As its name suggests, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus handles all the antivirus basics and goes far beyond that with a collection of additional security features that could take on many security suites and win. These include effective ransomware defense, a hardened browser for online banking, a scan for missing security patches, an effective ad-tracking blocker, and more. The app excelled in both independent lab tests and our testing. As such, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is a five-star Editors' Choice winner for protecting your PC's security. Norton AntiVirus Plus, our other Editors’ Choice, also goes beyond mere antivirus. You won’t go wrong picking either of these paragons.
How Much Does Bitdefender Antivirus Plus Cost?
At $39.99 per year for one license, Bitdefender's pricing sits right at the median. A half-dozen others go for roughly the same price, among them Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus, Trend Micro, and ESET NOD32 Antivirus. For that same price you get three G Data Antivirus licenses; three Bitdefender licenses will run you $59.99 per year.
You can also choose five Bitdefender licenses for $69.99, the median price at the five-license level. Just $10 more, $79.99, gets you 10 licenses. That’s about $20 lower than the median price for 10 licenses—you’re paying just $8 per device.
Speaking of per-device prices, you really can’t beat McAfee AntiVirus. For $64.99 per year, five bucks more than Bitdefender's three-license price, you can protect every Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and even ChromeOS device in your household. But overall, Bitdefender’s pricing is about what you'd expect for top-notch antivirus protection.
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Getting Started With Bitdefender
Like many security companies, Bitdefender is increasingly focused on its web-based dashboard, which is called Bitdefender Central. The easiest way to get started is to apply an activation code to your Bitdefender Central account. From the dashboard, you can download protection for the computer you’re using or email a link to install it on another PC.
From Bitdefender Central, you can review your subscriptions and protected devices. This is also where you manage identity theft protection, whether standalone or associated with a high-end Bitdefender suite. It also provides access to the separate Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection service. Dig into Bitdefender Central, install your antivirus, and you’re ready to go.
Bitdefender's main window displays a security dashboard with a left-rail menu that offers access to various feature categories. Security recommendations from the AutoPilot system occupy the top of the window, with a sextet of what it calls Quick Actions below. The default Quick Actions features let you launch a quick system or vulnerability scan, open the VPN, and configure Safepay online protection. The sixth button lets you swap features in and out from the Quick Actions area.
Clicking Protection, Privacy, or Utilities in the left menu brings up detailed pages of features and settings. For example, the Protection page holds the antivirus and vulnerability scans, among other features. The Anti-Tracker and VPN are among the items on the Privacy page. Under Utilities, you can use the File Shredder or configure the Profiles system for automated configuration.
For many years, Bitdefender's Autopilot mode quietly handled security issues without any user intervention from me. Currently, Autopilot takes a more visible role. The aim is to make sure you get the full benefit of its many features. For example, during this review, it suggested I enable Ransomware Remediation and address some configuration problems the vulnerability scan found. Autopilot might also suggest that you explore the password manager or that you check the privacy of your online accounts.
First and Scheduled Scans
Whenever you install a new antivirus, you should run the deepest scan it offers to make sure nothing is lurking before protection arrives. Bitdefender’s system scan warns that it might take quite a long time, and it did, setting a new record, finishing in 3:42 (hours:minutes). A repeat scan brought that time down to 7.5 minutes, cutting almost 97% of the time required. In any case, you’ll only run that first scan once.
In theory, real-time protection should handle any malware problems after the full scan. For an extra layer of security, you can schedule a daily, weekly, or monthly scan, setting the schedule for quick, full, and custom scans separately.
Perfect Lab Test Scores
Three of the four independent antivirus testing labs I follow include Bitdefender in their testing. The researchers at AV-Comparatives perform several tests; I follow three of those. Antivirus tools that pass a test earn Standard certification, while those that do significantly more than the minimum receive Advanced or even Advanced+ certification. Bitdefender holds Advanced+ certification in all three tests. Only a few others match this feat: Avast, Avira, and AVG.
