BitDefender Total Security 2010
Early in the month of September 2009 BitDefender released their line of 2010 software. Everybody, a techie to student needs a security software; but a single solution might just not suite everybody and BitDefender seems to have just found the solution by offering three very different interfaces for users of different levels of skills along with special support for parents and gamers. This 2010 line has introduced a new technology known as Active Virus Control in addition to a profiling system that controls how a user will interact with the software. Let us see if the new designs and layers are boon or bane. We have been truly impressed in the past by the BitDefender and its Total Security 2009 was one of the best alternatives to some of the most established alternatives to some of the more established names in the market like Norton and Kaspersky. The new version seems to promise a similarly comprehensive set of features and just has us thinking what else the company could do to improvise on its past success.
BitDefender Total Security 2010 seems to be offering the ultimate proactive protection for your PCs and in a way without slowing it down. It has combined advanced protection against viruses, hackers, spyware, spam and other e-threats. The suite’s system maintenance and backup tools keep your system protected from data loss. A great sigh of relief for the constant chatters is that, BitDefender’s Instant Messaging Encryption keeps your conversations private on Yahoo and MSN messenger. The File Vault feature securely stores all personal information and sensitive files. For your complete satisfaction, they offer a free 30 day evaluation to test before you buy and after that, once you get the full licence, the software allows you to protect three separate PCs.
Installation and User Interface:
Installation of BitDefender Total Security 2010 is pretty straight forward and you get to choose between Typical and Custom Installation. Though it was not hassle free, it was not as bad as its predecessor. The Typical installation might just be fine for most users while the custom settings can well be changed sometime later. The suite requires Microsoft .Net framework on the system for the software to install and even if your system does not have one, the system will download and install it automatically if you do not have one. Once the installation is done, it will just require a restart.
Features:
BitDefender has included several features for securing almost each and every aspect of your system from threats. The main user interface is extremely intuitive and begins with a dashboard that gives you a quick overview and starts running scans.
Security:
Under the security tab, you get to control and customise protection features like Antivirus, AntiSpam, Firewall, Update and Antiphishing.
Tune-Up:
With the Tune-up tab, you get to clean up all duplicate content and old files, cleanup the registry or defrag your PC’s hard drive thus helping your system run in a smooth fashion. The Tune-Up tools also go on to include a file cleanup tool with a disk fragmenter and Registry cleaner. The Registry cleaner is smart enough to identify all erroneous and useless registry entries and gets rid of them. There is also the option to undo the same just in case something goes wrong.
The data files are shred in a secure way so that most of your important data are not recoverable.
For safety reasons, the duplicate file finder is now designed to ignore the zero-byte files, Windows files and any other file that is in the Program Files Folder. The feature still offers to delete duplicate content that has to be available in every user accounts. If you feel the need to use it, do a global setting of No Action and just review each results individually.
File Storage:
Not only are your files kept safe, they are kept confidential too in the File Storage Module.
Network Module:
Finally, the network module allows you to manage all the BitDefender products that are installed in your home PCs from a single System. Once you have managed to link up all your home computers using the Home Network Tool and you can remotely monitor and manage their security status. The feature shows a red icon that warns of any trouble and will be able to fix all the issues, launch a scan and lots more.
Interface Layouts:
As we had mentioned in the introduction, there are three different interface layouts: Novice, Intermediate and Expert Modes. While the default settings must be adequate for most users; but if you are one of those techhies, you can go for the Expert mode. Questions during installation determine the initial mode. In Expert mode, all the programs and features are available instantly, the intermediate mode offers a status dashboard along with tabs for security, tune-up, backup and network management. All three of the modes includes a high level settings window that lets you know the status of all components and manage them too. To make things extremely simple, “Fix All Issues” button solves all the configuration issues and an interesting fact is that BitDefender allows users in configuring the trigger of that warning. While the last year suite’s controls did not offer any evident response to clicks, the company has now done it.
Configuration Wizard:
The configuration wizard makes setup extremely easy and all that you have to do is, just select the type of user and it picks in the appropriate settings for you. The user wizard is very intuitive and allows you to easily set up as well as make changes. Since most of these features are wizard driven, it makes even the setting up of advanced tasks easy. You get to configure the amount of settings based on your computer skill levels.
Parental Controls:
Parents will be certainly glad to see the Parental Controls that allows you to easily configure the different web applications and settings. Configuration of parental controls is connected to Windows Controls. There are options to either allow all sites, except for the ones in a list or to block all sites except for the ones in the list. If the kid tries to access a blocked site, BitDefender gives in a message stating that “This webpage has been blocked by BitDefender Parental Control. The best part that we really loved is that, you can limit the times when your child can be online based on a schedule. The IM control allows for blocking unsolicited contacts or limiting IM to only set of predefined contacts; then again this is possible only with Windows Live messenger or Yahoo Messenger.
