind up handing your login credentials to the creeps who built the fake. These fraudulent sites don't last long; they quickly get blacklisted and taken down. But the phishers just build new ones.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus Free Trial

Any competent coder could put together a system that steers users away from sites on a phishing blacklist, but that's not enough in itself. A really good phishing protection system analyzes pages for signs of fraud, and blocks even those too new to be blacklisted. Some products, such as Norton, distinguish between blacklisted sites and those identified by analysis. Bitdefender's Online Threat Protection tars them all with the same brush, and it proved extremely effective in our testing.

We prepare for this test by scouring phishing-reporting sites for the latest possible frauds, making sure to get a goodly number that are too new for the blacklist. We launch each in four browsers. The product under test protects one, of course, while the other three rely on protection built into Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. If one or more browsers can't load a page, out it goes. If the page isn't clearly attempting to steal login credentials, likewise we toss it. When we have 100 or so data points, we run the numbers.

Bitdefender detected almost every one of the fraudulent pages, coming in with a 99 percent detection rate. But that doesn't make it the top scorer in this test. In their latest phishing challenges, both Kaspersky and McAfee AntiVirus Plus managed to detect and block 100 percent of the frauds.

If you click to see the chart, you may notice that Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition didn't do as well as its for-pay cousin, coming in with 91 percent detection. The free product relies on a different system to detect phishing frauds, one that clearly isn't quite as effective.

Network Threat Prevention

Network Threat Protection component works alongside Online Threat Protection to detect and fend off attacks on security vulnerabilities in the operating system and popular applications. This sort of protection is more commonly associated with a firewall, but it can stand alone.

Trying to see this feature in action, we bombarded the test system with 30-odd exploits generated by the CORE Impact penetration tool. This collection includes exploits aimed at Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, Java, and several Adobe products. Bitdefender flagged 40 percent of the attack pages as dangerous, and picked up another 4 percent by identifying the exploit payload by its official CVE name, for a total of 44 percent. Note that as the test system is fully patched, none of the exploits had a chance to subvert its security.

Norton is the big winner in this test. Its exploit-specific protection component blocked 85 percent of the sample attacks, more than any other recent product. It identified more than half of the attacks by their official CVE numbers. Exploit protection isn't a core antivirus component, especially if you keep your operating system and applications up to date, but in Bitdefender's case it's a nice bonus.

Additional Browser Protection

This product's previous version automatically installed Bitdefender Traffic Light, a browser extension that marks up search results with colored icons, green for safe, red for dangerous, grey for not yet checked. You can still install Traffic Light, but the current edition's browser protection consists of the new Anti-Tracker module. This module is a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

When you visit a site that contains ad trackers, site analytics trackers, or other trackers, Bitdefender puts the number of trackers on the extension's toolbar icon. By default, its active Do Not Track system blocks them all. You can click for a summary by category, which includes an estimate of the page load time saved. And you can disable blocking of specific categories. You'll find similar Do Not Track functionality in a variety of security tools including Abine Blur, AVG AntiVirus Free, and Kaspersky Internet Security.

You can grab the, since it doesn't auto-update. To access the feature, head to the Preferences menu of the Backup and Sync app, then click the Change option which then gives you access to Advanced settings (which must be expanded) where you can add files types you want to exclude from backing up based on their extensions. https://omgbits.netlify.app/google-backup-and-sync-for-mac-review-2018.html. Be aware that this setting is global though. The update,, does not appear to require Windows to be restarted.

Multi-Layered Ransomware Protection

No antivirus is perfect. They'll all occasionally miss a brand-new attack. Sure, within a few days most security companies will broadcast an update that cleans things up, but in case of a ransomware attack, it's too late to save your files. Bitdefender has been on the cutting edge of ransomware protection, and the latest edition adds more layers.

Ransomware works by encrypting important files and demanding that you pay for the decryption key. It typically looks in folders such as Documents, Pictures, and Videos. Bitdefender's Safe Files feature simply prevents all unauthorized modification of files in these locations, for all users. If you have an unusual folder scheme, you can add other protected folders. On detecting an unknown program attempting to modify a protected file, Safe Files suspends the program and asks whether to allow the change. If you've just installed a new image editor, you can simply mark it as trusted. But if the warning comes as a surprise, let Safe Files keep the program away from your files.

