BitDefender 8 Pro Plus
Security suites pop up at an alarming rate and though security scares are appearing even more rapidly, it’s still the case that what you really need for protection isn’t necessarily the same as what you’re advised to buy. For example, the version of the Windows Firewall supplied with Service Pack 2 may not be particularly great and certainly falls over in some key areas, but in most situations it’s good enough. Anti-virus programs make a huge deal of how fast they respond and how many bad guys they can catch. Yet most of the time you’re going to be covered for the major threats regardless of the big-brand ones you use. All this begs a key question: is it worth buying a dedicated suite, or playing mix and match with individual packages?
BitDefender mixes anti-virus with firewall, anti-spam and dialer blockers and almost everything else you could conceivably need, and it does it at a price that’s much more reasonable than the going rate. You get two years worth of upgrades rather than the normal one, for example. When it comes to the anti-virus portion, there’s little to quibble with. There are automated scans, scanning specific files and folders and inside archives, along with a handful of extra touches such as warning you if anything tries to slip itself into startup or make covert plays for your Registry. This part of things is solid enough, both in direct operation and staying out of your way when there’s nothing going on that needs your input.
The firewall, by contrast, is as weak as beer-flavoured tap water. It’s almost exclusively geared towards program control: in other words, worrying about which programs have access to the Internet. This is something that Service Pack 2 already does. You can assign open and closed ports for each, as well as quash dialers (although upgrading to broadband will do that for you), watch out for scripts and manage your cookies. However, we wouldn’t have the confidence to hide behind it in the event of a genuine attack, rather than finicky Trojans that you really shouldn’t be letting onto your system in the first place.
Antispam is rather more fully featured. Almost every mail client has its own anti-spam system, from blacklists to Bayesian filtering, and BitDefender does all of them simultaneously. For example, you get heuristic filtering to guess if something is spam, plus Bayesian to teach the system what you think qualifies. It won’t catch everything, but in fairness, nothing does – as it stands, even the best filter can only cut down. It’s a good addition if you’re running one of the more basic clients, such as Outlook Express, although your mileage may vary if you already have Thunderbird et al watching your back.
BitDefender touches enough of the basics to keep you safe from anything that you’re likely to run into on a day by day basis – certainly, the most important anti-virus part should leave you with nothing to worry about. However, as an overall suite you can certainly do better, provided that
you’re willing to stump up a bit more cash. We like the interface, we like the price, but it fails at the one key hurdle: we wouldn’t be comfortable installing it as our only line of defence, and these days you should accept nothing less.
[tags]BitDefender[/tags]