Pricing and Licenses
The most common price for a single Windows-based antivirus subscription is $39.95 per year. Bitdefender charges $49.99 for a single license, $10 above the norm, which might count against it...except that a single Norton license runs $59.99 per year, $20 above the norm.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)If one’s not enough, you can get three Bitdefender licenses for $69.99 per year, or five Norton licenses for $84.99 per year. Presuming you use all your licenses, Norton’s per-device price is lower, but that’s not enough to win this round, which goes to Bitdefender
Winner: Bitdefender
Independent Lab Test Scores
To supplement my antivirus testing, I closely track reports from four independent testing labs around the world. Different labs use different scoring methods, though. For example, AV-Test Institute reports numeric results, AV-Comparatives offers named certification levels, and tests by MRG-Effitas are close to simply pass/fail. I’ve devised and refined an algorithm that maps the various scores onto a 10-point scale and comes up with an aggregate score for any product with results from at least two labs. Having a high aggregate score is good, naturally, but so is having scores from many labs.
(Credit: Norton/PCMag)With three labs reporting, Bitdefender earned an impressive aggregate score of 9.8 points. Norton showed up in the results from all four labs, though. It earned a perfect AAA certification from SE Labs in a test that didn’t include Bitdefender one way or another. And its aggregate score of 9.6 is close to what Bitdefender earned. With one eking out a win score-wise and the other appearing in more tests, it’s a wash.
Winner: Tie
Hands-On Test Scores
Those aggregate lab test scores are excellent resources when they're available, but many antivirus apps, even well-known ones, choose not to participate in lab-style testing. Naturally, I can’t limit my reviews to antiviruses that appear in lab reports. By running my own hands-on tests, I can compare all competitors without regard to the labs.
Phishing pages are fraudulent pages that try to steal your login credentials to sensitive sites. Yes, you can learn to spot these frauds yourself, but not everyone has that skill, and we all have days when we’re less alert. In my phishing protection test, which challenges antiviruses to detect real-world phishing frauds, both Bitdefender and Norton scored a near-perfect 99%. In a similar test using real-world pages that host live malware, Bitdefender caught 100%, and Norton came close with 99%.
So far, it looks too close to call, but there’s one more test to consider. Every year, I gather and analyze a collection of malware samples that I use to exercise the protective abilities of each antivirus. In that important malware blocking test, Norton achieved 9.7 out of 10 possible points, while Bitdefender came in with a mediocre 9.0 points.
Winner: Norton
VPN Protection
An antivirus utility running on your computer has the power to find and eliminate any malware on that computer, and to fend off any new attacks. But when your data heads out into the wilds of the internet, that same antivirus has no power. To protect your data both on and off the computer, you need to supplement your antivirus with a virtual private network (VPN). This protects your data in transit and, as a bonus, masks your IP address to keep your location private and even make you seem to be logging in from another country.
(Credit: Bitdefender/PCMag)Every product in the Bitdefender line, from this antivirus all the way up to the top-tier Bitdefender Premium Security, includes VPN protection. And all of them, except the top-tier suite, suffer serious limitations. You can only use 200MB of bandwidth per day, and you don’t get to choose the country for your VPN server.
The Norton security suites all come with a powerful VPN that has no such limits. But that feature doesn’t extend to the antivirus discussed here. Where Bitdefender has a limited VPN, Norton has none at all, not at the antivirus level.
Winner: Bitdefender
Firewall and Exploit Defenses
Norton’s security line has long been famed for its smart firewall protection. Where old-fashioned firewalls put the uninformed user in charge of program control, Norton handles the job internally, deleting known bad programs, blessing known good ones, and applying extra scrutiny to unknowns. Separately, Norton watches for signs of any attacks attempting to exploit vulnerabilities in the operating system or in popular programs.
Bitdefender’s Network Threat Protection also prevents exploit attacks. When I hit both apps with exploits generated by the Core Impact penetration tool, Bitdefender scored significantly better. But this is just a firewall helper app—Bitdefender only offers firewall protection in its suites.
Winner: Norton
Ransomware Protection
It’s not great when your antivirus misses a Trojan or virus that hasn’t been seen before. But within a day or two, maybe even hours, it should receive new malware definitions that let it scrub out all traces of the threat. For a ransomware attack, though, this kind of protection is too little, too late. Your files are already encrypted. Like many top antivirus tools, Bitdefender and Norton both include layers of protection specifically devoted to ransomware.
I test these layers by turning off all other antivirus components and launching real-world ransomware programs, safely contained in an isolated virtual machine. The ransomware component in both antiviruses successfully detected and eliminated all but one of a dozen file-encrypting ransomware samples, without help from regular antivirus protection. However, Norton’s detection didn’t kick in until after it observed the ransomware encrypting some files. The number of files ranged from 40 to over 10 thousand. Bitdefender caught the culprits before they could do their dirty deeds; that’s a winning move.
Winner: Bitdefender
Backup for Important Files
In a very real way, secure off-site backup is the ultimate security for your data. If debris from a deorbiting satellite takes out your PC, you can just download your data from cloud backup to a new PC. Online backup comes with Norton antivirus and all the Norton suites, differing only in how much dedicated online storage you get. That ranges from 2GB for this antivirus to 500GB for Norton’s top-tier security suite with identity theft protection.
As for Bitdefender, it just doesn’t include backup. Chalk one up for Norton.
Winner: Norton
(Credit: Norton/PCMag)Security Features Collection
Every antivirus worth its salt needs the ability to scan for and root out existing malware infestations, along with real-time protection to defend against new attacks. Most also extend protection to the browser, steering users away from destinations that host malware or attempt to phish security credentials by imitating sensitive sites. Those features are essential, but top antivirus apps add security bonuses, sometimes a lot of them. Norton and Bitdefender both pile on the extras.
Both Bitdefender and Norton scan your operating system and apps to eliminate the dangers posed by unpatched security vulnerabilities, and both let you take control of ads and other trackers in your browser. Both offer a special, hardened browser to protect your most sensitive online transactions. And whether you’re using Norton or Bitdefender, you can boot into a non-Windows operating system as needed to wipe out persistent malware.
With either antivirus, you get Wi-Fi security monitoring, though the implementation differs. Unlike many of their counterparts, both offer cross-platform support, allowing installation on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.
Oh, there are a few differences. Those using Norton can take advantage of a collection of performance tune-up features, while those on the Bitdefender side of the fence get a secure deletion file shredder, for example. But overall, both supply the same impressive level of bonus security protection.
Winner: Tie
The Verdict: You Can't Go Wrong With Either
If you’ve been keeping score, you’ve seen the advantage pass back and forth. With all categories accounted for, we have three wins for Bitdefender, three wins for Norton, and two ties. That’s right, it’s a grand tie.
You won’t go wrong with either of these, so the choice comes down to which specific features are most important to you. Do you need cloud backup? Maybe that gives Norton the win in your case. If your budget is top of mind, perhaps that hands the title to Bitdefender instead. Either way, both products will keep your PC safe and free of malware.