In the three-part test regularly reported by AV-Test Institute, each antivirus can earn up to six points for accurate protection against malware, little effect on performance, and good usability (defined as minimal false positives). Bitdefender and about a third of the tested antiviruses earned a perfect 18 points in this test. Another third reached 17.5 points, enough to earn them the title Top Product. The tests performed by the experts at MRG-Effitas are a bit different from the rest. An antivirus needs a perfect score to pass this lab's banking Trojans test—anything less is a failure. Another test using a wide variety of malware offers two passing levels. If the antivirus blocks every malware installation attempt, it passes at Level 1. If some malware gets through but is eliminated within 24 hours, that earns Level 2. Anything else is a failure. Only Bitdefender, Malwarebytes Premium, and Microsoft earned Level 1 in the latest run of this test; all but one of the others passed at Level 2. Half the antiviruses passed the banking-specific test, Bitdefender among them.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure Online
SE Labs attempts to simulate the real world of malware as closely as possible for testing purposes, using a capture/replay system to present each antivirus with a real-world, web-based attack. Certification from this lab comes at five levels: AAA, AA, A, B, and C. Bitdefender earned AAA certification in several recent reports, but it doesn’t appear in the very latest.
I’ve devised an algorithm that normalizes all the test results onto a 10-point scale and returns an aggregate lab score for any antivirus with results from at least two labs. Bitdefender, along with Kaspersky and Microsoft, earned a perfect 10-point aggregate score based on results from all three labs. Only Norton, Avast, and Microsoft Defender Antivirus appear in the latest reports from all four labs, with scores of 9.7, 9.6, and 9.0, respectively.
Mostly High Malware Protection Scores
Even though the labs heap praise on Bitdefender, I still need the direct experience provided by my hands-on malware protection test. This test starts when I open the folder containing an eclectic collection of malware samples I curated and analyzed myself. When I opened the folder, Bitdefender displayed a notification saying, "Disinfection in progress… please wait until complete."
When the antivirus finished, it offered a link to display its accomplishments. From this detailed view, Bitdefender provides a timeline of the most active attacks. You might see a certain malicious program get launched from Internet Explorer, then launch another program, which Bitdefender then catches. The timeline also shows the scary alternate route that would’ve happened without Bitdefender’s intervention.
Initially, Bitdefender earned a low score on this test, low enough that I went looking for problems. I tried different methods to trigger its real-time protection. Copying the malware samples to a separate folder didn’t do the trick, but Bitdefender scored much better when I downloaded the samples from an online location. Downloading them from the web probably gave the behavior-based detection system an added clue that they might be dangerous.
Real-time protection eliminated 81% of the samples. I continued the test by launching those samples that survived this initial culling. Bitdefender caught a few of the remaining samples at or shortly after launch, though it didn't always prevent the installer from planting executable files on the test system. Bitdefender detected 91% of the samples and scored 8.6 of 10 possible points, which is a bit low. Most antivirus utilities tested with this same sample set scored better, topped by Malwarebytes and Guardio with 9.8 points each. However, when the labs rate an antivirus as excellent, I give their results more weight than my hands-on tests.
Because gathering and analyzing real-world malware takes significant time and effort, I use each such sample set for months. To check how well an antivirus handles the latest attacks, I use a feed of malware-hosting URLs supplied by London-based testing firm MRG-Effitas. Typically, these are no more than a day or two old. I launch each one in turn, discarding any already-defunct URLs, and record whether the antivirus diverts the browser from the dangerous URL eliminates the malicious download, or sits on its hands idly, doing nothing.
In my previous review, Bitdefender earned an unusually low score, just 82% protection. This time, it returned to its usual style of perfect or near-perfect scores. It managed 100% protection, blocking access to roughly half the dangerous URLs and eliminating the malware downloads for the other half. Guardio, Sophos Home Premium, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm also reached 100% in their latest instances of this test.
