Bitdefender hails from Romania, and the company's 2012 product line digs into Romanian history for its new logo. Their ancient legions marched behind the standard of the Dacian Draco, a wolf-headed dragon designed to strike fear into the hearts of enemies. While the Bitdefender Total Security 2012 ($79.95 direct for 3 licenses) security suite may terrify viruses, its new "silent security" mode makes it a hassle-free experience for users.
Like the Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2012 (Bitdefender's standalone antivirus app), the suite initially runs with AutoPilot turned on. That means that it takes care of just about every security problem silently. Your only indication that something has happened is a little number on the Events icon, much like the number that lets you know you have messages or friend requests in Facebook. Ten large panels, visible four at a time, represent ten security features within the suite. Each panel offers access to settings for the particular feature. Many include high level on/off switches for the feature, and access to related actions. A smartphone-like slider moves the panel collection right and left. If you wish, you can re-order the panels using drag and drop to put your favorites in the initial four slots.
Same Malware Protection
Antivirus protection is at the heart of any suite. This one includes the same exact protection offered by the company's standalone antivirus. For full details on the shared antivirus features, please refer to my review of BitDefender Antivirus Plus 2012 ($39.95 direct for three licenses, 4 stars). I'll summarize briefly here.
All of the antivirus labs that I routinely follow include Bitdefender in their tests, and they all give it excellent ratings. In particular, BitDefender took the top score in the latest antivirus certification by AV-Test.org and the highest average of three tests using Windows 7, Vista, and XP. For more detail about antivirus lab tests, see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.
BitDefender Total Security 2011 lab tests chart Bitdefender hits malware from multiple directions, starting with a scan during installation. None of my malware samples managed to prevent the product's installation. Its protective services wouldn't start on some test systems, but a manual scan in Safe Mode fixed those. One required Rescue Mode, which boots the PC into an alternate operating system without the aggravation of downloading and burning a rescue CD image.
Bitdefender detected 82 percent of the active threats and scored 6.0 points. That's a good score under my current collection of samples, though other products scored much higher against the previous collection. In the rootkit removal test Bitdefender detected 86 percent and scored 6.0 points. Against scareware, it was much more effective. Like several other products it detected all the scareware samples and scored 9.5 points out of a possible 10. For details on how I derive these scores see How We Test Malware Removal.
BitDefender Total Security 2011 malware removal chart Many antivirus products pop up a notification when their real-time protection detects a virus. Some annoyingly ask for permission or even advice before removing the threat. Bitdefender is the strong silent type. It simply does the job and adds a line to the Events log. In some cases its Active Virus Control suppressed suspicious files, keeping them from launching without actually keeping them off the system.
Bitdefender detected 83 percent of my malware samples and scored 7.7 points for malware blocking, a below-average score. It did more to block rootkits, detecting all samples and scoring 8.4 points. As for scareware, it detected 80 percent and scored 7.0, once again below average. To understand how I come up with those scores, see How We Test Malware Blocking.
BitDefender Total Security 2011 malware blocking chart The product's Web-based protection did a good job blocking access to malware-hosting sites. Given the stellar ratings from the independent labs, I have to rate the Bitdefender's malware protection higher than my tests alone would merit.
Shared Features
Bitdefender's standalone antivirus includes many features that other vendors hold in reserve for their full-blown security suite. Most impressive among these is the antiphishing component. The majority of antiphishing tools fail to even come up to the level of Internet Explorer alone. Bitdefender beat IE's detection rate by 29 percentage points. It also beat consistently-accurate Norton by 9 points, making Bitdefender the antiphishing champ. For details on how I test phishing protection, The article How We Test Antiphishing explains exactly how I derive these scores.
BitDefender Total Security 2011 antiphishing chart Bitdefender can protect user-specified private information against accidental transmission via Web forms, email, or IM. In particular, you can apply this protection specifically to Limited accounts, to keep your kids from sharing too-private information.
With your Bitdefender subscription you get basic identity theft protection through partner IDWatchDog. This service will alert you to many kinds of identity-related events, not just credit problems.
The network map lets you control all Bitdefender installations on your home network from a single PC. Bitdefender Safego (also available as a separate free download) protects your Facebook account from malicious links and helps you help your friends. And a vulnerability scanner finds problems like missing Windows patches, outdated browsers, and weak passwords. That's it for features shared with the antivirus. Once again, please read my review of Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2012 for full details.
Downloads
Bitdefender Total Security 2012 full download from media fire part 1
Bitdefender Total Security 2012 full download from mediafire part 2
Crack only
Bitdefender Total Security 2012 crack and serial no.
.jpg)
