[solved] Is There Any Reason To Upgrade To Antivirus 2010?

Kirkx

Because there is no way to automatically transfer all configuration settings from Antivirus 2008 to Antivirus 2010 I want to stay with 2008 version for as long as possible. I've never had a single problem with it and it has intercepted a few threats on my generally clean system. Are there any significant improvements in the antivirus engine in 2010 version that would justify the upgrade.

I only use antivirus component, antiphishing and privacy controls are turned off, and I also use Comodo firewall, so don't need this part BD 2010 Suite offering.

alexcrist

Hello Kirkx,

Strictly from the point of view of antivirus detection, the 2 versions are the same. There might be some improvements in scanning speeds, but if you are happy with the current performance, you can keep using it.

On the other hand, BitDefender 2010 comes with additional modules that didn't exist in BitDefender 2008. Since you are only using the Antivirus component, the major change in this area is the Behavioral scanner module (Active Virus Control) which is a proactiv module designed to detect and prevent infections from unknown malware, based solely on an application's realtime behavior.

Also, other improvements include better compatibility and improved stability especially on newer operating systems (Windows Vista and Windows 7, with which BitDefender 2008 is not compatible).

On the Antiphishing part, as far as I am aware, the BitDefender Antiphishing toolbar for Firefox is not compatible with Firefox 3.6.

Privacy control and HTTP scan (part of the Antivirus engine) also suffered changes along the way, to improve stability and remove incompatibilities with different sites.

Also, BitDefender 2010 has a much better SelfDefense system than BitDefender 2008, which means that in case of an infection which tries to disable the antivirus protection, BitDefender 2010 will be much stable and harder to kill.

The bottom line is that if you are happy with the current performance and don't have problems, you can keep using it. As far as I know, there are no plans to stop updates for BitDefender 2008, so your product will still update itself to the newest antivirus signatures.

Cris.

Kirkx

Thanks for your answer, Cris.

1) Better behavioural/proactive detection (in v2010): I'll just live without it, considering that on average I have only 1 or 2 threats intercepted per year, if any at all, browsing/downloading stuff mostly from well maintained business websites and running mostly business software (no iTunes, no videos, etc) the risks are low.

2) Better self defence: as above.

3) Windows 7: I'm sticking with XP-SP3 for the next few years, Win7 is not any faster and I don't care about fancy graphics and media in general.

As far as I know, there are no plans to stop updates for BitDefender 2008, so your product will still update itself to the newest antivirus signatures.

That's good news.

Hopefully later BitDefender will start offering a method of transferring all configuration settings from the old version to the new one, then I'll make the switch.

BTW: the firewall component of the new Comodo suite v3.13.121240.574 has absolutely no conflicts with BitDefender Antivirus 2008 on my Windows XP-SP3 system. They compliment each other quite nicely.

alexcrist

Since there were no more question on this topic, I will consider this issue solved.

Cris.

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== Issue solved ==