Excellent Phishing Protection
Malware attacks your computer, or your data, to rake in cash for its creators, but writing malicious code to get past modern antivirus tools isn’t a feat for amateur coders. Phishing attacks go straight for the most vulnerable component—you, the user. No elaborate system-level coding is required; they just need to make a duplicate of a banking site or other sensitive page that’s convincing enough to fool at least some of the site’s users. Once you log in to the fake, the fraudsters own your account. These fraudulent sites quickly get blocklisted and taken down, but the phishers just build new ones. Yes, sharp-eyed netizens can learn to spot these fakes, but it’s nice to have help from your antivirus.
Any competent coder could put together a protective system that steers browsers away from sites on a phishing blocklist, but that's not enough. A truly effective phishing protection system analyzes pages for signs of fraud and blocks even those too new to be blocklisted. Some phishing defenses distinguish between blocklisted sites and those identified by analysis. While Bitdefender's Online Threat Protection doesn’t make that distinction, it proved quite effective in my testing.
I prepare for this test by scouring phishing-analysis sites for the latest reported frauds, making sure to get a good number of them that are too new for the blocklists. I launch each in four browsers. The antivirus under test protects one, while the other three rely on protection built into Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. If one or more browsers can't load a page, I discard it. If the page isn't clearly attempting to steal login credentials, I toss it. When I have enough data points, I run the numbers.
Bitdefender detected and deflected 98% of the verified phishing frauds, which is excellent. Tested at the same time, Bitdefender’s Mac antivirus earned precisely the same score. Topping the list of latest scores, these competitors reached 100%: Guardio, McAfee, Norton Genie, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm.
Network Threat Prevention
Bitdefender’s Network Threat Protection component works alongside Online Threat Protection to detect and fend off attacks on security vulnerabilities in the operating system and popular applications. This protection is more commonly associated with a firewall, but a few antiviruses, such as Bitdefender and Norton, include it.
I bombarded the test system with 30-odd exploits generated by the CORE Impact penetration tool to see this feature in action. This collection includes exploits aimed at Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, and several Adobe utilities. Bitdefender wiped out one exploit payload and blocked more than half the rest of them as dangerous, for a total of 52% detection.
Some antiviruses flag exploits using their official CVE name. Bitdefender didn’t do so in its in-browser warnings, but when I checked the logs, I found that Bitdefender identified more than half of the attacks by the official name.
Bitdefender’s 52% detection is the best score in recent tests. G Data scored just fractionally higher than Bitdefender. With 55% detection, Vipre Advanced Security holds the current top score. Note that none of the exploits succeeded in breaching the fully patched test system. Exploit protection isn't a core antivirus component, especially if you keep your operating system and applications up to date, but in Bitdefender's case, it's a nice bonus.
Additional Browser Protection
In addition to its visible protection against dangerous and fraudulent websites, Bitdefender also includes an Anti-Tracker component. Anti-Tracker installs as a browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Check to make sure it’s installed in all the browsers you use.
When you visit a site containing ad trackers, site analytics, or other trackers, Bitdefender puts the number of trackers on the extension's toolbar icon. By default, its active Do Not Track system blocks them all. You can click for a summary by category, which includes an estimate of the page load time saved. And you can disable the blocking of specific categories. You can find similar Do Not Track functionality in various security tools, including Abine Blur Premium, Avast, and Trend Micro.
Note that you no longer need to install the separate Traffic Light extension, as the online threat protection system handles the task of marking up search results with colored icons: green for safe, red for dangerous, and gray for not yet checked. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac still uses TrafficLight. Search results markup proved uneven. I found that, with some combinations of browser and search engine, Bitdefender correctly marked up the results. Other browser/engine combinations got no markup. My Bitdefender contact explained that the markup system still isn’t compatible with some newer technologies, particularly Google’s QUIC protocol. Markup or not, Bitdefender keeps you from visiting any pages that pose a danger.
Multilayered Ransomware Protection
No antivirus is perfect. They all occasionally miss a brand-new attack. Sure, within a few days, most security companies will push out an update that eliminates the new threat, but once ransomware has wrecked your files, that’s no help. Bitdefender has been on the cutting edge of ransomware protection, and the current edition includes several layers of protection against pernicious ransomware that aims to protect you even against brand-new types of ransomware.
