Will BD Total Security Automatically Downgrade To BD Antivirus Free When Subscription Expires?

stoppwdmgrads

As we already know, the new Antivirus Free is essentially a detuned version of subscription editions. When subscription like Total Security expires, will it automatically downgrade to free version, or I have to uninstall it or renew it?

Scott

Hi @stoppwdmgrads

Since the free version and the paid-for versions are separate from each other, when a subscription ends for Total Security, it will not function and revert to a free version (i.e. only using the free version modules) but will warn you that you are unprotected. You would need to renew the Total Security subscription or uninstall it and download and install the free version.

They both are also registered in your Central account separately.

Kind regards,

Scott

stoppwdmgrads

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/321798#Comment_321798

Can I wait for it to expire and use another BD Central account that activated with Free version to make it behave like Free version? Or reinstalling is the only option?

Kaspersky allows automatically downgrade to free version when subscription expires FYI.

Ps: When BD says to need a restart for application update itself (as shown in notification with a red dot), is it safe to uninstall it then only restart PC if want to uninstall it from the PC?

Scott

Hi @stoppwdmgrads

You can wait for it to expire, but to use the free version, you would need to uninstall the paid version from that device, then install the free version to that device. Since the paid version won't revert to a free version, Central needs to keep track of it in that way as far as it being two different versions of Bitdefender.

It's better to let Bitdefender complete the install of the update as it has installed it, but it just needs to finalize it with the restart. It's better to let it complete that process, then uninstall if desired.

Kind regards,

Scott