Website Filtering:
Website filtering is independent of browsers and you really cannot mess with the application blocker by moving a blocked application or renaming the same. Nevertheless, the time scheduler can be can be fooled with changing the system’s clock. If your kid is really smart enough, he/she can evade web site blocking using an anonymous HTTP proxy. We were glad to note that there were no false positives that we observed last year and BitDefender also logs all the websites that are visited by users subject to parental control.
Game Mode:
The Game mode modifies the protection settings temporarily in order to minimise their impact on system performance. It automatically scans the removable drives when mounted and just notifies when a new system joins the wireless network and skip tasks in case your laptop is running on batteries and lots more.
Other features:
Setting up the network type for protection after installation is extremely easy.
Anti-phishing protection is available for both FireFox and Internet Explorer which are the highly used browsers in the world.
In order to scan a file quickly, just right click on the file and click on scan with BidDefender; it is as simple as that. The different menu options can just be accessed from the taskbar icon.
Backup:
The BitDefender Total Security 2010 offers two complete backup solutions: a local backup and another is online backup which is supplied by SOS Online Backup (beta). 2GB of online backup is available with your subscription package. The backup feature has not changed significantly since last year. It is powerful, flexible and just satisfactory.
Performance:
We tested the BitDefender Total Security 2010 on our Windows 7 PC with dual core processor and 4GB RAM. The overall performance can be said to be smooth. We found that there was a minor lag in the apps during multi-tasking, but this is fairly common with majority of the antivirus software.
Malware Detection:
BitDefender Total Security 2010 had promised improved malware detection and Cleaning and seems to have kept its promise. It detected each and every one of them from our infected test system. While it removed some of it on its own during the scan, it asked user what to do for a few others. Some of them failed to quarantine and a few even refused to be deleted leaving us with a “No action Possible” message. The suite left behind most of the executable files with a couple of them still running and a great deal of file and Registry traces. The malware detection of BitDefender is pretty good, though not as good as Panda Global 2009 and Norton Internet Security 2010.
Coming to just the rootkits of malware or keyloggers, BitDefender was able to identify eighty eight percent of them which is certainly a below average performance. Taking the rouge security software or scareware in to test, it was quite average; Panda, the Norton Internet Security 2010, eScan Internet Security suite 10, and Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware all did a heaps better job than BitDefender.
So what is new in the 2010 edition? Anti Virus Control acts as a third layer of protection as it analyses the behaviour of programs that encounters the initial scan and then blocks them in case of misbehaviour. Did this multilayered approach work? Yes it did and that too, effectively. BitDefender was successful in wiping out 97% of malware that is already residing in the PC and completely blocked the installation of new stuff. Its performance was equivalent to that of PrevX 3.0, with Norton Internet Security 2010 being the only suite that managed to perform better than the BitDefender.
Keylogger Blocking:
In the KeyLogger blocking test, BitDefender performed a bit below average, however, its performance in case of rootkit blocking was much better. As in the case of its competitors Webroot AntiVirus with AntiSpyware 6.1 and Panda Cloud Antivirus, it aced perfectly through the scareware blocking test. Though the URLs of the malware samples still functioned, BitDefender blocked many of them as soon as they started to download. This is a good improvement from the last year’s model, but we have to agree that it needs to improvise on a more thorough cleaning up of malware.
Anti-spam:
The anti-spam component of BitDefender Total Security Suite 2010 integrates itself with Windows Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook and Outlook Express. What it does here is that, it analyses the POP3 email and instantly diverts the spam messages into Deleted Items. For the users who wish to place their spam messages in a separate folder or using any other e-mail client would need to characterize a message rule. We were amazed how BitDefender’s ability to not block any of the personal messages or valid bulk messages. In addition, while Kaspersky left about half of the unforgivable spam messages in the inbox, BitDefender managed to block all but just 13% of it. This is a very impressive performance for a suite and the best part about it is that, BitDefender manages to do this without any noticeable slowdown of the e-mail download process.
Firewall:
Now it is time to check out FireWall. BitDefender’s Firewall does the simple task of putting in all the ports in Stealth Mode in a flawless way. This means that the outside attackers will not be able to see your computer and the process also did not cause any sort of issues with file sharing. The firewall automatically configures access for known programs and asks you how to handle the unknown programs. Note that Norton, Kaspersky and most of the morden Firewalls make their own decision on the unknowns. With Internet access being restricted to only authorized programs, it would come as no surprise to see people getting sneaky trying to manipulate the same. When we challenged the suite with a collection innocuous programs for leak test which had the sneaky techniques that we had mentioned above, unfortunately Firewall did not block any of it in the initial stage. After we turned on the Intrusion Detection and also set the firewall for strict rules, it managed to block all of them with a whole lot more of pop-ups. When tested with the exploits that are generated by the core IMPACT penetration, none of the exploits managed to plant an agent on the system, but strangely BitDefender did not report on their activity. We hope most of you would agree that we would like to be reported if we are being attacked. Fortunately, BitDefender’s malware does not block its firewall. We tried our best to terminate its processes, tweak it off in registry and disable its services, but we were continuously surprised. It is certainly well protected which is the character of a very good standard Firewall. BitDefender’s Firewall is a standard one that does its basic functionalities without the added intelligence advantages found in its competitor suites like that of Norton 360 Version 3.0, Kaspersky and few others.
