Poll: *** The All New Windows AV Thread - Keep All AV Questions in Here ***

What AV do you use?


  • Total voters
    801
Soldato
Joined
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3,324
I can't say I am impressed by BitDefender; I tried the 30-day evaluation and so far as I can see, there is little opportunity to determine what should happen when a "suspect" file is detected and I can see no report on the actions taken by the software. I am sure that it is all there, just not obvious.

I think that like the Russian Kaspersky, I will forget the Romanian BitDefender.


It's has a quarantine section in settings, you can delete /remove infected files, review here https://www.tomsguide.com/uk/us/bitdefender-antivirus-free,review-3523.html .


Bottom Line

Simple and straightforward, Bitdefender's Antivirus Free Edition may be minimalist but it provides better protection than many paid security programs. Its only real competition is Kaspersky Free Antivirus, which has a quick scan and scan scheduling, but a heavier performance impact during scans.. As good as its defenses are, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition won't bog down your system.
 
Soldato
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After frequent pop ups from avast and then fining out about the data selling I have decided to switch after about 15 years with avast.

I was not sure which to go for BitDefender, kesperskey free and more
bitdefender looked a littler to basic so I ended up going for built in windows defender.
 

mrk

mrk

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After frequent pop ups from avast and then fining out about the data selling I have decided to switch after about 15 years with avast.

I was not sure which to go for BitDefender, kesperskey free and more
bitdefender looked a littler to basic so I ended up going for built in windows defender.

Basic is what's needed to get the job done. The additional features are nice to haves but the core is effective real-time protection which Kaspersky and BitDefender seem to be doing very well with minimal impact on system resources. Over time Windows Defender has got more bloated and recently I have noticed the hseer number of things it's doing is quite considerable. When the system is idle it will do clean-up tasks and scans and when you resume use it takes an age to release those resources every now and then which is annoying. There are ways to work around this of course by creating custom task scheduler triggers for the Defender schedules for the 4 services it creates in task scheduler, as well as adding the AntiMalware Service executable directory to the exceptions section in the app itself as it actually scans itself when a scheduled scan is taking place which can slow things down even further.

Going by the latest AV Comparative reports, Windows Defender is not near the top by a long shot for system performance or malware protection. So with that taken into account I just switched to BitDefender free edition and am up and running.

I'd been wondering why recently my PC has been using almost all of my CPU when it's been idle and when checking task manager saw that Defender was running its system idle schedule tasks bogging things down for a few minutes after resuming PC usage.
 
Soldato
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Basic is what's needed to get the job done. The additional features are nice to haves but the core is effective real-time protection which Kaspersky and BitDefender seem to be doing very well with minimal impact on system resources. Over time Windows Defender has got more bloated and recently I have noticed the hseer number of things it's doing is quite considerable. When the system is idle it will do clean-up tasks and scans and when you resume use it takes an age to release those resources every now and then which is annoying. There are ways to work around this of course by creating custom task scheduler triggers for the Defender schedules for the 4 services it creates in task scheduler, as well as adding the AntiMalware Service executable directory to the exceptions section in the app itself as it actually scans itself when a scheduled scan is taking place which can slow things down even further.

Going by the latest AV Comparative reports, Windows Defender is not near the top by a long shot for system performance or malware protection. So with that taken into account I just switched to BitDefender free edition and am up and running.

I'd been wondering why recently my PC has been using almost all of my CPU when it's been idle and when checking task manager saw that Defender was running its system idle schedule tasks bogging things down for a few minutes after resuming PC usage.
I've not really noticed any issues with windows defender, however I have my PC does seaming slower sometime then when I was using avast but I never connected the two issues.
I've not really used BitDefender in about 2 years but the last time I used it was way too basic and seamed like it did nothing which is why I stopped using it but im willing to give it another go.
 

mrk

mrk

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I've not really noticed any issues with windows defender, however I have my PC does seaming slower sometime then when I was using avast but I never connected the two issues.
I've not really used BitDefender in about 2 years but the last time I used it was way too basic and seamed like it did nothing which is why I stopped using it but im willing to give it another go.


It's still very barebones tbh, here's what it looks like:

PY42YKo.jpg

But as above, for me as long as it's reliable and does what it's meant to be doing without me having to do anything (by which notion a barebones UI is perfectly fine as I rarely open it anyway), then that's fine by me!
 
Soldato
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It's still very barebones tbh, here's what it looks like:

PY42YKo.jpg

But as above, for me as long as it's reliable and does what it's meant to be doing without me having to do anything (by which notion a barebones UI is perfectly fine as I rarely open it anyway), then that's fine by me!
I only ask for a few things
1. clean and Fast
2. Has good virus / malware protection and detection.
3.I can manually full scan if I need.
4. no spyware or selling my info

Other then that I dont really think you need anything.
 

mrk

mrk

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Why would you use MBAM and BItdefender side by side (assuming real time usage as resident AV)? You only need and should have one resident shield active and anything else is just run manually for quick scans every so often for peace of mind. For the latter purpose MBAM etc all run fine with a resident shield active.
 
