Profile Systems have massive issues

SeriousHoax

Firstly, I'm not a fan of Bitdefender's profiling system because it's not well-designed, problematic, annoying and in a sense unnecessary.

The issue is, it automatically puts apps into certain profiles without giving user a choice to remove that app from certain profiles. For example, I use Thunderbird email client, and it needs to be running 24x7. I have it added as a startup app so, whenever I start my system, Bitdefender automatically turns on Work profile. So my PC is on Work profile 24x7.

Now if I check the settings of Work profile then I see that the default setting is to turn off product update and background maintenance. This only makes sense for the game profile. People who work with Microsoft Office apps, email clients like Outlook, Thunderbird all the time would remain without signature update as long as the apps are running. This is a very strange design.

If there was an option to exclude apps from profiles then I would be able to delete all these from Work profile, but there isn't.

IMO, Bitdefender should get rid of Profiles altogether and start doing what many other products have been doing for years and that is automatically turn on Game Mode when it detects a program running in full screen. It's the easiest method. The only time when users might want their AV to not do any background tasks like signature update/scheduled scan and impact performance is gaming. That's how other AV products are designed and there are no complaints from users. I have turned on Automatic Profile Switching in Bitdefender only for the game profile. I don't need anything else. I also tried manually adding game exe into the game profile to avoid enabling it, but it doesn't work unless I also enable Automatic Profile Switching.

If the full screen method is not something you prefer then you can follow what F-Secure does now and that is, F-Secure turns on their Game Mode when Windows's built-in Game Mode detects a program as games. So when it happens, F-Secure automatically turns on Game Mode. This method is efficient too since Windows Game Mode usually able to detect games almost 100% of the time excluding some pirated games.

Either one or the other would be the best solution. But if Bitdefender still wants to keep the Profile system then give us the option to manually remove apps from profiles.

Please consider my suggestion and change the current method which is clearly not ideal.

Scott

@HomoSapiens

This is a good point:

"Now if I check the settings of Work profile then I see that the default setting is to turn off product update and background maintenance. This only makes sense for the game profile. People who work with Microsoft Office apps, email clients like Outlook, Thunderbird all the time would remain without signature update as long as the apps are running. This is a very strange design.

If there was an option to exclude apps from profiles then I would be able to delete all these from Work profile, but there isn't".

The only option we have is in reverse, to have certain apps that we may want to be enabled in a profile. But still, that profile has to be turned on, for the inclusion of that app. when it's opened. My Word example is a poor one, as Work Profile (when enabled) would automatically start with that one, but is just being shown as an example. To have exclusions for Word, Thunderbird etc, would be a good idea, but would people want to do that, have to manually exclude apps, especially if it would have to be done over multiple devices...thus the rest of your post. Interesting observations, HomoSapiens :)

Edit: and yet, I don't ever remember a member bringing this up as far as it is being an issue, but maybe I have missed those posts? Maybe a lot of members use Word, Office, Thunderbird etc as needed then exit out of it, so they never realized it as far as what Work Profile shuts off and it being a security issue? Granted, on the Enterprise side, where they would constantly be having "Work apps" (if they were to have that) be open, is it different than most home users. So in thinking about it, it's a good observation but not so high on my priority list. You could post a survey thread, and see what kind of response you get from the other members, though :)