The Advanced Threat Defense feature supplements regular antivirus scanning with behavior-based detection, including the detection of ransomware behavior. Network Threat Prevention blocks the exploit avenues some ransomware attacks rely on. At the first hint of a possible ransomware attack, Ransomware Remediation backs up important files, restoring them after Bitdefender neutralizes the attack.
Ransomware necessarily modifies your important files, replacing them with encrypted versions. One simple defense is to ban all changes to files in protected locations unless the program making the change is authorized. Avast Premium Security, Panda, and Trend Micro are among the suites that employ this type of ransomware protection. On detecting a new program, whether it’s a new image editor you installed or a ransomware attacker, Safe Files would ask you whether to trust the program.
There are a few problems with this technique. First, it adds a speed bump whenever you edit files with a new valid program. Second, and more important, it relies on the user to decide whether a file is trustworthy. Maybe you weren’t paying attention. Maybe your finger slipped, and you clicked Allow by accident. You could accidentally release an attack. That’s why Bitdefender retired Safe Files, relying instead on its enhanced Ransomware Remediation and Advanced Threat Defense.
Testing this protection layer isn’t easy. The Bitdefender Shield, real-time protection components, wiped out all my actual ransomware samples on sight. For testing purposes, I reverted the virtual machine to a snapshot before that initial cleanup and turned off Bitdefender Shield real-time protection. I did make sure to leave Advanced Threat Defense and Ransomware Remediation active.
Nearly all my ransomware samples are the common file-encrypting type, though I have one whole-disk encryptor. Advanced Threat Defense handled all the file-encrypting samples, though I didn’t see any sign of Ransomware Remediation. Bitdefender even caught the nasty Petya ransomware before it could encrypt the virtual machine’s drive. The only survivors were two that didn’t attempt to encrypt any files. With no suspicious behavior, there’s no behavior-based detection.
I've occasionally run across ransomware protection systems that don't start early enough at boot time and hence might ransomware loaded at startup. To check Bitdefender's boot-time protection, I copied several samples that triggered protection into the Startup folder and rebooted. Bitdefender eliminated them all.
I also tried running KnowBe4's RanSim ransomware simulator. Advanced Threat Detection eliminated the simulator’s essential components, making it impossible to get detailed reports, which is a fine result.
Ransomware-specific protection components are showing up in more and more antivirus utilities, but most don't go as far as Bitdefender. Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security is among the few others with a multilayer approach. It blocks unauthorized changes to protected files, detects ransomware behavior, and restores any encrypted files before the behavior-based detection kicks in. Webroot uses behavior-based detection, and its journal-and-rollback system for handling the behavior of unknown files can even reverse the effects of ransomware, magically restoring your encrypted files.
I should point out that Bitdefender’s free antivirus performed equally well in this test—the same results. It lacks the Ransomware Remediation component, but in testing, that component’s abilities were never needed.
Password Manager Trial
Bitdefender offers a complete, standalone password manager for $29.99 per year. Only those elite users who choose Bitdefender Ultimate Security or Bitdefender Premium Security get access to it as part of their security suite. In the past, those using Bitdefender Antivirus or a lesser Bitdefender suite had to make do with the antiquated Bitdefender Wallet. More recently, Bitdefender retired the tired Wallet app. If you click the box for Password Manager in the antivirus, you now only get an offer for a three-month free trial.
Choosing a password manager is a serious commitment since you’ll be relying on it for a long time. Go ahead and examine the free trial, but don’t get too invested unless you’re quite sure you’ll be converting to a paid user at the end of three months. And before making that decision, take a survey of the available password managers. The best free password managers have features that Bitdefender lacks.
