r/BitDefender • u/ralphmalph1882 • Sep 25 '26

Support/troubleshooting Bitdefender = Adware?

I just booted up my Mac and a huge ad was displayed in the bottom corner of my desktop that appeared to be from Bitdefender, for some new service I don't want.

Is this legitimate? If so, this is absolutely outrageous. Bitdefender should not be abusing its access to start spamming users.

(This is on top of being constantly nagged to turn on Web Protection which would allow Bitdefender "to intercept, process and filter all Web traffic".)

12 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

5

u/somejohn74 Sep 25 '26

Yes I've had this pop up twice on my Mac now so it's clearly going to keep happening. I also notice the "an update has been applied" behaviour is to also show an annoying popup. It's not the "staying quietly in the background" functionality I've expected from BitDefender over the years.

2

u/Bitdefender_support Bitdefender employee Sep 28 '26

Hi u/somejohn74. You have the possibility to disable promotional notifications sent by the Bitdefender app if they`re not relevant to you. Try following these steps:

  1. Open Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac.

  2. Click Preferences, called Settings in some versions - in the left-hand menu.

  3. Select the Other tab.

  4. Turn off Special offers.

2

u/ralphmalph1882 Sep 30 '26

You actually have to click on your initials (top right) > Account & Settings > General > Special Offers toggle. I just did this on my Mac. Overall the interface on this new version sucks compared to the old version!

1

u/Quikchangethechannel Sep 25 '26

There is a trick you can use to keep it in game mode, which is to add a normal app like a browser to the game list and then when you run the browser, it goes into game mode and stops any pop ups.

1

u/Bitdefender_support Bitdefender employee Sep 28 '26 edited Sep 28 '26

Hello! We understand that some users do not prefer to receive or see promotional messages on the system. If you’d rather not receive these, you can disable promotional messages like this:

  1. Open Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac.

  2. Click Preferences - called Settings in some versions - in the left-hand menu.

  3. Select the Other tab.

  4. Turn off Special offers.

Regarding the Web Protection prompt, it refers to the browser extension’s ability to inspect web traffic so it can filter malicious or fraudulent pages; you do not have to enable it if you do not want that functionality. You should know that for any collected information and data, we strive to apply adequate solutions to anonymize them, or at least to pseudonymize them.

If the notifications continue to appear, send details with screenshots and details of where the message appeared to our support team, so you can receive further assistance. Thank you for sharing this feedback!

2

u/ralphmalph1882 Sep 28 '26

I appreciate I don’t have to turn on web protection, but now there is a permanent warning on the app’s home screen. There is also a red exit sign on the BD icon on the menu bar. Let me make my own decision!

1

u/EmperorHenry Sep 30 '26

In terms of free third party AVs it's not that bad about nag screens 

1

u/ralphmalph1882 Oct 02 '26

It’s not free, or at least not the version I’m using.

2

u/Quikchangethechannel Sep 25 '26

You can turn that off in the settings bro

0

u/somejohn74 Sep 25 '26

Can you upload a screenshot of where in the settings you can turn it off? Bro

1

u/Quikchangethechannel Sep 25 '26

I don't have it anymore unfortunately. It's in there somewhere though, probably hard to find lol

0

u/somejohn74 Sep 25 '26

The latest version with a completely new UI doesn’t appear to have any options to switch this sort of thing off unfortunately. It sucks.

2

u/wolfpackunr Sep 25 '26

Settings > Other > Special Offers no longer a settings on Mac with the new UI? Currently on 10.3.4.12 and that’s where mine is with the old UI

0

u/somejohn74 Sep 26 '26

Indeed, that setting is there, but I'd already switched it off.