A Complaint And A Bit Of A Rant

You know it's been about two weeks since I received my upgrade notice to go to BitDefender 2013. Since then, I have had to fight multiple issues around Parental Control. These are things that I was using in 2012 although there's been a couple of nice additions. I've been using BitDefender since 2008.

So what's the complaint you're asking, right?

Well first.

1) Parental Controls for me didn't start working until about two days ago. I tried updates, I tried changing things on the portal.. Nothing, I couldn't get the websites to be logged or blocked. Suddenly two days ago they start working. I haven't re-installed or repaired BD2013 but then suddenly they started to work. Well great, that's good news.

2) Google Chrome wouldn't work with the my.bitdefender.com portal, but now it works as well as of a few days ago.

3) Now I see Premium Parental Control features being put out on the portal, but no announcement of that nor is there a product announced on the website either. Today the support technician working with me said it was because I had a BitDefender 2010 license key and there was an issue found with those keys working with the BitDefender 2013 products and that would be fixed in a few days. Okay, that's good.

4) Up until today I couldn't go to the website and open a support ticket against my license key since BD2013 was released, that's been fixed.

Guys, meaning BitDefender, do you think you released this a bit early? I don't recall signing up for a Beta program where I would do testing for you. I've watched features start working and then stop, only to come back again. I was unable to open tickets because my valid license key wasn't valid on the support page, necessitating me to do a sysdump to open a ticket.

Fundamentally, you don't release product until it is ready and in the area of Parental Controls, which I use and I'm sure a lot of other folks do too, this product isn't fully reliable yet.

Have you ever heard of a test plan? A test environment? A QA environment? These are areas where you make sure a product is ready before you ship it. Sure, there's always going to be an occasional bug or two, that's software and trust me I know what I'm talking about. I have been in Systems/Software and Consulting for over 30 years and if I were to have released a product with this many holes in it, I'd be out the door.

So, here's a piece of friendly advice. Start testing this before you release it, get a test plan together and also have a well baked Beta with users who are willing to help in terms of product quality. Because of all of this, I'm downloading Kapersky and am running it to compare with your AV engine results. I shouldn't have to do this as a long term customer.

Thanks for listening.

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Comments

columbo

Hi Will,

Being a normal user here , I would have to agree with some of your comments, yet to this point I would have to clarify, in that they (Bitdefender) did run a beta program for the 2013 version, complete with a Beta Feedback forum...which had many posts. So in that sense, they did try to cover their bases with the launch of this version. Did they launch it too soon, maybe.

Yet, with some any of the changes they made, especially with the cloud Parental Controls, Safepay etc. being so new, there are unfortunately some issues that we have had to bear through. Yet, when they get these issues resolved (some coming from updates that then "just happen") this is going to continue to be, IMHO, the AV software to beat.

Columbo

Lee_S

Windows 7 still has bug/security fixes on a weekly basis and that's a whole lot older than BD2013.

Maybe Microsoft should have not released Windows 7 yet.

The same argument applies.

wkwood

Windows 7 still has bug/security fixes on a weekly basis and that's a whole lot older than BD2013.

Maybe Microsoft should have not released Windows 7 yet.

The same argument applies.

Well most Security Fixes that are of a routine nature come out on Patch Tuesdays once a month. There are hotfixes released all the time for those who have a specific issue with products.

The last out of sequence Security patches for Windows 7 was 6/4/12 to fix the "Flame" Malware problem, thanks US Government for that one and before that back in December 2011 was the last out of sequence release, or "Emergency Patch" During both of those times I didn't experience any loss of functionality, icons didn't change and things that I was able to do before, I was still able to do. Likewise when I upgraded from Vista, there were fixes etc. but again I didn't have any major problems. I also work with Data Centers and thousands of Windows instances and things work. Why? Because we test and if there's regression bugs found or features not working as they should, we don't release it, e.g., it doesn't make it into production. Even once we do that, sometimes things happen but in all cases and with all the customers I have worked with and worked for over the years one thing holds true, when we release something new into the wild, we make ###### sure that we have people ready to jump in and fix the problems quickly or we back it out.

So to your point, no software is bug free but when things like ICONS change and functionality changes and then to cap it off, you can't even open a ticket on the product to resolve issues because your license key isn't accepted? Those are serious, not minor, problems that should have been caught upstream of the people using the product. I haven't seen this kind of quality breakdown from BitDefender before and per Columbo's post above yours, I agree, this is very good AV software, that's why I bought it and keep buying but when I see these kinds of quality issues, then I start to wonder what else may be broken. BTW, my Kaspersky scan found no problems, so tonight I'm at least assured that there isn't any concerns with the AV scanner. We also have to remember that this is SECURITY software and I'm sure that I am not the only individual who has concerns when the thing that's supposed to be protecting me has all these holes in it, including making sure that my Windows Systems aren't unnecessarily exposed either.

So, I'll give them some time but right now I can't use the Parental Control features like blocking that I even had with 2012, because of this ruddy license key issue and I was assured today that in a couple of days they'll have that resolved. SO now at least I can open a ticket using my license key at least to report issues, which is a definite improvement over last week.

rootkit

Hello

Thank you very much for your feedback!

I've talked with Tudor about your case, we are truly sorry for all the inconveniences.

We are working very hard to solve all the reported issues, usually we release a product update per month, but last month and this one we released 2 or 3.

You can check the status here:

http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=35498

If you still encounter any issues, please post here or reply to the email that my colleague sent you.

Please feel free to contact us with any additional questions or concerns.

Have a wonderful weekend!

wkwood

Hello

Thank you very much for your feedback!

I've talked with Tudor about your case, we are truly sorry for all the inconveniences.

We are working very hard to solve all the reported issues, usually we release a product update per month, but last month and this one we released 2 or 3.

You can check the status here:

http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=35498

If you still encounter any issues, please post here or reply to the email that my colleague sent you.

Please feel free to contact us with any additional questions or concerns.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Thanks

rootkit

Hello

You are most welcome!

Please do not hesitate so reply to your ticket if you still encounter any issues.

Have a great day!