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BitDefender 8 Free
Price: Free

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Overall

Reviewed By: Mark Wilson

This review updated: 12/10/2006
Featured in magazine:
Issue 146
Manufacturer Contacts:
Web Address: www.bitdefender.com


The free edition of BitDefender only offers on-demand virus scanning. This means there's no real-time protection, but viruses will be detected and deleted or quarantined during a scan. There is also no email scanning included with the program. So why is the software being given a Bronze award? Virus detection rates are very high according to third-party tests, and the scheduled scanning option means that a scan can be automatically run at intervals of months, weeks, days, hours, or even minutes. While this is no alternative to real-time scanning, it is still a useful feature.

BitDefender 8 Free Edition defaults to checking for program updates as soon as installation is complete – this helps to reduce the risk of infection from a virus which is not in the currently loaded definition database. Future updates can be handled automatically or manually, and the simple interface layout leaves little room for confusion.

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