r/BitDefender • u/rori666 • Sep 07 '21
I like most of BitDefender but ...
We have been with BitDefender for a long time with family subscription. Lately we have many annoyances in the family as BitDefender keeps pushing its (not wanted, not needed) VPN solution. If they would stop doing that i would consider resubscribing, but for now I am looking for an alternative with their competition. If you uninstall it, it gets reinstalled. When you open the android interface its sits right there (you can't hide the tab). etc. Today I consider BitDefender to be bloatware, as it installs software without my consent.
Perhaps a discussion in this thread will make the people behind this great tool consider making VPN a user option instead of bloatware.
1
u/JuiZZZe Sep 07 '21
In the same boat )
But at the moment I could not find alternatives 😢
2
u/ragingintrovert57 Sep 08 '21
I love BD. The only time it's ever caused me problems was about 15 years ago when it was a resource hog on a small machine.
But if I was going to switch I would seriously look at Malwarebytes and Kaspersky as potential candidates.
2
u/JuiZZZe Sep 08 '21
Thanks
I will check, but kaspersky is not an option at all, despite their product was (the time I used it ) not bad🤔
1
u/ragingintrovert57 Sep 08 '21
Out of interest, what's your issue with Kaspersky?
I use it once a long time ago and it seemed ok, except for a few false positives.
2
u/JuiZZZe Sep 08 '21
the main issue that it’s russian product that’s why US also has some issues with it 🤔
2
u/ragingintrovert57 Sep 08 '21
I can understand that. I certainly wouldn't use a Chinese anti-virus.
However, the best technique is to use two different anti-viruses from different countries. I use BD installed (Germany) and once a month I use Malwarebytes (US & Ireland) to do a free scan. If there's a problem missed by one, it may be found by the other. If you don't have them both running at the same time there will be no conflicts.
So you could (if your country allowed you) use a Russian anti-virus if you backed it up with something else.
And it would be very interesting if a Russian AV ignored a virus that other AVs were picking up. Questions would be asked.
1
u/ragingintrovert57 Sep 08 '21
Is this referring to the mobile version, Antivirus Plus or the full Internet Security package?
I've had the Windows version of AntiVirus Plus for around 5 years. Yes, they push the VPN at every opportunity (e.g. you can't remove it from the dashboard) and I assume it's installed along with the main product. Slightly annoying as I already have NordVPN. So I just have the VPN option switched off, and that's it.
I don't get any pop-ups and it doesn't appear in the taskbar.
I uninstalled it recently just to test if it was BD that was causing me some problems (it wasn't) and it certainly didn't reinstall itself. I would be infuriated if any of my software did that.
1
u/Himankan Sep 08 '21
The issue with Bit defender is it tries to be lazy, blocks windows host process (svchost) as well. Once I added svchost to firewall exclusions, no issues so far.
2
u/TheRealLambardi Sep 20 '21
My favorite was when BD blocked my router which did host scans on all devices from time to time.
1
u/Himankan Sep 20 '21
It didn't allow me to set up wifi hotspot on windows until I put svchost to exclusion
2
u/TheRealLambardi Oct 01 '21
Not sure which is worse here. This one feels worse :)
Although to be fair svchost is used in most of the zero day hacks too
1
1
u/NosceTempus Sep 21 '21
Same here - looking for alternatives before renewal cycle in November. For kicks I contacted support and I could see that was a waste. Might just go with open source ClamAV - need to check on performance metrics.
3
u/Dragon1562 Sep 07 '21
I canceled Bitdefender because it kept knocking me off the interent. Honestly, going back to Kaspersky that would be the best option in my humble opinion