The Advanced Threat Defense feature supplements regular antivirus scanning with behavior-based detection, including detection of ransomware behavior. Network Threat Prevention blocks the exploit avenues that some ransomware attacks rely on. More recently Bitdefender added Ransomware Remediation. At the first hint of a possible ransomware attack, it backs up important files, restoring them after Bitdefender neutralizes the attack.

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We've tested Safe Files before, but we repeated the test just to be thorough. When we tried editing text files in the Documents folder with a hand-coded (and hence unknown to Bitdefender) text editor, it caught the attempt and offered to stop it. It also caught a simple-minded fake ransomware program, even when that program launched at boot time.

The Bitdefender Shield real-time protection components wiped out all our actual ransomware samples on sight. To even get a glimpse of the other protective layers, we had to turn off real-time protection. In fact, we couldn't copy the samples back to the test system without disabling network protection and web protection. It seems some component got a whiff of ransomware, because just after we copied the samples over Bitdefender suggested turning on Ransomware Remediation.

Almost all our samples are the common file-encrypting ransomware, though we do have one screen locker and one whole-disk encryptor. Two of the file encryptors saved themselves by refraining from any activity—probably they detected the presence of antivirus. Advanced Threat Defense handled all but one of the rest. The pernicious Petya ransomware got past the behavior-based detection system and encrypted the virtual drive, rending the virtual test system unusable. To be fair, this could only happen because we disabled several real-time protection layers.

We've occasionally run across ransomware protection systems that don't start early enough at boot time and hence can miss ransomware loaded at startup. To check Bitdefender's protection, we copied several samples that triggered protection into the Startup folder and rebooted. Bitdefender silently eliminated all of those samples.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus

We also tried running KnowBe4's RanSim ransomware simulator. Safe Files blocked its access repeatedly, but this activity interfered with the simulation, to the point that it just didn't work. In a real ransomware situation, I wouldn't complain about protection that renders ransomware ineffective.

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Ransomware protection is showing up in more and more antivirus products, but most don't go as far as Bitdefender. Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security is among the few others with a multi-layer approach. It blocks unauthorized changes to protected files, detects ransomware behavior, and restores any files that got encrypted before the behavior-based detection kicked in. Webroot uses behavior-based detection, and its journal-and-rollback system for handling behavior of unknown files can even reverse the effects of ransomware.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2018

A Wallet for Your Passwords

Password management is a feature more commonly found in security suites than in standalone antivirus products (though Avast products starting with Avast Free Antivirus includes password management). Bitdefender's Wallet feature stores passwords, personal information, and credit card details for use on websites, and also saves passwords for applications and Wi-Fi networks.

Wallet has changed very little in the last few versions. It still requires a strong master password, separate from your Bitdefender Central password. It still allows creation of multiple wallets (password databases), and lets you choose whether to sync between devices or keep passwords local-only. And it still automatically captures login credentials as you type them and replays them as needed.

In testing, it managed standard password entry forms but couldn't handle some two-page login systems. Wallet doesn't store as much personal data for web forms as some dedicated password managers, but it correctly filled all the fields that it does store.

When you're signing up for a new account, you can use Wallet's password generator, which defaults to creating 15-character passwords made of letters and numbers. That's a good default length, but I advise enabling the use of special characters, for even stronger passwords.

Wallet completely handles the basics of password management, but doesn't go much beyond that. If you want high-end features like automatic password changing, two-factor authentication, secure sharing of credentials, or handling of password inheritance, you should consider a standalone password manager utility.

Bitdefender VPN

Bitdefender's many layers of antivirus, web, and network protection keep your devices and their data safe. However, when you connect to the internet your data in transit is potentially at risk. To ensure privacy for your data, you need a VPN (virtual private network). When you connect using a VPN, nobody, not even the owner of the shady Wi-Fi network you're using, can access your network traffic, and you'll be harder to track as you move across the web.

