Not Happy With New Forum So Far

After over a week of trying, and with assistance from @Ovidiu L., I finally managed to gain access to this new Forum. I am a long time contributor to the old Forum, and a long-time customer of Bitdefender.

I am unhappy that when browsing the categories, you cannot see which ones have new topics. You have to open each category individually to see which ones have new topics. Please fix that.

I did have 2FA enabled on my Central account, and had to disable it to get access to these Forums. I am not happy also that I have to use my Central account to log in to a public Forum. I formerly had separate login credentials for Central and for the Forum. I am going to have to check what happens now when I re-enable my 2FA to see if I can login successfully to this new Forum, though I have no idea why BD is requiring the Central 2FA to access a public Forum.

Also, you should note that many people, myself included, have uBlock Origin installed. During my many attempts to access this new Forum, uBlock Origin was blocking "community.bitdefender.com", so I had to whitelist this site. The developers should discuss this with uBlock Origin, because it is not immediately obvious that uBlock Origin is blocking this site.

I would like to see this site greatly improved. I was formerly a daily visitor, but now it is so cumbersome to login and see new posts in Bitdefender 2020 Home Products that it hardly seems worth the effort.

I also don't see a "preview post" button, which is common in most Forums and which I use to make sure that my posts are properly formatted. I would like to see that feature added.

Just my two cents. Thank you and have a great day.

Regards,

-Phil

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Comments

Andy_BD

Hi @garioch7 ,

Thanks for your feedback! And while we're sad to see the change is not entirely to your liking, we're hoping we could change that soon enough!

I am unhappy that when browsing the categories, you cannot see which ones have new topics. You have to open each category individually to see which ones have new topics. Please fix that.

We've actually made it easier for our users to work out which are the latest discussions by incorporating them in a list across all categories in the Recent Discussions page.

You can also bookmark discussions you wish to follow, even though you may have not participated in them. You can do so by clicking the start symbol next to the first post in the discussion. Then you can access all of your bookmarks very easily by clicking the start symbol next to your user picture in the right-hand corner of the page.

I did have 2FA enabled on my Central account, and had to disable it to get access to these Forums

I'm sorry to hear you've had issues with your 2FA. There should be absolutely no issue in using the 2FA while logging on the Community site. I've forwarded this to one of my colleagues and we'll investigate further.

Please note: as we said in the announcement on the old forum - we've rolled out this new community platform in an early-access stage. So any and all feedback we received from you and all further users is highly valuable for us and we want to use it to ensure a better experience.

Also, you should note that many people, myself included, have uBlock Origin installed.

Regarding your issue with with UBlock Origin, I did some tests on Firefox and Chrome with several ad blockers and had no issues. I've done this test on two separate machines, to ensure that there is no inconsistency and have had no problems. We also do not run any ads on the site. so there should be no issue in loading the page.

I also don't see a "preview post" button, which is common in most Forums and which I use to make sure that my posts are properly formatted. I would like to see that feature added.

With the new platform we've actually forgone the need for a preview button. The rich text editor is a WYSIWYG solution and it's highly intuitive to use.

You can:

Heading Formats (Displays 4 possible levels of headings).
List Formats (Numbered List, Bulleted List, Indented & Outdent).
Special Formats (Quote, Code Block, Spoiler).
Standard Formats

Use the Paragraph symbol on the side of the row you're writing on select the type of format you wish to use.

Lastly, your feedback gave us a great idea and we've opened a new category called Forum Feedback! We're hoping to have more input from our users in an easy to follow and discuss format.

Stay safe!

bqpd

I've been browsing this "expert community" for a while I still can't get used to it, and a few more dislikes as follow,

Why is it the blue background is fixed to the search box at the top, it is far too big. I have my font size at 110% the blue background occupying the entire Firefox screen. The size on each discussion page is big enough.

Far too many categories available, can't even decide which category is appropriate.

I open the "recent Discussions" page to view the most recent posts, opening to the above problem of BIG blue background search box then scroll down to currently three useless, at least to me, announcements semi permanently stays on top thus more scrolling to find actual recent posts. Sorry Andy_BD.

🐱

PS. After I posted this realised the "Recent Discussions" page does not show the most recent replied message on top, then recent discussions page is no use to look for new replied messages. "All Recent messages" page needed.

bqpd

Is this "Expert Community"officially run by Bitdefender?

No reply for over 2 weeks, considering this is a new forum system supposedly to replace the old one. "Forum Feedback!" is no use if no administrator actually respond to all user feedbacks.

Tech Hiker

We definitely need a better way to see where the new posts are. All I'm interested in is the Bitdefender 2020 section and I don't want to have to root around through each subsection of 2020 looking for new posts.

