Pros & Cons
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- Excellent scores in independent lab tests
- Perfect defense against phishing fraud
- Multi-layered ransomware protection
- Isolated browser for banking safety
- Prevents advertisers from tracking you
- Many security-centered bonus features
- Protection for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS
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- Mediocre score in hands-on malware blocking test
- Full VPN access requires a separate subscription
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus Specs
| Behavior-Based Detection | |
| Malicious URL Blocking | |
| On-Access Malware Scan | |
| On-Demand Malware Scan | |
| Phishing Protection | |
| Protection Type | Antivirus |
| Ransomware Behavior Detection | |
| Ransomware Protection | |
| Recover Files | |
| VPN | Limited |
| Vulnerability Scan | |
| Website Rating |
Eliminating malware problems and preventing future attacks are core antivirus competencies, but Bitdefender Antivirus Plus goes far beyond those fundamentals. With features including effective ransomware defense, a hardened browser for online banking, a scan for missing security patches, an effective ad-tracking blocker, and more, you might mistake it for a security suite. Bitdefender excels in independent lab tests and in most of our hands-on tests. It easily earns our Editors' Choice award for antivirus protection alongside Norton AntiVirus Plus, which also offers more than basic features. You won’t go wrong with either of these paragons.
How Much Does Bitdefender Antivirus Plus Cost?
At $49.99 per year for one license, Bitdefender’s pricing matches McAfee AntiVirus, which means it’s on the high side. (You can read our full comparison between Bitdefender and McAfee here.) Norton charges more, $59.99 per year for a single license, but the most common price is just below $40. Several competitors go for that price, including ESET NOD32 Antivirus, Emsisoft Anti-Malware, and Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security. With G Data Antivirus, that almost-$40 price gets you three licenses, while three Bitdefender licenses run $69.99 per year.
If you want more than three Bitdefender licenses, you must opt for one of the company’s suites, which come in five-license individual versions or 25-license family versions.
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 device.
From Bitdefender Central, you can review your subscriptions and protected devices. This is also where you manage identity theft protection, whether it’s Bitdefender’s standalone service 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.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)Bitdefender's main window displays a security dashboard with a left-hand rail menu that provides access to various feature categories. Security recommendations from the AutoPilot system fill the top of the window, with a sextet of Quick Actions below. The default Quick Actions features let you launch a quick scan, system scan, or vulnerability scan, open the VPN, and invoke the Safepay hardened browser. The sixth button lets you swap features in and out of the Quick Actions area. This option makes a bit more sense for Bitdefender’s suite products. With the antivirus, the only feature to add is the file shredder.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)Clicking Protection, Privacy, or Utilities in the left menu opens detailed pages with 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 permanently erase files with the File Shredder or configure the Profiles system for automated configuration.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)For many years, Bitdefender's Autopilot mode has quietly handled security issues without any user intervention. Autopilot still does that, but it also takes a more visible role. The aim is to ensure 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.
First and Scheduled Scans
At the end of the installation process, Bitdefender asks permission to run a system assessment, which includes a quick scan. In testing, I found that the quick scan did not detect nearly 100 malware samples stored in desktop folders. Whenever you install a new antivirus, you should run the deepest scan it offers to wipe out any lurking traces of malware. The device assessment scan is not sufficient.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)Bitdefender’s system scan warns that it might take quite a long time, and indeed, it has previously set records. This time, though, it finished in 189 minutes, slightly above the current average of 116 minutes. A repeat scan brought the time down to 9.5 minutes, cutting it by about 93%.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)In theory, real-time protection should address any malware issues after the full scan. For an extra layer of security, you can schedule a scan to run daily, weekly, or monthly, or at startup, and set separate schedules for quick, full, and custom scans.
Near-Perfect Lab Test Scores
Four of the five independent antivirus testing labs I follow include Bitdefender in their regular testing regimens. The researchers at AV-Comparatives perform many 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 took Advanced+ in two of the latest three tests but just reached Advanced in the performance test. Avast One Basic, AVG AntiVirus Free, ESET, and Norton took Advanced+ in all three tests, a feat Bitdefender has often accomplished in past years.
In the three-part test regularly reported by AV-Test Institute, each antivirus can earn up to 6 points for accurate protection against malware, minimal performance impact, and good usability (defined as minimal false positives). About two-thirds of the tested products scored a perfect 18 points, including Bitdefender, Avast, Avira Free Security, and ESET.
The main test performed by the experts at MRG-Effitas 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. In the latest test, Avast, Bitdefender, and Microsoft Defender Antivirus managed Level 2, while ESET, Malwarebytes Premium Security, and Norton reached Level 1.
Certification from SE Labs comes in five levels: AAA, AA, A, B, and C. Bitdefender earned AAA certification in several recent reports, but it doesn’t appear in the most recent one.
AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation presents scores as a simple percentage of in-the-wild malware caught. In its most recent test, Bitdefender, along with all competitors except Trend Micro, reached 100%.