Pricing for Premium

Bitdefender VPN isn't available as a standalone product. Even the feature-complete Premium edition requires that you're already running a Bitdefender antivirus or security suite. This VPN is a rebranded version of the AnchorFree Hotspot Shield Elite VPN service. Bitdefender uses AnchorFree's servers and services, but your information is secure with Bitdefender. AnchorFree cannot see your online activities and only receives a Bitdefender identifier.

The VPN service will work out of the box, but only in a limited mode until you pay for a Premium subscription. The free version of Bitdefender's VPN restricts your use to 200MB per day. That's more generous than TunnelBear VPN's free version, which offers only 500MB per month. The free version also limits which VPN servers you can access. At the other extreme, the free version of ProtonVPN doesn't impose any limits.

If you decide to upgrade to the Premium edition of the Bitdefender VPN, you get access to all available VPN servers, with no data cap. An annual subscription costs $39.99 per year, or you can pay $6.99 per month. That's a remarkably low monthly cost, comparable to very affordable Private Internet Access VPN, which costs $6.95 per month. It's also notably less expensive than Hotspot Shield itself, which costs $12.99 per month.

The average price per month for a PCMag top-rated VPN service is about $10.50. Bitdefender is a little more than half the price of NordVPN and only 4 cents more than Private Internet Access. A typical standalone VPN allows use on a specific number of devices, most commonly five. With Bitdefender, you get as many devices as you have licenses for the underlying antivirus or suite. The price of the Premium VPN doesn't change.

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Simple User Interface

The Bitdefender VPN is very simple: a slender grey rectangle with a large, blue button to connect the VPN. You change the VPN server from the pull-down menu, although you can only select the country to which you will connect. Other services, like NordVPN, let you select the specific server in a given country, and even tell you what kind of load that server is experiencing. Bitdefender is more of a set-it-and-forget-it affair. That said, it has only a few options: turning notifications on or off, configuring the VPN to connect automatically on unsafe (read: unsecured) Wi-Fi networks and having it launch on Windows startup.

The stripped-down nature of Bitdefender VPN Premium is understandable when you consider that it's being sold as an add-on to Bitdefender antivirus products. In fact, you cannot use Bitdefender VPN Premium as a standalone product—it must be installed alongside a Bitdefender antivirus or suite product.

Other VPN services, like TorGuard VPN, have a host of add-on options, like dedicated IP address and access to a 10GB network. NordVPN and ProtonVPN let you connect to the Tor anonymization network through their clients. Several VPN services also offer servers designed for specific activities, like P2P file sharing or Netflix streaming. The Bitdefender VPN doesn't have these, although it allows file sharing on the networks used by the Bitdefender VPN.

On the subject of Netflix, we found that we could not connect to the popular video streaming service while the Bitdefender VPN was active. That's not surprising, since we couldn't access when using Hotspot Shield, either. Netflix is very active about blocking VPNs, but VPNs are active in trying to keep their customers streaming happily. It's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game. When we last tested the services, NordVPN, Private internet Access, ProtonVPN, CyberGhost VPN, and IPVanish were the top-rated services that successfully worked with Netflix.

None of the documentation we found on the Bitdefender VPN outlined how many servers are available, but we've been told it's the same as those available with the first-party Hotspot Shield client. Hotspot Shield has 2,500 servers in 73 countries. That's a strong showing, beating out much of the VPN small fry. It's just shy of the heavy hitters, such as Private Internet Access, CyberGhost, and ExpressVPN, all of which have 3,000 servers or more. NordVPN, however, leads the pack with around 5,300 servers.

A large number of servers is useful, since it means fewer people will be allocated per server. Fewer people in a server generally means better performance, as you won't have to share as many slices of the bandwidth pie.

Server locations also matter, partly because more locations means more options for spoofing your own location, but mostly because a closer server will usually yield better speed and will definitely have lower latency. NordVPN, for example, is available in 62 countries, and ExpressVPN covers an impressive 94 countries.

You won't find an option to change the protocol used by the Bitdefender VPN client to create its encrypted tunnel. That's because Bitdefender always uses the OpenVPN protocol. That's good. We prefer OpenVPN, which has the advantage of being open-source and picked over for potential vulnerabilities.

