BitDefender Antivirus 2008 review | AV Scan

Monday, January 21, 2008

BitDefender Antivirus 2008 review


Note: please check out the FAQ if you have any issues.

All the major reviews this year seem to be bent on hailing BitDefender or Kaspersky. You should know that each year it's different; a few years back the tussle was between Norton and McAfee, and after that PC-Cillin and Kaspersky broke in. There always seems to be a general drift towards celebrating a particular antivirus brand.

This year's champ won many hearts with its price tag: a one year subscription for 3 users (yes, that wasn't a typo) costs only $29.95. BitDefender is a vastly improved product in its current incarnation (the current version is 2008), although version 9 (the last one I used) was good too.

BitDefender did a good job cleaning up my PC; it looks sleek these days, and scan speed seems to have slightly improved. Detection rate is top-notch and you get hourly updates. Version 2008 has a Gamer Mode, which basically keeps it quiet while you're busy gaming. It's not really much, but hey, in a competitive market anything counts.

My chief complaint against BitDefender is it eats up a lot of your RAM. And a hell lot: in fact, if you're using an older machine you might even think your PC has crashed for good (I tested it on a 2.0 -something GHz Celeron, and it's going to curse me for the rest of its days). Bottom line: a very good choice if you're on a budget and have lots of RAM (2 GB?), but don't even go near it if you don't.

The good:
- Price tag is knock-out cheap
- Good detection rate
- Improved interface

The bad:
- Slow scan speed

The ugly:
- RAM hog

Price: $29.95 (for 3 users); $24.95 (for 1 user)
Go to: BitDefender website

No comments: