Discontinued BitDefender Standard

m0gely

It's disappointing to hear that the Standard client for enterprise is no longer available. Many AV bundles use technology already existing in Windows or MS Office. It could be argued that the integrated Microsoft components are not as good, but it's also a common reality that AV products eventually get feature bloat and become a performance problem themselves. The problem isn't entirely that you do it, but that you eliminate choice. I can no longer *just* get AV protection that I once could. I must now get more than I want with the Professional Plus version, and leave installed features disabled. It seems like a waste. I feel like I am paying more because of it, and that unnecessary resources are being used on my computers. At least the consumer version (BD v.10) allows you to not install the components you don't want, not just leave them disabled. But of all the different types of software I recommend to others, anti-virus software is the one category that constantly evolves in a negative way. I stopped recommending Mcafee and Panda, and Norton was never a consideration. In all cases it was due to how intrusive and resource hungry the applications are. I see BitDefender going down the same path. It doesn't feel like it's there now, but as new versions are on the horizon, who can tell? Most AV products became great by being quick, lightweight and doing their job well. They all go down hill once they try to be everything under the sun. If you want to do that fine, but please don't take away your single concept products which work very well, especially in the enterprise.

dcowan38

It's disappointing to hear that the Standard client for enterprise is no longer available. Many AV bundles use technology already existing in Windows or MS Office. It could be argued that the integrated Microsoft components are not as good, but it's also a common reality that AV products eventually get feature bloat and become a performance problem themselves. The problem isn't entirely that you do it, but that you eliminate choice. I can no longer *just* get AV protection that I once could. I must now get more than I want with the Professional Plus version, and leave installed features disabled. It seems like a waste. I feel like I am paying more because of it, and that unnecessary resources are being used on my computers. At least the consumer version (BD v.10) allows you to not install the components you don't want, not just leave them disabled. But of all the different types of software I recommend to others, anti-virus software is the one category that constantly evolves in a negative way. I stopped recommending Mcafee and Panda, and Norton was never a consideration. In all cases it was due to how intrusive and resource hungry the applications are. I see BitDefender going down the same path. It doesn't feel like it's there now, but as new versions are on the horizon, who can tell? Most AV products became great by being quick, lightweight and doing their job well. They all go down hill once they try to be everything under the sun. If you want to do that fine, but please don't take away your single concept products which work very well, especially in the enterprise.

I'll back this up a bit. Although I am currently beta testing the full-bore Internet Security and therefore using features I wouldn't normally use just for test purposes.

however, in general:

I have no use for a software firewall as I have a hardware firewall on my home network.

I have no use for parental controls as I am not a parent, and even if I was, I wouldn't use them.

I have no use for anti-spam.

That's not to say nobody has use, just that I don't. So my preference would be for an AV/AM package only. And it does seem that the push in the marketplace is towards total internet security packages. Even if I can disable all the features I don't need, it *SEEMS* wasteful paying for all that extra stuff I won't use.

Now, I have to admit, I've been generally happy with what I'm seeing in the beta and I can certainly understand how many people would find those features useful. They're just not really useful to me outside the test period.