BitDefender Total Security 2009

With stacks of security suites vying for your attention and Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2009 blitzing our recent Group Test (see Issue 203), is there anything BitDefender can do to stand out from an overcrowded and competitive market?

Features:
BitDefender has managed to trump Norton on features by offering the usual anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall security along with parental controls, anti-spam, anti-phishing, general PC tune-up and back-up functions (both local and online, though the online option has only 2GB of space by default). There’s even a built-in gaming mode for regular gamers.

Performance:
When trying to evaluate how well security software is likely to perform in the future, it’s always worth having a look at the track record. BitDefender hasn’t had a brilliant time on industry testing site Virus Bulletin’s VB100 test – it passed the latest Windows XP test but produced a couple of false positives in Vista. This isn’t the end of the world – better to have false positives than to let viruses through – but compared to the record of Symantec and AVG, which have passed all the last five tests, it’s a little lacking.

Ease of use:
BitDefender has clearly been working on its ease of use. It offers both advanced and basic interfaces during installation and you can swap from one to the other at any time. The Basic view lets you turn features on or off with tickboxes. To tweak, go to Advanced view, where tickboxes are augmented by slider bars to allow finer control of functions. You can also right-click on the System Tray icon to turn elements on or off.

Value for money:
The software provides many features included in top-of-the-range suites from the likes of McAfee and Symantec, at a competitive price around the level of their standard security suites. If you’re feeling the pinch but want to make sure you get extras like PC tune-up and online back-up, then this is a good-value proposition.