Yes, Windows has antivirus built in, but it isn’t the only free antivirus tool, nor is it the best. Bitdefender Free Antivirus for Windows gives you the same impressive malware-fighting power found in the company's commercial antivirus but without the wealth of bonus features. It’s worth a look if you need high-powered antivirus protection and nothing extra at the lowest possible price. For that same no-price, however, Avast One Essential protects all popular platforms, not just Windows, and adds firewall, VPN, and other bonuses. AVG AntiVirus has a firewall, too, plus many useful security features. These two are our Editors' Choice picks for free antivirus.
Installing Bitdefender Free
Getting Bitdefender Free running on your system is quick and easy. You need to sign up for a Bitdefender Central account to activate the product (or sign in if you already have one). Once you’ve activated your free subscription, you can install this product on up to three Windows devices. Since it’s free, you could spin up another account on a different email address to protect more PCs. Sorry, macOS, Android, and iOS devices need not apply.
After installation, the antivirus offers a Device Assessment, which includes a quick scan for malware and a scan for items left over from old infestations. For testing purposes, I skipped the assessment. There’s also an option to run it in the background while you start using the product.
Like other members of the Bitdefender product line, the free edition defaults to displaying a security dashboard with a left-rail menu that gives direct access to the app's features. Security recommendations occupy the top of the window, with a half-dozen Quick Action icons below. Only two of these, Quick Scan and System Scan, are enabled. The ability to choose from among other features for the remaining Quick Actions isn’t helpful in the free edition, as all the other possible choices are locked without an upgrade.
Similar Products
Avast One Basic
AVG AntiVirus Free
Avira Free Security
Microsoft Defender Antivirus
It would seem logical for this free antivirus to display the same features as Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, just locking away premium-only components. However, when you dig into the Protection, Privacy, and Utilities pages, you find that the free antivirus is more like a locked-down version of the Bitdefender Internet Security suite.
The Protection page in all three products includes Antivirus, Advanced Threat Defense, and Online Threat Prevention. All are enabled in the free edition. Vulnerability Scan and Ransomware Remediation also appear in all three, but the free edition locks them away. Finally, Firewall and Antispam, also locked in the free edition, don’t appear in the for-pay antivirus—only in the suite.
Everything on the Privacy page is locked: Safepay (a hardened browser for financial transactions), VPN, Video & Audio Protection, Anti-tracker, and Parental Control. The parental and video features simply don’t appear in the for-pay antivirus, though it adds Password Manager. Of course, in the full security suite, all these features are present and active.
The complete security suite presents five items on its Utilities page: Decryption Tools, Anti-Theft, OneClick Optimizer, Profiles, and Data Protection (a simple file shredder). All five are in the interface in free antivirus, reviewed here, and all but Decryption Tools are locked. Strangely, the for-pay antivirus doesn’t include Decryption Tools. Its Utilities page only displays Profiles and Data Protection.
Getting Started With Bitdefender
You should run a full scan right after installation to root out any malware that infested the system before you installed this antivirus. At the first full scan, Bitdefender warns that “due to its complexity, it might take a while to complete” but that subsequent scans should go much more quickly. Indeed, that initial scan took a phenomenally long time. The average initial full scan time for current apps is one hour 33 minutes. Bitdefender’s scan took three hours and 44 minutes.
As promised, the repeat scan was much faster, finishing in 7.5 minutes, a 97% improvement. Trend Micro matched that level of improvement, going from a 93-minute first scan to a three-minute repeat scan, which is roughly a 97% improvement.
For most users, Bitdefender’s lengthy initial scan won’t matter. I noticed it mainly because I didn’t dare do anything else with the test system while timing the scan process.
In theory, real-time protection should handle any malware problems after the full scan. Still, for an extra layer of security, you can schedule a daily, weekly, or monthly scan, scheduling quick, full, and custom scans separately.
The free edition still doesn’t let you use the Rescue Environment. This premium-only feature reboots the computer into a non-Windows platform suitable for removing even the most persistent malware. If you dig into the Advanced page of antivirus settings, you’ll find that everything is locked against changes except top-level control of the real-time antivirus shield.
Perfect Lab Results
While Bitdefender Free doesn't include every feature of the commercial edition, its core antivirus engine is the same as what the independent labs test. The labs make it clear that their results are only guaranteed for the precise product they tested. Still, it’s worth looking at the excellent scores the commercial edition earned.