See How We Test VPNs

Average Impact on Connection Speeds

A major concern with using a VPN is it impact on your internet connection speeds. Using the Ookla speed test tool, we find a percent change between speed test results with the VPN and without the VPN. Our testing was carried out in our New York offices, using the VPN server automatically assigned to us. These results are not the final word on Bitdefender VPN Premium's speed test performance, but rather for comparison between other products. Your results will differ depending on your location and connection.

(Editors' Note: Ookla Speedtest is owned by j2 Global, the parent company of PCMag's publisher, Ziff Davis.)

In our testing, we found that the Bitdefender VPN Premium reduced download speed results by 97.3 percent, and upload speed results by 87.9 percent. Bitdefender VPN also increased latency by 3,994.4 percent. As of writing, HideIPVPN is the fastest VPN we've yet tested, due to its low impact on upload and download speed test results.

You can see how Bitdefender compares in the chart below.

Bitdefender VPN Premium's upload speed test results were close to the median of 82.4 that we've recorded across some three-dozen VPN products. That's the end of the good news, however. We've recorded a median latency of 100 percent and a median download speed reduction of 88.1 percent—a far smaller impact that Bitdefender VPN Premium.

As noted, Bitdefender didn't roll its own VPN. Instead, it whitelabeled the Anchorfree Hotspot Shield VPN product. Interestingly, in our testing the Bitdefender VPN Premium results didn't match with the Hotspot Shield VPN results. Hotspot Shield reduced download speed results by only 69.3 percent, and decreased upload speed results by 88 percent. Hotspot Shield increased latency by 5,300 percent—the worst score we've yet recorded.

If you're already paying for Bitdefender and are looking for a no-frills VPN service at a bargain basement price, Bitdefender VPN Premium fits the bill. If you're looking for more features, such as Tor-over-VPN, multi-hop connections, and so on, we recommend looking at NordVPN or ProtonVPN. Private Internet Access is slightly cheaper, and TunnelBear VPN significantly friendlier. All four of these products have received the coveted PCMag Editors' Choice award for their individual excellence.

You might also consider Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe if you want powerful security that includes VPN protection. At $99.99 per year for five licenses, it looks more expensive than Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, which charges $69.99 for the same number. However, with Norton you get a full-features VPN at no extra charge. Norton is a full security suite, with firewall, parental control, hosted storage for your online backups, and more.

Safepay for Online Safety

The Online security is important even when you're just watching cat videos or fainting goats, but it's absolutely critical any time you log in to a financial website. Bitdefender's Safepay automatically kicks in when it detects that you're about to connect with a banking site or other sensitive site, offering a secure connection. You can tell it to always use Safepay on the site in question, or never use it for a particular page. Kaspersky's Bank Mode works in much the same way, though it doesn't open a separate desktop.

Safepay is a desktop all its own, with a hardened browser built in. Processes running in the Safepay desktop have no connection with the regular desktop. The Safepay browser supports Wallet, naturally, and you can install Flash if required, but supports no other extensions.

The Safepay browser's process isolation should protect against any software keylogger or other keystroke-stealing spyware. Going beyond that, a virtual keyboard serves to defeat even hardware keyloggers. It also prevents programs from snapping screenshots to capture sensitive information. You can optionally configure Bitdefender to activate the VPN any time SafePay is in use, for enhanced protection.

We tested Safepay by trying to log into a dozen financial sites, some big, some small. It shepherded them all to the safety of SafePay. https://omgbits.netlify.app/top-keyloggers-for-mac-2018.html. However, it did not offer SafePay for payment sites such as PayPal, VenMo, and Zelle. Of course, you're free to open the SafePay browser and navigate to whatever site you want secured. And if you no longer want to automatically open a domain in SafePay, you can just open settings and remove it.

Even More Features

The list of features packed into this antivirus just goes on and on. The vulnerability scan feature automatically runs in the background and warns you about missing Windows security updates, missing security patches for popular apps, and weak Windows account passwords. The related Wi-Fi Security Advisor warns about any security problems with your home, office, or public Wi-Fi hotspots, advising that you use the VPN as necessary.