I’ve devised an algorithm that normalizes all the test results onto a 10-point scale and returns an aggregate lab score. Based on scores from four labs, Bitdefender’s aggregate is 9.6, which is quite good. Tested by all five labs, Norton achieved a perfect 10 points, Avast managed 9.8, and even Microsoft scored 9.4 points overall.
Mixed Malware Protection Test Scores
Even though the labs heap praise on Bitdefender, I still need the direct experience provided by my hands-on malware protection test. I’ve already run these tests on Bitdefender Antivirus Free for Windows. My contact at Bitdefender explained that while the free and paid editions share the same core antivirus technology, “the additional layers that are present in [Plus] can contribute to different results and extra detection even in the same testing scenarios.” The free edition scored on the low side, so I ran the tests again, hoping for improvement.
What I got was déjà vu all over again. The commercial antivirus wiped out the same samples on sight, eliminated them on launch, and totally missed them. As with the free edition, Bitdefender provides a timeline of the most active attacks. You might see a certain malicious program launch 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.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)One way or another, Bitdefender detected 90% of the samples and scored 8.6 of 10 possible points. That’s the lowest score among the few antivirus apps tested with my latest collection of malware. But this is no surprise; Bitdefender always scores lower in my tests than it does in the independent labs. When that happens, I give the labs significantly more weight.
Malwarebytes tops the group tested with this set of malware, scoring 9.8 points. Avast, AVG, and Norton, all powered by the same antivirus engine, all scored 9.7 points.
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 from the 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 idly by, doing nothing.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)Given the possibility that the paid edition could add more protection layers, I repeated this test using the very latest malware-hosting URLs. I saw no evidence of additional protection. In fact, it scored slightly lower, so I kept the first score.
Bitdefender’s 95% protection is precisely the median score, meaning as many apps scored higher as scored lower. In its own latest run of this test, Avira scored a perfect 100%. Aura, Emsisoft, Norton, and UltraAV came very close, with 99%.
Excellent Phishing Protection
Malware exists to rake in cash for its creators, but writing malicious code to get past modern antivirus tools isn’t a feat for amateurs. Phishing attacks, however, 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 for those times when you’re not at your sharpest.
Any half-decent coder could put together a protective system that steers browsers away from sites on a phishing blocklist, but that's not enough. A phishing site can appear, fleece dozens of victims, and vanish, all before it gets blocklisted. A truly effective phishing protection system analyzes pages for signs of fraud and blocks even those too new for the lists. Some phishing defenses distinguish between blocklisted sites and those identified by analysis. Bitdefender's Online Threat Protection doesn’t make that precise distinction, though it does flag pages as Phishing, Suspicious, Dangerous, or Fraudulent. 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 built-in protection in 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.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)Bitdefender scored 100% detection in this test, as it often does. AVG, Avira, ESET, Guardio, McAfee, and Webroot Essentials also scored 100%, as did the phishing-centric Norton Genie and VPN-focused Surfshark One. I tested Bitdefender Antivirus Plus for Mac at the same time and got identical results.
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 consolation. Bitdefender has long been on the cutting edge of ransomware protection, and the current edition includes several layers that aim to protect you even against brand-new ransomware strains.
The Advanced Threat Defense feature supplements regular antivirus scanning with behavior-based detection, including ransomware detection. Network Threat Prevention blocks the exploit avenues some ransomware attacks rely on. At the first hint of a ransomware attack, Ransomware Remediation backs up important files and restores them after Bitdefender neutralizes the attack.
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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. You’ll also find a similar technique in the Safe Files component of Bitdefender’s Mac antivirus.
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 importantly, 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 on the Windows platform, relying instead on its enhanced Ransomware Remediation and Advanced Threat Defense.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)Testing this protection layer isn’t easy. The real-time protection components that make up Bitdefender Shield 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. 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 two that affect the whole disk: one encrypts the disk, and the other simply wipes its contents. In the past, Advanced Threat Defense hasn’t kicked in for those whole-disk attacks, which work by crashing the system and taking over upon reboot. This time around, it caught the disk-encrypting sample but not the disk wiper. Do remember, though, that Bitdefender’s normal defenses axed both on sight.
Even with Bitdefender’s free app, Advanced Threat Defense handled 11 of the 12 file-encrypting malware samples, totally preventing their activities. It caught the remaining sample, too, but the ransomware encrypted two files before succumbing. When I re-tested that sample using the commercial antivirus, Ransomware Remediation kicked in to restore those files; marvelous!
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)I've occasionally encountered ransomware protection systems that don't start early enough at boot time and might miss ransomware loading at startup. To check Bitdefender's boot-time protection, I copied several samples into the Startup folder and rebooted. Bitdefender apprehended them all.
Ransomware-specific protection components are appearing in 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 behavior-based detection takes effect. Webroot relies strongly on behavior-based detection, and its journal-and-rollback system for handling the behavior of unknown files can even reverse the effects of ransomware.