Three of the four labs I follow include Bitdefender in their latest reports. In the three-part test regularly reported by AV-Test Institute, antivirus programs can earn up to six points each for effective protection, low impact on performance, and few usability problems (meaning false positives). Bitdefender earned a perfect 18 points in this lab’s latest test. Slightly over a third of the tested products manage that feat: Avast, Avira Free Security, and McAfee. Several others earned 17.5 points, which is sufficient to earn the moniker Top Product, including AVG, Microsoft, and Norton AntiVirus Plus.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure Online
The researchers at AV-Comparatives perform many tests; I follow three of them. Products that pass a test earn Standard certification, while those that go significantly beyond the minimum passing grade receive Advanced or even Advanced+ certification. Bitdefender took Advanced+ in the latest instances of all three tests, as did Avast Free Antivirus, AVG, Avira, and McAfee.
The tests performed by the experts at MRG-Effitas are a bit different from the rest. A product needs a perfect score to pass the lab's banking Trojans. Anything less counts as a failure. Another test using a wide variety of malware offers two passing levels. If a product 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, and Microsoft earned Level 1 in the latest run of this test; all but one of the others came in at Level 2. Half the products passed the banking-specific test, Bitdefender among them.
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 product with a real-world Web-based attack. Certification from this lab comes at five levels: AAA, AA, A, B, and C. Bitdefender has reached AAA certification in the past, but it wasn’t included in this lab’s latest test.
I have contrived an algorithm that maps all the test results onto a 10-point scale and returns an aggregate lab score for every product with results from at least two labs. Bitdefender, along with Kaspersky and Microsoft, earned a perfect 10-point aggregate score based on results from 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.
Mixed Malware Protection
Even when lab results are plentiful, I always run my own hands-on testing just to get a feel for the way a product handles malware. If I don’t get enough data from the labs, my hands-on malware protection test is the only way I can rate antivirus accuracy. In this case, the labs have already made it clear that Bitdefender’s technology is top-notch.
My hands-on malware protection test starts when I open a folder containing real-world malware samples I’ve collected and carefully analyzed. In many cases, the tiny file access required to get each file's name and properties is enough to trigger on-access scanning. If that doesn’t get the antivirus utility’s attention, I copy the files to a new folder. Occasionally, I encounter a product such as Guardio that only scans files when on download. And, of course, some real-time scanning systems don’t kick in until just before a file launches.
I noticed that Bitdefender quickly got to work when I opened the malware folder. A simple “Disinfection in progress” notification appeared and remained for about 15 minutes while samples gradually disappeared from the folder. When it finished, it reported its success. Simple.
However, as I proceeded with the full test, I found Bitdefender turned in a rather low score. Experimenting to see why that might be, I repeated the test but started by downloading the samples from the internet. The added kick of seeing the files coming from online gave Bitdefender’s behavior-based detection a boost and raised its final score.
To complete the malware protection test, I launched the samples that Bitdefender didn’t eliminate on sight. One way or another, it detected 91% of the samples and scored 8.6 of 10 possible points. Most products tested with this sample set scored better, topped by Malwarebytes and Guardio, with 9.8 points. Bitdefender’s score isn’t great, but when my results don’t jibe with those of the independent testing labs, I give the testing labs significantly more weight.
When Bitdefender defends against a malware attack, it pops up a small notification with an option to learn more about what happened. In many cases, the available information includes an attack timeline that shows just how the malware got onto your system and how far it got before Bitdefender nabbed it. It also includes an “alternative outcome” track, driving home the point that, without Bitdefender, the attack would have succeeded.
When I collect and curate a new set of malware samples for testing, I deliberately draw from samples that are a few months old so as not to disadvantage the first products tested with the new collection. I use the same samples for up to a year because it takes a great deal of time and effort to prepare a new set of real-world malware. On the other hand, my malicious URL blocking test uses only the latest and most current malware-hosting URLs, typically no more than a few days old.
This test starts with a feed of new discoveries generously supplied by MRG-Effitas. Each antivirus gets two chances to prevent malware from being downloaded from these URLs. It can block all access to the URL for full credit, or it can eliminate the malware payload during or after download, also for full credit. What I don’t want to see is a verified malicious program downloaded without any defensive action from the antivirus.
Bitdefender blocks access to nasty URLs below the browser level, so it doesn't have to install a browser extension. That capability blocked about half of the malware-hosting URLs. It wiped out the rest before the download could finish for a perfect score of 100% protection.
Bitdefender typically scores at or near the top in this test. It dipped inexplicably to 81% for my previous review but fully recovered this time. In their latest instances of this test, Guardio, Sophos Home Premium, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm also earned perfect scores.
