BitDefender Total Security 2021 Test & Review
Reviews score: Excellent
Summary
Bitdefender Total Security is one of the most capable antivirus on the market right now. It’s packed with a variety of high-end features unmatched by other security suites.
This is especially true if you’re a Windows user. Here BitDefender offers not only excellent protection from malware, but a whole range of privacy features such as a VPN, anti-tracker, microphone monitor and webcam protection.
BitDefender has truly gone beyond antivirus alone, and protects not only your devices, but also your privacy.
Pros:
- The best protection from malware: BitDefender has perfect scores in the protection tests by the independent test labs.
- BitDefender does not slow down your devices: BitDefender has near perfect scores in all performance tests.
- Very complete privacy features: Including a free VPN, password manager, webcam protection, microphone protection, anti-tracker, and more.
- Excellent user reviews: Users rate BitDefender as one of the best and most user-friendly antivirus available.
- Excellent price and deep discount: BitDefender temporarily features a deep discount, making it one of the best deals online.
Cons:
- Limited free VPN: The free VPN has a 200mb daily limit. This is enough to shop and bank securely, but not to stream movies.
- BitDefender for Mac has less features than its sibling for Windows.
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Features
This is where Bitdefender truly shines, especially for Windows and Android users. As mentioned, Bitdefender offers an array of features unrivaled by most. That’s not to say that Bitdefender won’t protect macOS and iOS systems. It will, but those operating systems are simply less vulnerable and therefore require fewer protection features.
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is the best-selling Bitdefender. It’s loaded with useful features too. For the purpose of this write-up, let’s go over some of the most notable.
Advanced Threat Defense
Real-time protection ranks high on any user’s list of priorities. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus’s behavioral detection technology has a firm grip on all the active apps. As soon as a red flag is detected, it will notify you and take appropriate action.
Anti-Phishing
Phishing attacks rely on a computer user entering his or her login credentials into a fake platform, particularly credentials to accounts that have a monetary value. The moment you submit your credential, it’s going to become known to the attacker. It usually won’t be used against you right away. But one of these days it might come as a surprise.
Phishing websites do get blacklisted very quickly, but many more will crop up. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is a pro at uncovering websites that try to appear as legit. The antivirus will warn you if you happen to land on a phishing website.
Multi-Layer Ransomware Protection
Ransomware encrypts your files and asks for a ransom (usually money) in exchange for the decryption key. It scouts your folders to find documents that it can encrypt.
Bitdefender’s solution is rather straightforward. It simply prohibits any unauthorized changes to all the files that might get exposed to ransomware. It works together with Advanced Threat Defense to protect your private files.
VPN
Bitdefender adds a basic version of its VPN to each of its antivirus products. When connected, it will encrypt your internet connection. This will allow you to be truly anonymous as internet service providers, governments and various ad-networks can no longer track your moves online. On top of that, it offers excellent protection from hackers on public WiFi connections.
Do keep in mind that Bitdefender’s basic VPN only allows you to encrypt 200mb op internet traffic per day. That is enough to cover the most important things, like visit your online bank and do your shopping, but not to stream videos or simply browse the web for hours. For unlimited data, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium VPN.
Bitdefender Internet Security
Bitdefender Internet Security comes with all of the features found in Antivirus Plus and a few extras. As implied by the name, they all have to do with online protection.
Web Security
To an untrained eye, a corrupted search result might not look suspicious at all. Except it can easily result in the loss of your most prized data. Web Security uses a set of filters to determine if you should access a website before you actually do it. That’s to proactively prevent potential cyberattacks.
Network Threat Prevention
The latest version of Bitdefender Internet Security is armed to the teeth against online threats. It has the ability to analyze activities at lightning speed and to block, just as quickly, brute force attacks, sophisticated exploits, and botnet-related URLs.
Webcam Protection
Did you know that hackers can activate your webcam without you realizing it? That’s right, it’s really creepy. Luckily, Bitdefender’s Internet Security offers Webcam Protection, which notifies you when someone tries to activate your webcam, and allows you to block the attempt.
Bitdefender Total Security
Bitdefender Total Security is so much more than an antivirus. Its cutting-edge features are capable of protecting your device from just about any attack. Among others, it can also optimize the performance of your system.
Anti-Theft
Anti-Theft is an exclusive Bitdefender Total Security feature that may just save you from having to replace your device. If it’s ever lost or stolen, you can use the anti-theft and anti-loss features on any other device and access the missing device through your Bitdefender Central account.
OneClick Optimizer
The top complaint against most antivirus is their relatively impact on a device’s operating speed. To counter that, Bitdefender Total Security offers the OneClick Optimizer. This is what you can use to jack up the performance of your devices. All of a sudden, Bitdefender is going to become all that more powerful and user-friendly.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac is specifically designed to protect Apple’s desktop and laptop computers. As mentioned, it’s not as feature-rich as its Windows counterpart but that’s only because it doesn’t have to. One of the best features is the cross-platform malware protection, which protects your device against made-for-Windows malware that can also target macOS systems. You also get Time Machine protection, adding another layer of security over your files.
Bitdefender Mobile Security
Bitdefender Mobile Security comes in two versions: one for Android and one for iOS. The Android version is more capable on paper. It offers web protection and on-demand scanning of files. For apps, there’s also an on-install scan feature, which allows you to check and see if an app is dangerous after installing it (but preferably before opening).
Furthermore, the WearON feature allows you to protect your wearable Android devices. You can activate a sound alert to find your device. It can also send out a warning if you’re moving too far away from it.
The abovementioned features were not available in the iOS version, though Bitdefender has recently added web protection. You also get a VPN and an option for protecting your social media accounts, arguably a feature that everyone can use nowadays.
Security & Performance
For two decades or so, Bitdefender has been among the most acclaimed antivirus providers. The company has received numerous awards and has customers in more than 150 countries across the globe.
Bitdefender offers a broad range of security products for all mainstream platforms. All of them have consistently achieved high scores in both lab and real-life tests. This probably doesn’t surprise anyone, considering that over 50% of the company’s staff works in R&D.
Security
AV-Test results prove that Bitdefender’s reputation is deserved. Over the past few months, Bitdefender has been consistently getting the perfect score of 6.0. It scored 100% for the detection of widespread malware and 0-day malware attacks.
If that’s not impressive enough, the average AV-Test protection score from January 2011 to February 2021 is a sterling 5.94 out of 6. You’d be hard-pressed to find a handful of antivirus that performed better.
Performance
For the past few months, Bitdefender scored an average of 5.5 out of 6.0 on AV-Test. This is an excellent score, showing that Bitdefender does not impact to performance speed of your devices. And considering all the new features Bitdefender has added in recent years, we are impressed to find out that it hasn’t impacted the light touch that Bitdefender has on the various operating systems.