Add custom sound to notifications

SaurikSI

It would be very useful to be able to add a custom sound for Bitdefender alerts (Like Avast lets you do), notification popups are pretty good at their job don't get me wrong, but in some cases having an alarm that catches the attention of the user would be good, especially if the user can choose a custom sound file.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @SaurikSI and thank you once again for contributing in this section of the forum.

I can honestly tell you that our product teams are analyzing each and every idea posted here and they always get valuable insight from these suggestions, even though some may not meet certain criteria and could be more challenging to develop in the complex antivirus system, I think they provide a good overview on usage and consumer needs and this leads to other opportunities and areas of development that maybe weren't so obvious before.

When it comes to in-product notifications, based on the feedback we received so far, not only from the variety of threads on the forum, but also from other feedback sources and research, I think we can split the preferences in two: some users simply wish to have a "set it and forget it" type of product, one that does not communicate excessive notifications or is completely silent and this is of course understandable, as in today's world, we have so many services that feed a variety of notifications and pop ups to their users and sometimes we just want things to be quiet and do their job in the background. Now, this works fine with some apps, but whenever we are talking about security products, it gets more complex, because with a continuously evolving threat landscape that does not rest, comes the need of awareness or a call to action at some point during the antivirus ownership. New threats or vulnerabilities may also create the need for new notifications to be developed, on top of the existing ones.

And the second preference comes from users that wish to be informed of what's happening on their devices all of the time and I think that most advanced users prefer this type of communication. I think the key here is to find the ideal balance that meets the requirements of both advanced and less tech savvy users, so they can enjoy the solution and benefit from the most advanced cybersecurity technology without feeling overwhelmed, but in control. Since the product developers received very consistent feedback with detailed examples of usage and antivirus pop up behaviour under certain conditions, they planned a comprehensive review of all product notifications that will take place throughout the year, so they can prioritize the most valuable notifications to the user, but also provide more context and display useful information, in a user-friendly manner and and easy to understand. Considering this, the number one priority for notifications would be this review and all necessary changes that come from it.

The notifications are a sensitive topic in my opinion and I'm not entirely sure the sounds will play along well with the pop-ups, it's risky and sounds may distract or annoy the users that are already frustrated with notifications altogether. Of course, if a kill switch that cancels all sounds can be implemented, this would be doable, but again, it must be determined the value it brings to the mass of users and if this is something mandatory for the product to have. Nevertheless I will forward this suggestion to the product teams, of course, but there are no guarantees of future development, especially in this notification overhaul process, which is of utmost importance to the developers right now.

Regards

AzJazz

I, too, would like the option of an aural alert when a threat is detected. I install and maintain PCs for my elderly friends and relatives. Anti-virus programs can confuse them on what pop-ups are important. When it comes to all the anti-virus programs I have used in the past, I have told my friends, "If you see an alert and it also beeps, then give me a call to check it out. If it doesn't beep, it's just the anti-virus giving you information or an ad to purchase upgrades."

The balance is incredibly easy for Bitdefender to implement: By default on installation, aural alerts are disabled. Just add a user setting to enable/disable aural alerts on a real-time threat detection. Real-time threats should be a rare occurrence, so users shouldn't be getting frustrated with too many notifications. Any "sensitive" users can still re-disable the aural notifications in the application settings if they are going to dodgy sites all the time.