I want to exit Bitdefender. Completely. Shut it down. This is a virus.

grizmin

How do I quit this virus without completely uninstalling it (I paid money)?

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/94608/i-want-to-exit-bitdefender-completely-shut-it-down-this-is-a-virus

You can only disable bitdefender services temporarily by following the steps in below stated link

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/28557/

Regards

grizmin

One of the major characteristics of a virus is that you can't get rid of it when you want. Well, guess what Bitdefender reminds me of?

grizmin

Really? Well, uninstall it is. Having a 10-minute long procedure just to "disable it" is a no go for me.

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/319662#Comment_319662

If you need bitdefender to implement a feature request, then you can create a post in below stated link

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/categories/product-features-and-ideation

That being said, it is not guaranteed whether or not the feature will be implemented by the developers.

Regards

Alexandru_BD

Hello @grizmin,

An exit feature has been previously requested for the antivirus in the ideation thread below:

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/91650/exit-bitdefender

You can read the full conversation to find out the developers input on this feature and reasoning behind their decision.

If you can share more context regarding what's actually happening on your devices and what is the reason behind your decission to uninstall the product or deactivate protection, we'll do our best to help, or at least guide you in the right direction.

Regards

grizmin

Hi Alexandru,

I am not a typical user, my opinion doesn't matter. That being stated I'll give you a bit more context.

I don't use antivirus on my PCs and for the last 15 years or so I never had a virus. My wife's laptop broke and I gave her my gaming laptop until she receives a replacement. She started complaining about popups/webpage redirects and issues with her browser in general. My 1st thought was like - come on, 2 days and you managed to get malware?!

Since I didn't have time to spend on this I just went and bought your product. I didn't compare features, research, or whatsoever. I just don't like "viruses" in general. And yes, I still think antivirus is a special kind of 'virus'. It turned out that it's just an ARP-poisoned hotel network that she used and the PC is actually clean :)

This is how I ended up having Bitdefender installed on my gaming laptop which I rarely use. To be honest, my performance doesn't suffer noticeably. The thing is, that when you debug some wired behavior in your system (in that particular case WSL network issues) having multi-component antivirus running is not exactly helping. I just want to hit the exit button and reduce the potential noise. And I spent like 20 minutes reading forums wondering if I missed something... It turned out, that I have to disable services etc. Way too much hassle for me.

This is how I uninstalled :)

Thank you for your time. I really appreciate the attention.

Sincerely,

Konstantin

Alexandru_BD

Hello @grizmin and thanks for following up.

I appreciate the context :)

In regard to popups/webpage redirects, these are not necessarily malware and there are a couple of things you can do to get rid of them. Usually, if you are not accessing the pages directly, your browser connects to them either through allowed notifications or toolbars/extensions. I suggest that you clear the cache & cookies and remove any unused/unknown extensions.

It is recommended to uninstall any unknown programs and browser add-ons from your computer, revoke Web Push permissions for the sites allowed to display messages on your screen, reset your browser and install an ad blocker. It is also a good idea to clean up your inbox by deleting emails from unknown senders. Delete all SPAM/Junk as well. Finally, empty the trash on your email account.

An antivirus will give you peace of mind and although it might be inconvenient to disable each security module one by one or to uninstall and reinstall the product completely, to perfom certain tasks on the machine, it's worth doing it.

In today's world and with a continuously evolving threat landscape, I cannot imagine not having antivirus protection. Prevention is always one of the best defenses you can have and even though we hear of phishing, ransomware, malware, adware and things like that around us, the tendency is to tell ourselves that it won't happen to us, they have nothing to steal from us and unfortunately, this couldn't be further from the truth. Personal data has become the new gold in this era and whenever we leave a door open, we become vulnerable to an arsenal of threats looming around the corner. It's a real thing.

Regardless of your antivirus views and choices, stay protected.

Regards