A while ago, I had such a terrible experience with the installation of version 2012 Plus, purchased from Flipkart, that I had to return it to them for a refund.
But after the 2013 version was released, I wanted to give it a go, but first I wanted to try out the 2013 free version first. Today I did. I'll try to describe my experience here.
I downloaded the usual "Antivirus_Free_Edition.exe" from the main page of the Bitdefender web site and ran it.
It downloaded another file called "Antivirus_Free_Edition_x64.exe" (I have Win 8 x64) and ran it automatically. A screen was displayed with the option of uninstalling the existing AV (Avast Free) first or "install anyway...". I chose the first option.
The program closed itself and the Avast uninstaller was started. The process was completed and I was asked to reboot. I did.
After booting, the Bitdefender ...x64.exe program started automatically.
<Start>
No user interface / window / pop-up was displayed. But it did the following things (as reported by ZoneAlarm):
1.
Removed it's own instance from startup list in registry.
2.
Access the internet.
3.
Load the driver "WINDRVDIR\fltMgr.sys".
Then it did some disk I/O. Then nothing. That's it.
No user interface / window / pop-up was displayed.
<End>
I was completely in the dark as to what exactly has happened.
Has the software already been installed? No, it wasn't on the installed programs list.
So, is it doing / downloading something in the background? No, it wasn't on the task manager's App or Background Processes list.
So I visited the support web page and noticed that a special program ("aswclear.exe") was needed for effectively removing Avast.
Why wasn't I told this earlier? I promptly download it, reboot, run it (in safe mode), reboot, run the bitdefender ...x64.exe again, as an Admin this time.
It behaved exactly as earlier, repeated all above steps between <Start> and <End> faithfully and went to sleep.
At the end of June, I started to feel it was the beginning day of April !
I'm going back to Avast free and not coming within 25 miles of Bitdefender again.