Andy_BD

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/295040#Comment_295040

Regarding scaling and headers

Can you please provide more details about which blue background you're referring to? Is it the front page banner with the search bar, or the individual banners with search bars as seen in the header of this very page?

Please make sure your browser is not magnifying the page for you, it can easily happen to zoom in or out of a page if you scroll up or down with your your mouse scroll wheel while holding the CTRL key pressed.

I personally hold it at about 120%-130% when I'm on a 13" laptop screen because my vision is not as good and I don't always use my glasses. (though I really should...)

So you could do the same but to zoom out under 100% if you think the formatting does not fit your screen.

Could you please share with us what device and screen size you're browsing from? When we initially worked on the design for the community platform, we worked on a 1920x1080 resolution as a default since it is the default nowadays for desktop/laptop screens.

If you're running on a lower resolution, that may be what is causing this.

Recent discussions

Please use the recent discussions button on the right-hand side of the forum to view what's new. Also @Tech Hiker, because they highlighted this to be unclear.

By default, the platform's recent discussions are ordered by most recent post (either discussion creation date, or most recent comment post date).

Navigating categories

We are still thinking on how to better format this.

Considering we're hosting discussions for the entire home & home office product catalog, inevitably there will be a lot of categories.

HOWEVER, with regards to our Core line of products (Antivirus Plus, Internet Security, Total Security, Premium, SoHO and Box2) even if you have a 2018 or a 2019 product with a 2 or 3 year license, all your questions should be directed in the Bitdefender 2020 products category.

Why?

Because besides keeping the software updated with the latest virus definitions, we also update it with the latest features. So hypothetically your Bitdefender Total Security 2019 will in fact have all the features of the 2020 version.

Hope this helps clear some things up for everybody!

Tech Hiker

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/295275#Comment_295275

Recent discussion

The problem with the recent discussion list isn't that it is unclear how to find it, it's that it includes too many irrelevant posts. All I'm interested in is the Bitdefender 2020 section. This was super simple in the old forum.

The quote above highlights another problem with the new forum. I can't trim it to the relevant portion for my reply.

[Deleted User]

Well, I finally made it back after the "powers that be" finally did something, after months, to enable me to login here again, using my Bitdefender credentials, which include 2FA. Thanks to Ovidiu L. for that.

As pointed out, navigating this Forum and finding new information of relevance (which Forum topics have new posts without having to open each individual topic) is still less than ideal, and it is not how most Forums operate, ... and I visit a couple of dozen Forums daily.

In any event, I am happy to be back at least. Have a great weekend.

Regards,

-Phil

bqpd

Welcome back, garioch7.

The new "Expert" community is not functioning but now a place where run by a few holier than thou ex beta testers, I assume both of them are, most questions are referred to Bitdefender's email support. We haven't seen any replies from actual employees here.

I still prefer the "old" forum which was/is functioning albeit by answers from a few Btdefender employees in English (Alex D) and French (Yann A).

If it is actually an official stance of Bitdefender not to utilise community/forum to answer by Bitdefender then it should be so stated and let this place continue who ever interested replies most questions with useless/irrelevant information then refer to bitsy@

Yes , Not Happy With New Forum after all.

[Deleted User]

bqpd

I am glad that I am not alone. Just from what I have seen here, after finally being able to login, it seems very quiet, compared to the activity on the old, and better, Forum structure.

Still I plan to persevere for a bit here, in hopes that the site design will be significantly improved and consequently that participation will increase, which will lead to helpful information being posted.

Have a great day.

Regards,

-Phil

Flexx

@bqpd, @garioch7

This is to inform you that forum is continuously checked by bitdefender admins and staff. They only reply back when they find their is a need to and only if the moderators or beta testers are not able to help you provide with better solutions.

Additionally, many people in this forum, people who are beta tester or moderators could help you or other people to a very far extent and with variety of resources and different tool such that you may never need to drop a mail to bitdefender support, but we have been restricted to do that by the forum staff and administrators via personal message. Hence we are helpless and if we are unable to provide you support under the community guidelines provided by the forum administrator/ staff, we will have to redirect you to bitdefender support.

This is the way, how new forum works. We are restricted to help the users with any 3rd party service.

Regards

Flex

(Bitdefender beta tester 2019/ 2020)

[Deleted User]

@Flexx

Thank you for your post. I was not aware of the new restrictions, which, to my mind, are not helpful. There were no such restrictions that I am aware of in the old Forums.

My concern is about how user-UNFRIENDLY the new Forums are. Participation has consequently plummeted. It is also possible that many just got exasperated trying to login, particularly if their Central account had 2FA enabled. Bitdefender Support was a long time fixing that for me.

For now, I will visit and see if my suggestions, and those of the other few participants now visiting are heard by Forum/Community management.

Have a great day.

Regards,

-Phil

Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor