Bitdefender Premium Security
As effective as Microsoft Defender, but packed with extra features, if you need them
PRICE (10 devices) First year, £42 (£50 inc VAT), renewal £100 (£120 inc VAT)
from bitdefender.co.uk
Bitdefender’s security suites are eminently easy to live with, from its Free Antivirus suite to this fully loaded Premium Security bundle, which includes Total Security for Windows, parental controls, a VPN and a password manager.
There’s also the Bitdefender Central online management portal, where you can monitor the status of devices, find them if they’re lost or stolen, and view somewhat invasive activity summaries for any child accounts that you’ve activated parental controls for.
It’s a capable overall package, but Bitdefender’s performance in tests isn’t quite as good as some rivals: it most recently got a 99% protection rating from SE Labs, 99.7% from AV Comparatives, and while it detected all malware in AV-Test’s latest tests, it registered a few false positives.
The client’s main page shows the status of your real-time protection and provides shortcuts for scanning, a VPN, a secure browser and a customisable quick action for anything you might use regularly.
Protection tools include a dedicated firewall, email scanning, web content protection, whitelistbased webcam and mic protection, and a Ransomware Remediation module that creates a local backup of files when it detects an untrusted program trying to access them.
There’s also a secure file shredder, system optimiser and Safepay, a hardened browser for online financial transactions. And silent detection modes are automatically enabled when Bitdefender spots you watching something at full screen or playing a game. They can also be activated manually, and even configured to halt Windows Updates.
Standalone components such as the VPN – a white-label version of Hotspot Shield – and password manager are installed separately, via shortcuts in the main desktop client. Like most bundled VPNs, you can only use the VPN via Bitdefender’s apps. Bitdefender’s home-grown password manager is perfectly effective, and its extensions have a pleasing interface that’s reminiscent of 1Password.
If you like the Bitdefender interface and package there are good reasons to choose it (although look at McAfee or Norton 360 Advanced too), especially at its first year price. But watch out for that expensive auto-renewal.