A Limited VPN
Bitdefender's many layers of antivirus, web, and network protection keep you, your devices, and your data safe. However, when you connect to the internet, your data in transit could be at risk. To ensure privacy for your data, you need a VPN (virtual private network). When you connect using a VPN, nobody, not even the owner of the shady Wi-Fi network you're using, can access your network traffic, and you'll be harder to track as you move across the web.
As a separate product, Bitdefender Premium VPN lists for $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, both a bit lower than the average. If you upgrade to Premium from within the feature-limited VPN that comes with this antivirus, you get $35 off the first year’s rate, making it an even better deal. At the high end of the spectrum, Bitdefender Ultimate combines the top-tier Bitdefender Total Security with Bitdefender Premium VPN, Bitdefender Password Manager, and the company’s identity theft monitoring and remediation system.
The Bitdefender VPN displays a world map as its background. When you’re connected, the map centers on the VPN server location. But don’t imagine you’ll see it focusing on faraway places. Clicking the Locations link at the bottom left reveals that choosing a specific server location worldwide is a feature reserved for paying customers. Those at the basic level, supplied with this antivirus, must accept whatever server the VPN chooses. Basic users also see a counter at the top right showing how much of the current day’s 200MB of bandwidth remains. In testing, I found that 15 minutes of watching random videos ate up about a quarter of my daily allowance.
The bandwidth counter sits atop a stack of other statistics panels. You see how much time you’ve been connected, how much you’ve used the VPN during the last week, and the amount of secured upload and download traffic. One panel shows the IP address of your VPN server—websites you visit will see that address, not your real one. You can quickly configure the VPN's ad-blocking and kill-switch features.
Kill switch sounds violent, but it’s an important VPN security feature. If the VPN connection drops, it simply cuts the unprotected internet connection until the VPN comes back online. Bitdefender also offers split tunneling, meaning you can exempt certain websites from VPN protection, perhaps sites that are very sensitive to connection speed. There’s also an unusually comprehensive collection of Autoconnect options. You can have the VPN connect automatically at startup, when you log into unsecured Wi-Fi, when you use peer-to-peer sharing, or when you connect with specific apps, domains, or website categories.
Streaming services like Netflix don’t always get along with VPNs because a VPN user can spoof their device location to get around location-based content limitations. Premium users get access to servers that are specially configured to support streaming (and avoid being caught).
Bitdefender licenses its VPN technology from Aura's Hotspot Shield VPN. It boasts servers in more than 50 countries, with a good global spread. Server locations matter, partly because a bigger collection of locations means more options for spoofing your location, but mostly because a closer server will usually yield better speed and lower latency.
In the past, Bitdefender’s VPN has strictly relied on Hotspot Shield’s Catapult Hydra communication protocol. At PCMag, we prefer OpenVPN and WireGuard, both of which have the advantage of being open-source and picked over for potential vulnerabilities. As of this writing, Bitdefender is preparing to roll out WireGuard support. My contact at the company says, “The existing userbase should be covered with this version by the end of the year.”
A major concern with using a VPN is its impact on internet connection speeds. Using the Ookla speed test tool, we find a percent change between speed test results with and without the VPN. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) Bitdefender’s impact on the all-important download speed was slightly higher than the median of current VPNs, as was its impact on upload speed. It didn’t increase latency as much as most competitors, though. It’s important to remember variations in network traffic can affect speed test results. The fastest VPN today may not be the fastest tomorrow; the fastest VPN in New York may not be the fastest VPN in Las Vegas. We don’t recommend choosing a VPN on speed alone.
Unless you spring for a Premium VPN subscription, you’ll have to be sparing with your use of the VPN. As noted, using up your daily limit of 200MB doesn't take long, especially if you’re doing streaming or other data-intensive activities. Your best bet is to leave all the Autoconnect options turned off, relying on Bitdefender to suggest enabling the VPN when you visit websites in categories like Financial, Online Payments, or Health.
You might also consider Norton 360 Deluxe if you want powerful security with VPN protection. At $119.99 per year for five licenses, it's more expensive than Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, which charges $69.99 for the same number. However, with Norton, you get a VPN without limits at no extra charge. Furthermore, Norton 360 is a complete security suite with a firewall, parental control, hosted storage for your online backups, and more.
Safepay to Protect Financial Transactions
Online security is important—even for watching esports online or posting pictures of your pet chinchilla, but it's critical when you log in to a financial website. Bitdefender's Safepay automatically offers protection when it detects you're about to connect with a banking site or other sensitive site. You can tell it to always use Safepay on the site in question or never use it for that site.
Safepay is a desktop all its own, with a hardened browser built in. Processes running within the Safepay desktop have no connection with the regular desktop. The Safepay browser supports the password manager, naturally, but other extensions aren’t welcome.
The Safepay browser's process isolation should protect against any software keylogger or other keystroke-stealing spyware. A virtual keyboard goes beyond that, defeating even hardware keyloggers. It also prevents programs from snapping screenshots to capture sensitive information. In testing, I found SafePay prevented me from getting a screenshot of the desktop. Instead, I had to snap an image from the virtual machine host. You can optionally configure Bitdefender to activate the VPN any time Safepay is in use for enhanced protection. Just keep an eye on the daily bandwidth usage.
I tested Safepay by trying to log into a dozen financial sites, some big, some small, but I couldn’t nudge it into action. My Bitdefender contacts explained that they’ve cut back on notifications, given that visiting a financial site could trigger a flurry of notifications from Safepay, the password manager, and the VPN. In any case, you're free to open the Safepay browser and navigate to whatever site you want secured. Be sure to bookmark the financial sites you use regularly and check the box “Automatically open in Safepay.”
Competitors handle financial transaction protection in a variety of ways. Banking protection in F-Secure, for example, doesn’t operate on a separate desktop, but when it kicks in for a financial site, it blocks all other connections. G Data’s BankGuard is invisible, making it hard to test. And AVG offers protection specific to malicious browser extensions. Safepay seems the toughest of this group.
Even More Features
The list of features packed into this antivirus goes on and on. The vulnerability scan feature automatically runs in the background. It warns you about Windows security updates you haven’t installed, missing security patches for popular apps, weak Windows account passwords, and more. You’re likely to see warnings about these in the AutoPilot panel of the main window. The related Wi-Fi Security Advisor warns about any security problems with your home, office, or public Wi-Fi hotspots, advising you to use the VPN as necessary.
One smart way to protect your most sensitive documents is to encrypt them. After encryption, it's essential to delete the unsecured original securely enough to avoid even forensic recovery. Bitdefender reserves file encryption technology for its security suites, but the secure deletion File Shredder is present even in the antivirus. Use it when you really need to eliminate a sensitive file to the point that nobody, not even the NSA, can recover it.
Sometimes, you run into malware that is so ornery and persistent that even Bitdefender can't remove it. The typical solution in a case like this is to burn a bootable rescue disc that runs a non-Windows operating system. Bitdefender does better with its Rescue Environment. You don't have to burn a disc; select Rescue Environment and reboot. Windows malware can't defend itself when Windows isn't running.
Bitdefender has long included configuration profiles for different types of activity. For example, the Work profile boosts email protection and system performance, while the Movie profile suppresses notifications and limits background activity. The current edition brings this feature to prominence, popping up a reminder that enabling it can optimize your experience.
A Top Antivirus Choice
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus offers excellent malware protection, as shown by its perfect scores from three independent testing labs. Our tests show it to be especially effective at detecting phishing sites and defending against malware-hosting sites. For extra defense against ransomware, it watches for ransomware-like behavior and restores any files that may have been encrypted before behavior-based detection kicked in. On top of that, it piles on enough features that it could qualify as a security suite. As reflected in its rare five-star rating, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is a truly excellent app. It's also an Editors' Choice winner, an honor it shares with Norton AntiVirus Plus. Like Bitdefender, Norton gets excellent lab scores and boasts a collection of security features that outshines many security suites.
With perfect antivirus lab results and a collection of features that puts many full security suites to shame, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is a top choice for protecting your PC.
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