BitDefender Antivirus - Slimmed but slow
As promised; I switched out the overly complex and demanding "BitDefender Plus v10" for just plain "BitDefender Antivirus v10". It seems a lot different.
I have a feeling that the folks at BitDefender would argue with me on that point, so I'll emphasize "seems" and give a little explanation.
First differences: faster installation and way less things to configure before it gets settled in and started. The firewall is not present in this version, and the antispam is missing. Happy to see the antispam out of the way, but do make sure that your Windows or other firewall is turned on.
Still here: antispyware is included and integrated but still essentially operates separately -- as it should. The anti-rootkit scanner at first appears to be missing, but is actually down in antivirus scan settings. It's not immediately clear if the rootkit scanner runs with the deep system scan or not. More on this below.
A couple of updates were required to bring the program up to date, but this process was way less intrusive than the Norton AV update. Particularly in that BitDefender allows you to opt out of immediately rebooting your computer. (Wake up Norton. It's not nice for force a reboot.)
Once updated and underway BitDefender Antivirus seemed to be speeding along on it's duties and seems to be putting far less strain on my computer. Whew! I don't feel compelled to turn it off for every (known safe) download as I did with it's "Plus" cousin. The engine and interface seem the same from the end-user point of view, but are far less complicated without the extra "Plus" parts hanging around.
Setting the scan schedule is still confusing. There is an array of scans in the scan scheduler, including antispyware and rootkit.
Logs: where are all the logs kept? This isn't clear and is a little frustrating. I got a notice about a virus found in a years old downloaded file. While I followed the link to get more information about the virus (and found that there actually was no more information about it! Bummer.) the alert window closed. I wanted to find the file and do some more followup so I went to find the log for BitDefender Antivirus and find out which part of it found this program and what it was doing about it and etc, and etc. but no luck. BitDefender didn't have anything to say about it. It's like it never found or mentioned the alert that I was trying to follow up on. What's up with this guys?
Weird DLLs. BitDefender has a swell builtin listing of what gets loaded into to your computer at different times. Swell, but not perfect. And it's imperfection reveals another BitDefender miscue. In the list of system stuff you'll find an "unknown DLL" called "sockspy.dll". Highlighting this item reveals that the maker of the file is not listed inside it. Not a good sign. It's purpose is not revealed; only it's rather ominous name.
Ironically; searching Google for it reveals that many people believe that it is part of the BitDefender suite. That could be, and coincidence seems to agree. It wasn't here before BitDefender was installed. But best to go to the horse's mouth on this, right. So: searching BitDefender's website and support database reveals... nothing. No mention. Zip.
Not a good feeling. Unknown thing in my computer called "spy something"? Not good. If it's yours BitDefender -- identify and claim it. Please.
I'm going to leave BitDefender Antivirus in for a few more days. Look around and see what other people are thinking. But right now, I'm not feeling like BitDefender is the "Mr. Right" for my computer.
(UPDATE: we put BitDefender in for 9 months and had to take it out because it was too slow. Please see the follow up piece about that.)