A Limited VPN
An antivirus keeps your computer clean and fends off malware, but its protection is limited to your computer. When you interact with the internet, though, your antivirus software has no power to protect that communication. That’s where a VPN comes in. Your internet traffic travels through an encrypted channel to the VPN server, protected from any potential malefactors peeking or tampering with that data.
As a bonus, your internet traffic seems to come from the VPN server. Every website you visit records your IP address and can both identify you and roughly locate you using that information. When the IP address belongs to a VPN server, your location is hidden. You can even access region-locked content by choosing a VPN server local to the region in question.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)That is, you can spoof your location if the VPN lets you. Bitdefender supplies a VPN component across its product line, starting with the free antivirus, but what you get has serious limitations. You don’t get to choose your server location, and you’re limited to 200MB of data per day. In testing, I blew through that 200MB watching 10 minutes of high-resolution video. Even the Bitdefender Total Security suite receives this limited VPN. You have to pay a separate subscription to remove those limitations, or upgrade to Bitdefender Premium Security.
Bitdefender licenses its VPN technology from IPVanish. (Editors' Note: IPVanish is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company. For more, read about our ethics policy in the Editorial Mission Statement.) It has servers in 150 cities across 112 countries worldwide. I’ve covered its features thoroughly in my review of Bitdefender’s free antivirus, so I’ll refer you to that review for full details.
Network Threat Prevention
All the features I’ve mentioned so far are also found in the free antivirus. Naturally, paying customers get additional protection. For starters, Bitdefender’s Network Threat Protection component works alongside Online Threat Protection to detect and block attacks targeting security vulnerabilities in the operating system and popular applications. This protection is more commonly associated with firewalls, but a few antivirus programs, such as Bitdefender and Norton, include it.
To see this feature in action, I bombarded the test system with 30 exploits generated by Core Impact. This collection includes exploits aimed at Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, and several Adobe utilities, among others.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)Some antiviruses report on exploits using their official CVE name. Bitdefender simply displays its usual 'dangerous page blocked' warning. However, when I checked the detailed logs, I found that three-quarters of Bitdefender’s detections reported the official name.
With 55% detection, G Data holds the best score in recent tests, but Bitdefender is close behind it with 52%. 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 very 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, and Firefox. To be sure it’s enabled in all three, open the Privacy page and click Settings under Anti-Tracker.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)When you visit a site that uses ad trackers, site analytics, or other trackers, Bitdefender displays 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 IronVest, Avast, and Trend Micro.
Note that Bitdefender no longer installs the separate Traffic Light extension, as the online threat protection system now marks search results with colored icons: green for safe, red for dangerous, and gray for not yet checked. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac still uses TrafficLight.
Safepay to Protect Financial Transactions
Online security is important, even for watching esports online or posting pictures of your pet axolotl, but it's critical when you log in to a financial website. Bitdefender's Safepay feature offers protection when it detects that you're about to connect to a banking 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 Bitdefender’s password manager, but other extensions aren’t welcome.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)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. During testing, I found that SafePay prevented me from taking a screenshot of the desktop. Instead, I had to take a screenshot from the virtual machine host.
You can optionally configure Bitdefender to activate the VPN anytime Safepay is in use for enhanced protection. Just keep an eye on the daily bandwidth usage.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)You’ll want to bookmark the financial sites you use regularly and check the box “Automatically open in Safepay.” I found it awkward that there’s no way to add the current tab to the bookmarks list. My workaround was to copy the URL from the address bar, go to the Bookmarks page, click Add a bookmark, and paste it into the URL field.
Competitors handle financial transaction protection in various ways. Banking protection in F-Secure Internet Security, for example, doesn’t operate on a separate desktop, but when it kicks in for a financial site, it blocks all other internet connections by all browsers and other apps. G Data’s BankGuard is invisible, making it hard to test. 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. On my test system, it found five issues. It advised disabling autorun to protect against malware transmitted via USB, which makes sense. The other four issues were settings specific to the defunct Internet Explorer. I clicked to fix each issue.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)The related Wi-Fi Security Advisor warns about potential security issues with your home, office, or public Wi-Fi hotspots and advises you to use a VPN as needed. Note that this feature strictly applies to Wi-Fi networks. If your device connects via Ethernet, it won’t help you.
One smart way to protect your most sensitive documents is to encrypt them. After encryption, it's essential to delete the unsecured original thoroughly 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 need to eliminate a sensitive file to the point that nobody, not even the NSA, can recover it.
Sometimes you run into malware 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. You just select Rescue Environment and reboot. Malware designed for the Windows environment can't defend itself when Windows isn't running.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)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 the forefront, prompting a reminder that enabling it can optimize your experience.
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is a cross-platform security solution. You can use your licenses to install protection on Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS devices. However, the antivirus only comes in one- and three-license subscriptions. Protecting all your devices is more likely when you choose one of the suites, which come in five- and 25-license packs. I cover the mobile editions in my review of Bitdefender Total Security, the entry-level suite.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Bitdefender)
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus delivers top-tier protection with advanced features that rival full security suites, making it a standout choice for protecting your devices.