Please stop grabbing window focus on update pop-ups

dustland.crow · 2022-09-07T17:56:26+00:00

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Running Antivirus Plus, I keep getting these ridiculous pop-ups about service restarts despite suppressing all pop-ups in the settings. Even worse, they grab the window focus so if you're doing absolutely anything else then your work or your game is interrupted. Enabling Work Profile or any other profile does nothing.

I cannot tell you how many times I thought my application crashed because it wasn't responding to keyboard commands, only to find out, no, the window focus had been seized by Bitdefender.

I get it. You don't want to the user to visit an attack page while the Bitdefender service isn't running. Fine. But what was wrong with deferring service restarts until the machine is restarted the way they used to be? Why do you feel the need to grab window focus and interrupt my work?

First the password manager pop-up fiasco and now this. Do you want to lose a paying customer of 5 years?

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Comments

Alexandru_BD

Hello @dustland.crow and welcome to the Community!

I will do my best to provide some clarification regarding this notification.

The fact that various types of notifications were suppressed does not mean that the product will no longer communicate operation or detection issues. There are still many situations where the user must be aware of what is happening.

In newer versions of Windows, shut down or sleep is no longer equal to restart, due to performance considerations of the operating system. So unless the user explicitly restarts the system, he would no longer be able to replace the update files as he used to do before - that's about what was wrong with deferring service restarts until the machine is restarted the way they used to be. That's why this flow appeared, so that we can allow updates to be carried out when necessary and ensure the devices are restarted properly.

However, there are plans to improve this notification flow as much as possible and the developers have addressed some areas already, but I cannot say what will change and when, at the moment.

As the notification says, Bitdefender services will restart. This means that Windows will give the user a message that he is no longer protected in the few seconds that Bitdefender services stop and start. It is important, however, that the user sees this pop-up from us before seeing the message from Windows, because otherwise it will seem like there is a problem with the antivirus, so that's why it is necessary to focus on this.

Regards

dustland.crow

Got another one today. This time it took focus away from AutoCAD while I was performing an action and I had to redo it. One of these days it will be something more critical than that.

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/315628#Comment_315628

Then why not use the native Windows notification system with your own category instead of relying on Security Center? Or have a flashing taskbar icon? Or use idle timers to wait for a period of inactivity? Even my UPS does not feel the need to slap a big pop-up in the corner when I am no longer connected to the power grid.

NHB

Best comment: "If you cannot fix a problem with pop ups in your own application that doesn't give me much assurance that you can protect my computer from outside threats."

Alexandru_BD

Hi @NHB,

This pop-up is technically not an issue and the technology that stands behind the protection layers is entirely a different topic.

For the past decade, Bitdefender has undoubtedly been one of the best security solution providers in the world – we’re not just beating our own drum and we often let independent reviewers, specialty magazines and customers advocate for that. 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). Our detection technologies are not only used by millions of consumer and enterprise users, it’s also being licensed to about 30 percent of our competitors in the anti-virus space.

https://www.bitdefender.com/business/awards.html

Now, if this doesn't give assurance, I'm not sure what does 🙂

Regards

dustland.crow

Got another one today. This time it unselected about 200 different objects in a file I was working on and I lost 15 minutes. I think I will let my subscription run out and go to another vendor.

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/317448#Comment_317448

Nice copy-pasta. This isn't an issue, huh? Thank you for letting me know what the real attitude towards a customer of six years is at Bitdefender.

I find it very hard to believe this is acceptable behavior for an enterprise environment. Probably why my employer chose a different vendor for its hundreds of thousands of mission critical deployments across the globe.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @dustland.crow and thank you for following up on the thread.

I believe there has been a misunderstanding here. The above quoted reply was intended for the member NHB, as I have also tagged him in my comment. NHB expressed security concerns and I have simply assured him that he has nothing to worry about, as long as all his defenses are operational. I am sorry to hear that my comment offended you in any way, it was by no means intended. I take this opportunity to thank you for your loyalty and for choosing Bitdefender in the first place.

Going back to the main topic, please see my previous response and the reasoning behind the update notification.

There are no further updates at this point, however, you may discuss this notification behaviour with the Support engineers, to see if a workaround can be found. You can get in touch with them by choosing one of the contact methods available here:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help/

Regards

kherova

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/315628#Comment_315628

I agree this is very annoying. I set it to movie profile specifically to avoid getting these while watching movies, but they still pop up and bring the task bar with it over my movie. I understand what you say about notifying before a restart, but Windows doesn't force a restart, so I don't even get the thing you are trying to preempt. Even if your reason was to inform the user of a critical vulnerability, there should be a way to allow the user to choose to mute these messages if we understand what is going on. If the point is to inform us, and we are informed that is what is going on you don't need to keep doing it. Do it once, explain why, and give us an option to mute the message in future.

aptly0656

There are many ways to trigger and display a notification on Windows, but Bitdefender's PM chose the most intrusive way, dictating what user must stop doing everything else and see.

Imagine your user is playing a competitive game and your intrusive alert pops up, minimizing all existing windows and staying always on top. The user loses the game and can't rank up because of it. Once the user figures out there is no way to turn off or even deprioritize such notification, they always have a quick and easy option: uninstall Bitdefender and let Microsoft Defender to the work, for free, without interruptions.

A game competition sponsor would ban Bitdefender on their machines to avoid interruptions. Gamer, streamer on YouTube/Twitch, or anyone who prefer not to be interrupted, would do it, now that the free alternative is right there.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @aptly0656 and thanks for joining the conversation here.

As mentioned above, the fact that various types of notifications were suppressed does not mean that the product will no longer communicate operation or detection issues. There are still many situations where the user must be aware of what is happening. Most in-product notifications can be disabled, but this is a security solution after all and should communicate security related events. Sure, some of us are more experienced and know how to protect ourselves online, but there are also less tech savvy users that should be kept informed of what's happening on their devices. Banning the security solution on machines for doing its job is like hiring a football player to perform and firing him after scoring a goal. It defeats the purpose.

There are ways of customizing the antivirus according to your requirements and usage. During a gaming session, you can configure the Bitdefender Game Profile in order to enjoy an uninterrupted gaming experience. You can find more information in the guide below:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/2066/

Whenever this profile is enabled, Bitdefender temporarily halts pop-ups so that you can enjoy your game without any interruptions and it also pauses unimportant background activities, reducing system load and diminishing slowdowns.

I hope the information is helpful.

Regards