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How to remove Bitdefender VPN from Mac OS X

rwillett

Installing Bitdefender Antivirus on Max OS X 26.5 also installs Bitdefender VPN. I don't want a VPN, I was never asked if I wanted a VPN.

I've had this across four Macs now and getting rid of the Bitdefender VPN is very difficult. The Bitdefender uninstall program never works and just hangs across all four MacBooks. It just sits there saying uninstalling modules and never completes. This is across 15.5 and 26.5.

Turning off the VPN in the login items also doesn't work as it seems to get turned on again or keeps starting up.

The manual uninstall process doesn't specify getting rid of the VPN alone but also uninstalls the Bitdefender AV.

A more cynical man than myself would think that Bitdefender is forcing a VPN on me and wants us to upgrade from the paltry 200MB per day allowance. I'm sure that is not the case here.

So how do I get rid of the VPN? And how do I never, ever see it again? This should really be an optional extra in the install process rather than being forced on people who don't want it and never want it.

Rob

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Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/106483/how-to-remove-bitdefender-vpn-from-mac-os-x

Kindly have a look at the link stated below.

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/83500/

If the issue persists, kindly contact Bitdefender support by visiting https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help/

Select, How to's & Troubleshooting Bitdefender products→Troubleshooting→I don't know→Contact Support→ You will get the option of chat, call or email.

To get an immediate update, make use of the chat option. Also, ensure that no ad blockers or privacy extensions are enabled in your web browser, as they may prevent the chat window from appearing.

Bitdefender support may request diagnostic logs and will guide you through the process of generating them.

Regards

Alexandru_BD

Hi,

For a bit more context here, all customers that use one of the Bitdefender security suites also benefit from 200 mb/day of free VPN encrypted traffic, therefore the app needs to install so the customer can utilize the full functionality of the product they chose. All Bitdefender apps are easily removable via standard platform specific mechanisms, and like Flexx mentioned above, the VPN can be uninstalled separately. Essentially, the antivirus plan comes bundled with a VPN for convenience. Although the standard VPN offers just 200mb, it's still nice to have when needed, but it's not really designed for streaming or prolonged use.

There have been a few discussions on this topic in the past and you can check them out here:

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/90586/how-to-generate-install-link-without-the-vpn-client-on-mac

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/103299/how-do-i-uninstall-bitdefender-vpn-permanently

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/105456/we-do-not-want-vpn-bundled-with-antivirus

Regards

SemoTech

@rwillett

BitDefender has been sticking to it's guns for years, and instead of listening to their customers they force the crippled VPN product (unusable at 200MB/day) down everyone's throats.

While it can be uninstalled manually afterwards, it is an additional step and wasted time plus it confuses non-technical users. It really should be made the choice of the user/client.

Honestly how easy would it be to just have the VPN as an option checkbox at install time, still available for anyone that actually wants it? Well, BitDefender hides and does not want to do that for us, since it is them that benefit, not us the users. They just hope at least some of their users who had the VPN installed, without them even knowing or providing permission, somehow decide to use and of course pay to upgrade this forcefully bundled service. Classic marketing bundling trick.

Anyway, this horse has been beaten to death and they still just don't care. Money seems to trump flexibility and customer choice, but hopefully enough users like yourself complain that management will some day listen. Hey, one can only hope….

Scott

@SemoTech that is good idea:

"Honestly how easy would it be to just have the VPN as an option checkbox at install time, still available for anyone that actually wants it"?

If you wanted to post that suggestion and create a thread in the Product features and Ideation sub forum, it goes straight to the developers for consideration. It may or may not be approved, but, it may get their attention if enough people vote on it?

And, I do manually uninstall Bitdefender VPN on a Windows install (in my case), as I have my own VPN that I'm partial to.

rwillett

Not sure if the original reply was AI generated as I clearly stated I used the Bitdefender uninstall program. We have a lot of Mac's as a family and I end up with the slightly older ones for my own use. Every single one of the last four Macs (all M series, a mixture of Tahoe and the slightly older 15.7 (?) OS X simply hung on the Bitdefender Uninstall. These are standard Mac's with standard installs, nothing out of the ordinary.

Now I've just removed Bitdefender VPN on my own personal Mac and it worked for the first time. Nothing special about it, but it's got an external monitor on and I don't use the fingerprint reader as it's running clamshell. That worked removing the Bitdefender VPN but I entered the password each time and didn;t use the fingerprint reader. Thats the only difference in the previous five attempts.

I have no faith in Bitdefender adding an option box at installation time to avoid installing the VPN. I can see from the previous comments and from other users that Bitdefender are pushing this total bollox that customers want a crippled 200MB/day VPN, utter nonsense. They've been pulling this stunt for years, I've complained before and it's pointless. I need an approved VPN for work and Bitdefender VPN certainly isn't it. In fact I've done my best to ensure it isn't now and never will be an approved VPN, simply because of this type of nonsense. The AV stuff is fine, the other stuff, not worth it.

rwillett

Now doing my 6th Mac. This is a 16GB Mac Mini M1 running OX X 26.4.1. I use this for Music production. Notbhing special, got Logic Pro on it.

The Bitdefender Uninstall program yet again fails and hangs. So I Force Quit it (again).

I open up a terminal and do the following as I know this by heart now.

987  cd Application\ Support
988  ls
989  rm -rf Bitdefender
990  sudo rm -rf Bitdefender
991  ls
992  cd ..
993  ls
994  rm -rf Bitdefender
995  sudo rm -rf Bitdefender
996  cd Extensions
997  ls
998  cd /Applications
999  ls
1000  sudo rm -rf Bitdefender

This is the command line version of the manual uninstall.

I then reboot and this seems to work. I then have to download and install the latest version of Bitdefender as the old version does NOT pick up my subscription. Slightly annoying but I can live with that.

I then click on the new Bitdefender Uninstall program, select VPN to uninstall and as normal, it completely fails to work and simply hangs with "Uninstalling modules". Apart from my M2 Max laptop, it has failed every single time. This is the 5th failure on five different Macs. Try again, the uninstall program starts up Bitdefender VPN just to show it's contempt for me and hangs.

I go into Bitdefender VPN and turn off Autostart, I go into the System Settings and turn it off so it shouldn't start up when rebooted.

I reboot to check and whilst I don;t appear to have removed the VPN, it no longer starts up.

Just for a laugh I try to uninstall Bitdefender VPN again and the stupid Uninstall program starts the VPN program up.

and of course fails miserably to uninstall it. Thankfully, it hasn't set it to startup at login.

Now I would say the VPN should be treated as malware. It wasn't requested at installation. It is almost impossible to get rid of. It plays about with the security of your system.

I have a years subscription for ten devices, but this will be my last one.

SemoTech

Good idea @Scott tho I doubt it will do any good.

See my Product features and Ideation post linked below and hope you and others feel free to VOTE and comment on it, to express where you all stand to the developers:

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/106539/we-need-vpn-install-option

SemoTech

@Alexandru_BD you stated and I quote you: "..therefore the app needs to install so the customer can utilize the full functionality of the product they chose."

Could you please show us how/where a customer can CHOOSE whether to install the VPN or not, when they are just installing the Antivirus?

Alexandru_BD

"full functionality of the product they chose" means the full set of features available in the Bitdefender plan customers chose to BUY. All Bitdefender antivirus plans include a VPN and this increases the value proposition of the suite, and has been included as a comodity and bonus feature, and the decision was made following the cantitative and qualitative feedback obtained from surveying Bitdefender consumers who like to get more features for their money.

It's what most users want, so Bitdefender gave them just that, along with other new security features that were developed in house and included in various plans over the years. Bitdefender always strives to give their customers more value and more security layers in their offerings, and they will continue to do so. It's one of the traits that sets them apart from the competition.

SemoTech

No one is asking to remove any functionality. However as everyone has different needs you can always setup an initial installer checkbox that is enabled by default to include the VPN, especially when installing AV.
That takes care of automatically providing everything you just stated AND allows customers who already have a 3rd party VPN, or simply do not want to have to fight to uninstall it later, the option to install it.
The only reason BD would not implement this is to force feed the VPN without customer consent and hope for conversion from free to paid.
Marketing and profit clearly trumps customer choice with BD.