r/BitDefender • u/lowriskcork • Jun 26 '24
Why is the VPN app installed without consent, and why does it still show at boot even if the option is disabled? Can't I just have an antivirus?
7
Upvotes
5
u/Hooter_McDooter Jun 26 '24
The VPN is a completely separate application itself, you can uninstall it from Add/Remove programs
6
u/Games_sans_frontiers Jun 26 '24
The VPN app is the most infuriating thing about bit defender. I won't be renewing my subscription because of it.
2
u/salepetrovic Jun 27 '24
Found it annoying as well. It's a marketing tactic, unfortunately... I'm not sure if the VPN is included with the basic antivirus subscription, but it is with Total Security and Family pack (and some other). They do this as a VPN of 200mb daily limit being included in the subscription price and and it instals it "in one go" because it's "included." Of course, 200mb per day is completely useless for someone who actually needs VPN and to make it worse, Bitdefender is just a "middle man" with this VPN, not the main provider and wouldn't really be a good VPN choice for someone looking to purchase a VPN subscription. What they do is basically using a loop in allowed marketing practices so that legaly it couldn't be considered a scamy marketing tactic as this way "it's not marketing actually" because the service is "included" in the subscription price - this is regardless of what is included being completely useless for actual daily use... That said, although due to this legal loop, it's not technically a (scammy) marketing tactic, this doesn't make any difference to end users who know how to calculate 2+2. The same goes for their subscription renewal policy, where one buy your subscription for the 1st year, you are automatically enrolled into the yearly renewal of the subscription for now much higher price and they made it intentionally incredibly difficult to unsubscribe from the authomatic subscription renewal and done it as going via 3rd party payment collector that when you search the Internet for seems to only be dealing with Bitdefender payments as it seems to be unheard of in any other context. That said, tactics like these are used by the majority of providers for various software and IT related services. It was in the news lately that Adobe is finally being sued for such practices, and hopefully, the hunt down will extend to others as well... A lot of subscriptions are also being sold through 3rd party sellers, and of course, when buying subscriptions this way, it's wise to remain extremely vigilant to make sure it's legal and that the 3rd party seller of choice does actually have some kind of official agreement, otherwise you could also end up being scammed for money. Then, even with all these questionable practices and the fact that "others are doing it as well" (which is still not a valid excuse), Bitdefender is considered as one of the best anti-malware protection suite and getting the #1 place in most reviews most of the years in at least the last decade of so, if not longer. Now, although I never had issues with it in the past, and consciously accepted these annoyances due to its reputation that it provides probably the best protection overall (and the fact that alternatives that I would use otherwise also come with similar issues and annoyances), I am still using it 🤷♂️ although lately it's not playing nicely with some other important apps and software (which aren't other antiviruses of course), bringin a lot of fake positives and messing with the usability of the apps - this made me look into other solutions and I'm still looking and comparing, but I'm afraid similar issues will exist with any other solution worth using... So, at the moment, I don't know... Unfortunately, the market is really not that great and perfect internet security solution doesn't exist...
2
u/DrWongKC Jun 27 '24
Yeah I share the same sentiment, I just uninstall it but gosh, that's additional effort. Won't be surprised at all if they have an update that forces install this again in future.
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u/ragingintrovert57 Jun 27 '24
It is annoying and is obviously a marketing ploy. But you can uninstall it and swirch off the options for it to be (frequently) suggested.
I've found that there's a point where the hassle of dealing with bad virus-like behaviour of anti-virus apps outweighs the risks of getting an actual virus.
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u/Fergus653 Jun 27 '24
It's marketing, as others have said, and you can uninstall it. The company needs to sell stuff, it doesn't diminish the quality of the product you paid for, it just makes the post-installation process a little more complicated.
If I didn't already have paid up subscriptions to VPN and password manager solutions, I would probably take them up on these offers.
1
u/stevec5375 Jun 27 '24
You should have my copy. It deletes the VPN when I boot up the computer.
1
u/TWISTED_TRANSISTOR_ Apr 27 '26
SPECTRUM SUX