Impact on system:
As you must have observed, BitDefender went head on head with Kaspersky in most of the performance tests slowing down the boot time by 43% when compared to 45% of Kaspersky. This is definitely a great improvement taking into consideration that fact that this half the time of what BitDefender exhibited last year. The browsing speed was reduced by 29% which is not much higher than Kaspersky’ 22%. The automated Windows Installer takes 70% longer and the suite slowed down the file move and copy test by 23%. BitDefender had double the impact on zip and unzip when compared to Kaspersky. The first full scan with BitDefender takes 40 minutes while the average stands as 30 minutes. Since BitDefender makes use of an intelligent activity based system to avoid all the unnecessary rescanning of files and from then on, the subsequent scans just takes a couple of minutes.
Phishing Protection:
The Phishing Protection of BitDefender shows its warning in the browser itself rather than using a separate box. The suite came out on flying colours in the Phishing test by detecting most phishing sites. While few other suites execute private data protection by preventing broadcasting user’s data through e-mail, web form and IM, BitDefender’s way of implementing the same is more comprehensive and flexible. For instance, K7 and McAfee Total Protection 2009 among some others, reveals the stored private data to anybody with administrator access to the suite. Also BitDefender successfully manages to encrypt stored data and makes it all the more secure by never displaying the same. Few other things coming under privacy umbrella would include Script Control, Registry and Cookie that are by default disabled. On enabling this feature, you will get a pop up the very first time a program or website that makes changes in a specified area. But this feature is mostly for the high end techhies and not all would want to see the pop-ups.
Overall, the performance of BitDefender Total Security 2010 was heaps better than what we got out of it the last year and it as raised the bar as well.
Technical Support:
BitDefender offers free technical support during the full time of its license. They have also included a very neat in-product technical support that finds you answers for the commonly related technical questions. In addition to this, there are various other methods of procuring support from BitDefender online that would include downloading manuals, chat, an online knowledge base, forums, phone support or if any of this does not suit you, just fill in the online form that gives out a help ticket.
Ratings:
Nowadays, the antivirus suites do anything and everything to get good ratings from the testing labs and BitDefender is not an exception. Its antivirus technology has been certified for virus detection and removal by ICSA labs and West Coast Labs and the West Coast Labs adds its checkmark certification for detection of Torjans and general malware. However, BitDefender Total Security missed on the latest VB100% award due to a false positive but it is also notable that it won seven of the last ten tests. Its false positives also knocked down its ADVANCED+ rating from the AV-Comparatives.org. AV Test rated BitDefender very good at proactive malware detection with a fairly good rating for malware detection, rapid response time with minimal false positives. AV Test had rated the suite’s scan speed Satisfactory and weren’t too very happy with the Spyware detection giving it a poor rating.
Conclusion:
BitDefender Total Security 2010 Package is more streamlined and much easier to set up than the previous versions. The configuration wizard’s option to set up based on what kind of user you are from beginner to expert is very handy. It is particularly impressive when it comes to antispam, malware detection, privacy protection and parental controls as against many other leading brands. BitDefender also offers heaps of bonus features which are all security related and very useful. Though the suite affects the performance of the system more than Norton, it is a very good choice for all-round protection.
BitDefender Total Security 2010 – Technical Specification Table
| Lab | BitDefender |
| Software name | BitDefender Total Security 2010 |
| Suite type | All-in-one |
| License type | Complete package |
| License Validation period | One year |
| License quantity | Three users |
| Package type | Retail |
| Minimal System requirements | Windows XP SP2, Vista, Windows 7 800MHz processor RAM: 512 MB (Windows XP) 1 GB (Windows Vista and Windows 7) 450 MB available hard disk space Internet Explorer 6 |
| Recommended system requirements | Windows XP SP2, Vista, Windows 7 Intel CORE Duo (1.66 GHz) or equivalent processor RAM: 1GB (Windows XP and Windows 7) 1.5 GB (Windows Vista) 600 MB available hard disk space Internet Explorer 7 |
| Software Requirements | Yahoo Messenger 8.5 Windows Live Messenger 8 Firefox 2.5 Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 Outlook 2000, 2003, 2007 Outlook Express Windows Mail |
| Supported browsers | Internet Explorer and Firefox |
| Anti-Virus | Yes |
| FireWall | Yes |
| Anti-Spyware | Yes |
| Anti-Phishing | Yes |
| Anti-Spam | Yes |
| Special Operating Modes | Game Mode which reduces system load and postpones scans Laptop mode that prolongs battery life |
| Tune up | Removes unnecessary files & registry entries, for optimized performance |
| Data Backup | Yes |
| Other Key features | Advanced gamer mode Completely customizable Online backup IM encryption Flexible Firewall |
| Support | Assistance with common issues built directly into the product Free technical support for the entire duration of the product license |
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