SOFTWIN's BitDefender 2011 has drawn accolades from independent testing authorities for the quality of its virus detection. And compared to its competitors, its price can't be beat. Unfortunately, we found the program to be marred by poor performance and a clumsy interface.1) Installation: 2/5
Installation time for BitDefender AntiVirus Pro 2011 was a slow 4 minutes and 6 seconds on our reference machine*. This is longer than Kaspersky AntiVirus 2011, and more than four times longer than Norton AntiVirus 2011.
After downloading its own installer, BitDefender 2011 launches a rather involved eight-step installation process. Some of these steps are useful - e.g., BitDefender performs a quick scan of your computer to detect any malware that might attempt to corrupt or defeat the installation of BitDefender itself. Others are annoying digressions that could have waited until after installation, such as when Step 3 prompts you to register for an account on BitDefender.com. Once you're past the installation wizard, BitDefender prompts you again for a guided tour of the application. While this process is well-intentioned, it brings installation to a crawl, and is bound to confuse first-time users with its array of screens and options. *Reference Computer: Windows 7 Home Premium running on a Toshiba Pentium Dual-Core T4200, with 3GB of RAM and a 210GB hard drive. 2) Features & Ease of Use: 6.5/10   After you run the gauntlet of BitDefender's installation routine, you can finally display the BitDefender Dashboard. In contrast to its install process, the Dashboard is clean and easy to navigate. A prominent button informs you of your system's current security status. Three equally sized buttons - Security, Update Now, and My Tools - provide easy access to all of BitDefender's features.  BitDefender is great at customizing itself to users' needs. Game Mode allows users to reduce processor and disk-intensive scan operations when they are actively gaming, while Laptop Mode reduces power consumption on mobile computers.  None of BitDefender's features, however, stand out when compared to the advanced offerings from competitors such as Norton and Kaspersky. Also, the interface is unnecessarily redundant. Quick Scan and Full System Scan, for example, appear under both Security and My Tools. Some UI commands offer little to no feedback; clicking Full System Scan, for example, brought up no status dialog. It turns out that Full System Scan won't display a dialog if a full scan is currently running in the background. To see the status of the current scan, you must right-click the second BitDefender icon in your System Tray and select "Show." New Features: •  Search Advisor - provides safety ratings against Spyware/Malware forsearch results and visited websites.• Smart Tips - a series of personalized suggestions & warnings that arerelevant to recent activity.Features Checklist:
3) Virus Scanner: 3/5  BitDefender offers three scan types: Full System Scan, Quick Scan, and Vulnerability Scan. Full Scan and Quick Scan are common to most antivirus applications. Vulnerability Scan searches for uninstalled updates for Windows and other critical applications. It can optionally check your machine's Windows accounts for weak passwords that are easily crackable by hackers. Clocking in at a 14.4MB/second scanning speed, BitDefender is one of the slower virus scanners we've reviewed this year. At this rate, BitDefender will complete a full scan of a 50GB hard drive in 59 minutes. Its Quick Scan, which completes in just 17 seconds, is much more impressive.  Updates: BitDefender 2011 boasts the second most virus definition updates of any of the commercial anti-virus packages we've reviewed, downloading on average 12.5 updates per day. However, that's still a far cry from Norton AntiVirus 2011's impressive 200+ daily downloads. 4) Performance Testing: 5.5/10  A good Antivirus program should not only protect your computer from Viruses but also not slow down the Performance of your computer too much by using up your computer's resources. We run each Antivirus program through a set of Performance Tests to see the impact it has on the computer. View the results below of our Antivirus testing for Bit Defender 2011 this year...
5) Effectiveness: (Virus/Malware Detection) 14/15 
6) Help & Support: 4/5 BitDefender prominently displays a Help and Support question box on the Dashboard. Type in a question or keyword, and BitDefender displays a nice fly-out listing the available support topics. A life raft icon indicates responses to frequently asked questions. You can get further support from clicking the Help and Support link on the bottom right side of the Dashboard. While the UI here is also a little clunky, BitDefender helpfully displays a link for contacting customer service directly if the built-in troubleshooter can't answer your question. You can also go directly to the BitDefender website and contact a representative by e-mail, live chat, or telephone. Telephone and live chat support are available to English-speaking customers 24/7. » Quick Support Links:• BitDefender Consumer Support • BitDefender Business Support • Contact BitDefender • BitDefender Support Forums • BitDefender Personal Support Page (for customers) CONCLUSION: BitDefender AntiVirus Pro 2011 remains one of the best antivirus programs we've tested, although it has fallen down our rankings from #5 last year. The main reasons for BitDefender's slightly lower marks compared to last year are due to its overly-complex installation process, and several user-interface glitches. However, BitDefender continues to provide excellent virus/malware protection, so if you can make it past the installation process you'll like BitDefender 2011.
| |||||||||||||||
Anti-Spyware
a) AV Comparatives has 2 major Virus/Malware tests each year. In the most recent test in August, the On Demand Detection Test, BitDefender received top marks - 