One great way to protect your most sensitive documents is to encrypt them. After encryption, its essential to securely delete the unsecured original, to avoid even forensic recovery. You need a Bitdefender suite to get file encryption, but the secure deletion File Shredder is present even in the antivirus. Use it when you really need to eliminate a sensitive file so that nobody, not even the NSA, can recover it.

Sometimes you run into malware so ornery and persistent that even Bitdefender can't remove it. The typical solution in a case like this is to burn a bootable rescue disc, one that runs a non-Windows operating system. Bitdefender does better with its Rescue Mode. You don't have to burn a disc; you just select Rescue Mode and reboot. Windows malware can't defend itself when Windows isn't running.

A Top Choice for Security

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus offers excellent malware protection, as shown by its excellent scores from many independent testing labs. Our own tests show it to be especially effective against web-based threats, including malware-hosting sites and phishing pages. For extra defense against ransomware, it prevents unauthorized changes to your documents and watches for ransomware-like behavior.On top of that, it piles on enough features that it could qualify as a security suite. It's truly an excellent choice, and an Editors' Choice.

In the packed field of antivirus utilities, we've named several other Editors' Choice products. The labs love Kaspersky Anti-Virus just as much as they do Bitdefender. McAfee AntiVirus Plus doesn't score as high, but it offers unlimited protection for your Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices. And tiny Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus uses a journal-and-rollback system that should undo the effects of any malware that gets past its initial detection, even ransomware.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus

Bottom Line: With outstanding antivirus test results and a collection of features that puts many security suites to shame, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is an excellent choice for protecting your PC.

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Today's best Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac deals

Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac is our pick for the best Mac antivirus software because it offers solid protection for a fair price. Bitdefender scored high in our own tests for detecting and blocking against several malware, including Trojans, rootkits, phishing schemes and viruses, and did well in tests from third-party labs such as AV-Test and AV-Comparatives.

During our tests Bitdefender stopped most of the malware samples we used, and completely deleted them without first placing them in the quarantine folder. The three threats Bitdefender did quarantine were those designed to look like legitimate Mac files. Only two threats snuck by and downloaded to our Mac, but Bitdefender found them later during a virus scan. We had to log into the online portal and tell the software to fully delete these infected files.

We were a bit surprised when Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac had a little trouble stopping Windows threats on our Mac machine since Bitdefender Antivirus for Windows does such a good job. But it only blocked 80 percent of Windows threats. This antivirus did a better job recognizing Windows threats in Safari than those trying to download in Chrome. While Windows threats won’t attack your Mac computer or laptop, it’s important to block them so you don’t accidentally pass them to a Windows device.

Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac does have its flaws. While it doesn’t create any noticeable lag during virus scans, it does take a long time to perform them. We noticed it took nearly three times longer than average for Bitdefender to finish. It’s also not the easiest program to use. Some functions can only be accessed in the online portal and not from the desktop dashboard. This can be frustrating if you’d like all settings, tools and functions together in one place.

Because this is a basic program, it doesn’t have a lot of additional features. For example, it doesn’t include parental controls or a password manager. A personal firewall and spam filters also aren’t included. Bitdefender doesn’t have a higher-priced program compatible with Mac that includes these features, either. You would have to purchase a different program, like Norton Security Standard, that includes these features, or invest in a full Mac security suite. Both options will cost significantly more than the basic antivirus software.

Bitdefender does come with a VPN. This tool makes you invisible online so your searches and browser history can’t be tracked or logged. Your computer’s IP address is also hidden so it’s difficult for companies and snoops to traces your online steps back to you, your computer or your physical location.

This software includes a vulnerability scan to further safeguard your computer from ransomware and hackers. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac scans your entire system and looks for out-of-date programs, which are weak points ransomware, hackers and other threats can take advantage of to break into and infect your computer.

Bitdefender Antivirus is one of the best antivirus programs for Mac because it performs exceptionally well in independent and in-house tests. It protects you from ransomware and phishing schemes, plus it scans your whole system for vulnerabilities such as out-of-date software. It is a little difficult to use since some tools are only accessible from the online portal, plus it takes much longer than average to perform scans. However, it doesn’t hog system resources or significantly affect other programs during scans.

Today's best Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac deals

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