Bitdefender - no longer best in class

CrowVsWade

I've been a Bitdefender subscriber, with multiple accounts covering a couple of dozen devices, since 2017. It was, at that time, easily the best in class AV/Malware suite on the market, offering excellent protection combined with very good low-profile resource management, at very fair pricing. It worked in the background, quietly, discreetly, doing exactly what most average and 'power users' want from AV solutions.

While the protection level remains very strong, over the last couple of years, in particular, it's turned into overweight bloatware, clearly dominated by marketing teams over technical people. The endless SSL warning notifications and focus hijacking, huge network speed degradation, clunky and overwrought UI and absolutely terrible, even offensively patronizing technical support in these forums, typically by people with far less technical knowledge than many users, offering cut & paste templated replies that rarely even acknowledge problems, or typically inform users a software problem is how it's 'supposed to work' and not a failing. These are problems that many reported back in 2020 (such as the notification hijack) and still haven't been addressed. It's an application that now gets in the way of productivity as well as leisure.

At this point I'm seriously considering cancelling my accounts and uninstalling Bitdefender in favor of Kaspersky or Webroot. In the event Bitdefender management (versus marketing) people ever read these forums, know that your product is failing and you've let the non-technical people take over the tent. This seems to be the same cycle that killed McAfee and Norton, as good products, if not in sales.

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/91982/bitdefender-no-longer-best-in-class

@Mike_BD, @Alexandru_BD - kindly have a look into this and address the issue.

Regards

Gjoksi

Also @camarie, as Principal Software Developer (which is Level 4 in standard software engineering), could take a look here and comment on this...

Scott

Many members have been helped on this forum, and even at times express their appreciation for it.

There is only so much we can do without what, 2 or 3 engineers or developers being Admins on this forum and reading log files etc. "in real time"? We as members and the mods/Admins at times are pretty much just liaisons between the members and the engineers for things that are out of our abilities to address here, even if it is "copy and paste", no?

Other forums also give links to next level support. Granted, some even have members that have been there for years, with 5,000+ posts, so they would over time become more "advanced" with all the accumulated knowledge. What we do have here are some members who have been here and users of Bitdefender since 2007 and beyond. This also speaks for itself of a loyalty and faith in the Bitdefender product which at times supercedes a perceived lack of non technical support here. If I get reprimanded for this post, that's fine, as I've been here on and off over the years to have seen this forum and product through its best of times and struggles. The old forum had greater issues, Mike and Alexandru have really put together something I'm liking and appreciating here.

Some of the posts here from members who go above and beyond just a helpful response, to amazingly informative, makes me glad to be a part of this forum.

I am not trying to debate you, CrowVsWade, as I'm sure the Admins are not looking for that, and we appreciate your feedback and a heads-up of what you notice on your end, I just wanted to express it from my, personal end.

Again, Alexandru and Mike, I apologize if I said to much and am not representing you and Bitdefender in the proper way.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @CrowVsWade and welcome to the Community!

I take this opportunity to express my appreciation for your loyalty towards Bitdefender.

Indeed, the Bitdefender solution set was always recognized as the best. Proof to that are countless awards received from independent testing organizations and specialized IT websites. Bitdefender also has received more “Product of the Year Awards” than any other security vendor in independent tests in the last decade (2009-2019).

In the technological era we live in nowadays, the human touch is paramount to real and satisfying customer experience. The community was born with the scope to bring the users closer to Bitdefender. It is a place where each member can share their feedback and experience with other Bitdefender users around the world, exchange ideas and opinions and last but not least, develop real connections. Given the nature of our business, it goes without saying that most of the discussions around here revolve around the technical area, but are not limited to this. When it comes to supporting other members and providing guidance and troubleshooting steps, the value of this community stands in the people that are willing to share their knowledge to help others, on their own time, unconditionally and at their discretion. As admins and moderators, we do our best to enrich the content displayed on the forum, so that both our members and visitors can find answers and valuable insight. We aim to ensure a clean virtual environment and of course, to assist the members in various situations, to the best of our knowledge.

Canned responses are not the preferred communication method, because we have a different approach on this forum. We rely on meaningful conversations, encourage creativity and ideation. I cannot pronounce myself in regards to how this community was managed prior to my arrival. What I can tell you is that, since January when I've been instated in this position, together with Mike we have made numerous changes and improvements on the forum, based on assessments and user feedback and we will continue to do so.

It is important to note that, the amount of technical assistance that can be provided in this community is limited, because in some cases, it is necessary for the users to contact the technical support teams for further assistance, logs and also remote sessions. Look at it this way: we can help for Level 1 issues and scenarios, by providing step by step guidelines and knowledge base articles. These articles have proved very helpful, because most of them display illustrations as well and detailed steps. They were created as a result of known difficulties or scenarios that the users may encounter. But these are NOT canned messages, they serve as instructions and naturally, it's not efficient to write them down every time for recurrent inquiries. This strategy is also used by the Support Teams and the consumer support branch for that matter, but at a different scale, as they can work on hundreds of tickets on a daily basis.

In regards to the warning notifications, most of them can be customized, but some of them cannot be turned off completely, indeed. The security of our users is paramount for all teams here at Bitdefender and all notifications are displayed with a purpose in mind. If you have one particular notification that steals focus or is being displayed without an obvious reason, kindly let us know and we will further advise.

Our developers do have an ongoing process to improve certain areas for our products and services where changes need to be made (specifically notifications) and we highly appreciate that you have shared your thoughts with us.

And I do hope that you will remain our faithful customer and that we'll be able to meet your expectations in the future, as we should.

Best regards