Excellent Phishing Detection
The most perfect malware-detection system in the world can't help you if you fall for a phishing scam and give away your precious login credentials. Phishing websites masquerade as banks, online merchants, and even dating sites, and they do their best to entice you with a perfect replica of the actual login page. When you enter your credentials on the fake page, the fraudsters immediately own your account. Say goodbye to your bank balance or your game avatar’s valuable inventory. These fakes get caught and blacklisted quickly enough, but their owners just scoop up their winnings and move on.
I scrape phishing URLs from various reporting sites to test how well a product keeps its users safe from this kind of fraud. For testing, I collect verified phishing frauds and URLs so new that they haven't been analyzed and verified. I run the test simultaneously on the product under testing and on instances of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, relying on the phishing protection built into the three browsers.
I launch the URL in all four browsers for each suspected fraud and record the results. If any of the four can't load the URL, I discard it. If the page doesn't actively attempt to capture login credentials for a secure site, I discard it. After checking several hundred possible fraudulent URLs, I run the numbers.
On detecting a phishing page, Bitdefender correctly diverts the browser to a safe warning page, just as it does on finding a dangerous page. The warning page offers a brief explanation and allows a bold (or foolish) user to ignore the risk and visit the page regardless. In testing, I found that it identified most as Phishing pages, though some got flagged as Dangerous, Fraudulent, or Suspicious.
As with the malicious URL blocking test, Bitdefender’s scores in this test generally hover at or near 100%. In its most recent previous two tests, it scored 100% and 99%; this time around, it managed 98%. That’s from 20 to 30 percentage points better than the browsers alone. The 100% winners’ circle is occupied by Guardio, McAfee AntiVirus Plus, Norton, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm.
Effective Ransomware Recognition
I mentioned earlier that Ransomware Remediation is one of the many premium-only features locked away out of reach for free users. You might think that means the free edition doesn’t protect against ransomware, but the behavior-based Advanced Threat Defense actually fends off ransomware quite effectively.
To test Bitdefender’s ransomware defense, I rolled back the test virtual machine to a snapshot just after the antivirus installation. I quickly turned off Bitdefender Shield, the main real-time protection component. After cutting all connections between the test virtual machine and the internet, I tried launching a dozen real-world ransomware attacks. All but one of the samples were the familiar file-encrypting type. The odd man out encrypts your entire drive, effectively bricking the computer until you pay up.
Two of the ransomware samples didn’t do anything. No behavior means no behavior-based detection; it also means your files aren’t harmed. In every other case, including the disk-encrypting one, Advanced Threat Defense caught and neutralized the ransomware before it could damage any files.
In this test, I didn’t miss the locked-away Ransomware Remediation at all. That feature would have kicked in if one of the samples sleazed past other layers of protection and managed to encrypt some files. But that didn’t happen.
I should mention one more ransomware-related feature, the one titled Decryption Tools. This one is pretty much pointless. It includes tools to decrypt files ransomed by three known ransomware types, dated 2018, 2020, and 2021. You can get Bitdefender’s latest ransomware file decryption tools online at no charge.
What's Not in Bitdefender Free?
I've described everything Bitdefender Free does, but the feature list of the full, premium Bitdefender Antivirus goes far beyond this. Please read my review for all the details on what you get by paying for the full edition. Among other things, paying customers get a full password manager that replaces the previous Bitdefender Wallet, the Safepay protection system to prevent interference with online financial transactions, an Anti-Tracker tool for your browsers, a secure deletion File Shredder, and ransomware remediation in case ransomware manages to damage some files before being defeated.
You’ll find quite a few other features that are locked away in the free edition but not even visible in the for-pay antivirus. Anti-theft, Antispam, Decryption Tools, Firewall, OneClick Optimizer, Parental Control, and Video & Audio Protection all show up locked in Bitdefender Antivirus Free but don’t appear as available features unless you upgrade to Bitdefender Internet Security.
Capable Basic Protection
Bitdefender Antivirus Free for Windows lacks the advanced features that make its for-pay sibling almost a suite. Still, it does contain the same core protection against malware, malicious websites, and fraudulent sites. Avast One Essential protects Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices. It includes a firewall, a bandwidth-limited VPN, and various privacy-protection features. AVG AntiVirus Free also brings a firewall and useful bonus features to the party. These two are our Editors’ Choice winners for free antivirus, though Bitdefender is also very good.
Bitdefender Antivirus Free for Windows offers the same core technology found in the commercial version, focusing on the essential task of antivirus protection with minimal add-ons.
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