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CNET editors' rating:
3.5 stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 26 reviews
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Product summary
The good: BitDefender Antivirus 2008 protects against viruses, spyware, phishing attacks, and rootkits, and performs well on third-party, independent antivirus tests.
The bad: The application configuration options are often either "enable" or "disable"--we'd like more options.
The bottom line: BitDefender Antivirus 2008 has greatly improved since last year; we'd like more access to configuration options beyond simple enabling and disabling features.
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 09/11/2007
- Released on: 08/23/2007
Setup
BitDefender Antivirus 2008 costs $24.95 for a single license and $29.95 for a three-user license. By comparison, Norton Antivirus 2008 costs $39.95 for a single-user license (there are no three-user versions of NAV 2008). BitDefender Antivirus 2008 runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. BitDefender Antivirus 2008 requires 512MB of RAM and at least 50MB of hard-drive space. The trial version is full-function and runs for 24 days.
We experienced no problems during several installations during the end of August 2007. Installation requires a reboot.
Should you want to uninstall BitDefender Antivirus 2008, the All Programs menu includes an uninstall option. After reboot we could find no traces of BitDefender Antivirus 2008 left on our test system.
Interface
BitDefender Antivirus 2008 opts for a no-nonsense interface. Should there be any security issues, one of the large icons will display red. For remediation there's a large Fix This button, or you can click the specific graphic to see what's wrong. We experienced only minor issues with this approach.
Upon installation, our Identity Privacy icon displayed red. Clicking either the Fix This Issue button or the Identity Privacy icon took us to a rule creation page. Now what? To get the Identity Privacy icon to go green, we either had to create a rule or turn off the feature, yet we were not given enough information to make that choice. Keeping Identity Privacy enabled assumes that you are comfortable providing personal details such as passwords and credit card information. Rather than fill out real information, we created a faux Social Security number of 123-45-6789 to satisfy BitDefender's request without disabling the feature. For the moment, the icon is green, but we're on the fence whether to keep the Identity Privacy feature enabled or disable it completely.
Features
BitDefender Antivirus 2008 covers a lot of ground, protecting your system from viruses, spyware, privacy breaches, phishing attacks, and rootkits. And BitDefender is the only antivirus product we've seen that advertises a Gamer mode, minimizing protection alerts and resources while you're off playing games.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 26 reviews
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