2012 Antivirus Software Reviews

BitDefender Antivirus Plus 2012

While it's not as well-known as brands like Norton or McAfee, BitDefender has actually been around since 2001. With the 2012 version, BitDefender continues to earn top scores in antivirus protection.

In our tests we found BitDefender Antivirus Plus 2012 to be among the best overall antivirus programs of the year in several categories including overall antivirus protection.

How does BitDefender compare to the competition?

BitDefender earned several awards and certifications from us and other top testing labs around the world. It scored at or near the top in all of the most important virus protection areas we test, including real-time virus protection and virus removal.
Since we began testing antivirus software, BitDefender has been one of the most consistent overall performers in our tests, always placing in the top three. This year is no exception.

All of the top antivirus testing labs in the world, including ours, have given BitDefender excellent scores again this year.

BitDefender has received certifications from:

• AV-Comparatives
• AV-Test
• ICSA Labs
• Virus Bulletin
• West Coast Labs

In terms of virus and spyware detection rates, BitDefender detected or blocked about 95% of the samples we tested. Its only real weak spot seems to be with the removal certain viruses. In particular some especially virulent malware required multiple reboots to be fully removed.
Having seen BitDefender evolve as we have, we weren't surprised at how good BitDefender's resource usage was.

Across our various test systems, we saw around 1% of CPU used while running idle and about 61% during manual full system scans.

That's good news. It's one weak spot: it's huge, requiring 800MB of disk space.

For most users these days with very large hard drives this shouldn't be an issue; however, if you're tight on disk space, BitDefender might not be the best choice.
BitDefender has simplified their user interface from last year's 3-level approach.

The main overview screen has a large scrollbar showing all of the antivirus tools available: Scanning, Antispam, etc. No question, it's straightforward and easy to use.

Inside the settings window, the main features are displayed on the left in standard navigation. Clicking a section opens that toolset and option screen.

The color scheme is about the only thing some people might not like: it's dark. Functional and easy-to-use but still darker than some people might like.

Tech support is a hard thing to do and even harder to get right, and it remains the biggest weakness in BitDefender.

There's a "Help and Support" link in the user interface which is great, and inside that window are three options:

1. BitDefender's documentation
2. help files
3. support contact info

This is also great. If you click the "Contact Support" link, BitDefender launches a diagnostics tool that gathers important information about your system that BitDefender needs.

Once completed, the diagnostics information is sent to BitDefender. The problem: there's no way at this point to contact BitDefender for immediate help. They contact you when they've analyzed the information.

If you need to get in touch with them more quickly, you'll have to wade through multiple pages of their site to get to a point where you can contact tech support.

This may be ideal for BitDefender, but it's definitely not ideal for a customer who needs help now.
Updates in BitDefender are set to automatically download and install by default. BitDefender will check for new updates each time you start your computer, then hourly thereafter.

BitDefender earns further praise because it offers the option for updates to run silently (i.e. in the background) or to manually control them.

Although few users will find need to manually control them, the option is there, as is the option to set updates to prompt you before downloading or installing.

If you're the one person that needs either of these features, you'll be glad you had it.
BitDefender 2012 has a couple of useful features you don't find in most antivirus software.

For starters, there's anti-phishing protection even in their entry level A/V program. And, the other extras aren't just window dressing, they're actually useful.

SafeGo is one of the most interesting extras in the 2012 version. This is an app for your Facebook account that helps keep you safe from spam and dangerous virus links that appear on your Facebook wall and news feeds.

Unfortunately Facebook has become a common hacker / virus breeding ground, so phishing and spam links showing up on your wall or your friends' walls is all too common.

Even if you only use Facebook now and then, it's a useful tool that gives you peace of mind, and it won't slow down your Facebook experience.

BitDefender securely encrypts chats if both people are using:

1. BitDefender
2. Yahoo! Messenger

We're huge fans of chat encryption, and this is a good implementation; however, but because it only supports Yahoo! it's not ideal.

BitDefender's extra features like Anti-Phishing, SafeGo, and Chat Encryption help stop the bad guys from stealing your personal data.

They're well executed, work well, and actually do provide added layer of protection to your PC.

Looking at our antivirus testing data plus its extensive feature list, BitDefender Antivirus Plus 2012 ranks at the top again this year.

BitDefender is both reliable and accurate at detecting--and removing--all types of viruses and other malware.

Add that to low system resource usage, an easy-to-use interface, and nice bonus features, and you've got one of the best antivirus software products of 2012.

Given the lack of phone or chat tech support, the only real weakness with BitDefender is its tech support. They do have some of the finest help articles and video tutorials and support via email, though person-to-person phone support is often the best option when you have something wrong with your PC.

In spite of this, the tech support they do provide is good, and the software itself is excellent, so if technical support via email isn't a big issue for you, BitDefender Antivirus Plus 2012 really is a great product.