Review by Comp Expert

I’ll start off by stating the installation of Bitdefender: the process went semi-smoothly for installation on my high-performance home server that is on 24 hours and runs largely headless (without a monitor). The system is an AMD X2-6000 dual-core with 2GB of RAM running under XP Media Center. The major problem during installation was that the program’s firewall was rammed down my throat with no toggle to deactivate it during the install period. The result was that I was locked out of my own server’s network when the install was complete. I had to manually click on the options by going to my server’s mouse and monitor. Major blunder on part of the software company’s installation for this program.

A bunch of typical malware options were made available to me; most were kept on by default. I choose deactivate quite a few since many of them (i.e. email protection) was not needed as I do not do these activities over the system. I simply wanted some antivirus protection against trojans that can attach themselves to the system unknowingly. The menus were relatively straightforward to figure out how to select things without having to refer to another source. This is as a brief summary appears below the screen when you point your mouse to a selection box. Nice. I particularly enjoyed the option of disabling the splashscreens and any update/news notices. This is important because when my system reboots automatically those kinds of splash screens can screw up my boot process which has a complex set of scripts that are timing-dependent.

CPU usage is a major consideration with any antivirus program so that was a concern to me. Although my server doesn’t max out its cpu use, I have done a lot to minimize electricity consumption of the system. Wasted cpu cycles increase power requirements so I do not want wasteful software running all the time. This is particularly an issue as my system processes several dozen files in batches every minute of the day for its tasks. With active virus scanning enabled, these files are analyzed for viral activity. When no file activity is conducted, it seems that the antivirus system consumes an average of only 1-2% cpu power. With active scanning going on during the batch processes that occur, cpu usage climbs up to 6-13% for a few seconds. This isn’t too bad really, and acceptable (so far) to me.

As for updating the definition files, they were pretty quick to download, no complaints there. The registry key is good for 3 computers for 2 years. Although some may be dismayed at the 2-year figure, I am quite impressed that the company is honest about this. Some other company’s don’t mention it at all and you may think it’s an infinite lifetime license, but in reality it doesn’t work that way as they will obsolete your license when a major version changes in the software. Bitdefender deserves credit for their honesty.

Overall, it looks like I’ll be keeping this antivirus program on. I will knock off one point due to the install issues highlighted earlier. They really need to let the user select the ability to disable the firewall during the install as many will install the software remotely.