Soldato
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Why would you use MBAM and BItdefender side by side (assuming real time usage as resident AV)? You only need and should have one resident shield active and anything else is just run manually for quick scans every so often for peace of mind. For the latter purpose MBAM etc all run fine with a resident shield active.

I’m a beginner, both products were recommended to me and I read that MWB will run alongside another AV. What is real time usage please? At the moment the laptop has Defender running and I installed MWB earlier today. If you have any other recommendations then I am all ears.

I’m get quite anxious about online security so if I should be replacing Defender with something else then for peace of mind I’d be happy to do so.
 
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mrk

mrk

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Real time as in it sits in the background running in real time as the active AV. You don't want two running side by side in real time like this as they will at some points conflict with each other and cause issues. Windows Defender is perfectly fine for the vast majority of users and there';s no need to change to anything else without a specific reason for doing so and that will be on an individual basis really.

If yours came with Bitdefender installed then that's fine too. Windows Defender will hibernate itself if it detects another resident AV has been installed so you won't need to do anything specific.
 
Soldato
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Real time as in it sits in the background running in real time as the active AV. You don't want two running side by side in real time like this as they will at some points conflict with each other and cause issues. Windows Defender is perfectly fine for the vast majority of users and there';s no need to change to anything else without a specific reason for doing so and that will be on an individual basis really.

If yours came with Bitdefender installed then that's fine too. Windows Defender will hibernate itself if it detects another resident AV has been installed so you won't need to do anything specific.

Thank you. When I installed MWB it gives you the Premium version on trial which knocked out Defender so I flipped the switch so it doesn’t register in Windows Security having done some googling. I hope that is the right thing to do? :confused:

I installed the MWB as lots on here seemed to run it alongside Defender.
 

mrk

mrk

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You can have MWB installed no issues, I have MWB, SUPER and BItdefender Free installed but only load MWB and SUPER once a month to clear out tracking cookies from browser cache and minor stuff like that which would otherwise not be a concern really. It's good to have a 2nd opinion from another AV app that can be run on demand like that just in-case the active real time AV misses something as their heuristics are all different between apps.

It sounds like your laptop came with the premium MWB trial installed, you can uninstall this fully and just install the free version off their website and run that every so often if you like. Or install SUPER Antispyware and do the same thing leaving Windows Defender to be the main AV.
 
Soldato
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It sounds like your laptop came with the premium MWB trial installed, you can uninstall this fully and just install the free version off their website and run that every so often if you like. Or install SUPER Antispyware and do the same thing leaving Windows Defender to be the main AV.

The laptop came with Defender and I downloaded MWB but it only seems to allow you to download the premium version and then after two weeks if you don’t continue with it then it downgrades itself to just the basics apparently.

Thanks for your help mrk. I’ve been quite twitchy over trying to get this right before I start using it and there is so much conflicting information out there.:)
 

mrk

mrk

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Ah that's fair enough, long as it doesn't start nagging for card details or popping up with upgrade messages because you're only on the basic package!

Tbh it sounds like you just want an AV package that does what any decent AV should be doing in that it protects the system without interfering with your use of the computer. For that Windows Defender will do everything you need as it's a full on package.

There's no reason why you can't try a handful out a week at a time and see what you like the best. Windows Defender you never have to open or even look at as it does everything. BitDefender/MWB etc may sometimes fail a definition update and will poll a message in the Windows 10 notification centre with a relevant message of the failure which requires your attention, so you will click on it to see what's up only to see that since that action centre message, the AV has updated but not taken away the previous notification so you've wasted several clicks on nothing :p I see this every so often on Bitdefender, if an update fails for whatever reason (server error etc) the app will try again until it succeeds, but by nature the Windows action centre message will still be there even after it succeeds. This has been my observation though as I do like to ttry out alternatives from time to time and others experiences may be different.
 

mrk

mrk

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My opinion is no, not worth paying for an AV as a home user. In all these years building and using PCs I have never bought an AV, always used a free one. These days Windows Defender has the bulk of advanced features baked in that you'd have been paying for in other apps before so the need to pay is even less so. Paid ones might give you a bunch of more advanced features still though but the chances are if the question is being asked, then those features are ones you most likely will never have used anyway.

Other opinions online will again vary, some people hate anything made by Microsoft for example and will approach with that mentality whilst others will always have used a third party paid product and as they've never had a problem, will always recommend such a product. All opinions are valid in their own right, but ultimately it's down to you to put them into perspective and decide what's best for your kind of usage!
 
Associate
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Has anyone tried the new Superantispyware X yet? I've had problems with Malwarebytes lately and have a SAS key I purchased years ago but haven't used it in ages. Is it still lighter on resources than MB?

Ta :)
 
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