Suggestions For Improving Bitdefender Antivirus Free

The following essential features are missing from BitDefender Antivirus Free:

1. The user should be able to select a desired action for Fille System Shield:

'Fille System Shield Settings' Actions

Virus (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

'PUP' (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

(Potentially Unwanted Programs)

'Suspicious' (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

(based on heuristics logic)

2. FullScan should be restricted ONLY to Windows/Boot partitions, not to other (data) partitions !!!

3. The user should be able to disable Email Client protection.

Email Client Protection ON | OFF

4. The user should be able to disable Web Access Protection.

Web Access Protection (URL address management) ON | OFF

5. The user should be able to exclude folders/files from AutoScan!

Exclusions from AutoScan

Folder 1

Folder ...

FIle 1

File ...

File ...

6. The user should be able to override AutoScan default frequency.

AutoScan Frequency

QuickSweep 2 days (default)

FullScan 2 weeks (default)

The only essential thing in an antivirus is that it will detect viruses and clean the system. Of course we all expect real-time protection too. Bitdefender Free Edition is advertised as the lightest automatic (zero-configurations) solution that provides this. I am sure to be part of a majority of people that do not want to be bothered with configurations and decisions about possible infections in our computers the same way we like our immune systems to deal with biological viruses and not be bothered with a fever. Of course lack of configuration may seem unprofessional, but if the free edition satisfied everyone, how would the developers of this fine product get paid.

Anyway:

1. I understand Bitdefender Free Edition will quarantine any suspicious files, which would be automatically restored if ever found to be false positives. The user is free to choose what to do with a quarantined file. I am not sure this software does anything about Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUP), after all they may be potentially wanted, but it seems to delete infections inside compressed files because they cannot go through the quarantine process.

2. Automatic Deep Sweeps are not the same as Full System Scans. A Full System Scan (performed only when requested) would not be so if it excluded anything!

3,4. Anything that would result in a breach of security is equivalent to turning the Virus Shield off.

5. See #2.

6. Auto scans are part of the efficient design (e.g., I am sure they help to keep a local white list). Their schedule seems to be part of the efficiency

How do I know if Bitdefender Free Edition has quarantined any suspicious files? How to see the quarantined folder? I believe it has removed/quarantined my Mozilla Firefox profile.ini file which caused me to lose all my personalized settings and bookmarks. How do I restore the quarantined files if I can't find it?

Are we sure that this Free Edition has email client protection? Does it have web access protection? How do you know that the Auto Scan frequency is 2 weeks?

Normally, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition shows detected threats in the main interface providing a quick access. Quarantined files stay in their original folders with the added extension ".gzquar" and they are blocked. To manage suspicious files, select LOGS on the main panel (bottom left) and then, on the logs panel, select Threat Control (bottom center right). False positive may be restored/excluded there. (Note: false positives are more likely to occur [however rare] when Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition is not connected to Bitdefender servers.)

I am not clear how or if this software offers protection for an email client (that is not advertised!) but it should detect problem files when you open mail attachments. As far as I know, it does not scan secure (encrypted) connections. It will scan http connections (as stated here!) and block whole web pages or portions of them (those from malicious links). Malicious files coming through secure connections are detected and blocked locally. You may verify this through eicar testfile download page.

The scan schedule for Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition was published on the update notes for version 1.0.16.1022 as performing a deep scan once per week.

1. The user should be able to select a desired action for Fille System Shield:

'Fille System Shield Settings' Actions

Virus (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

'PUP' (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

(Potentially Unwanted Programs)

'Suspicious' (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

(based on heuristics logic)

By setting, maybe, but not by default.

2. FullScan should be restricted ONLY to Windows/Boot partitions, not to other (data) partitions !!!

No, it shouldn't. The point of an AV is to keep malware off your PC and before harm, not remove it after it's their and causing havoc.

5. The user should be able to exclude folders/files from AutoScan!

Exclusions from AutoScan

Folder 1

Folder ...

FIle 1

File ...

File ...

I cannot agree more! I am a pentester and have Metasploit installed, so it quarintines half my metasploit install and I have to manually restore each and every file, one by one.

6. The user should be able to override AutoScan default frequency.

AutoScan Frequency

QuickSweep 2 days (default)

FullScan 2 weeks (default)

Not really a necessity, but it's a good feature none the less.

The following essential features are missing from BitDefender Antivirus Free:

1. The user should be able to select a desired action for Fille System Shield:

'Fille System Shield Settings' Actions

Virus (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

'PUP' (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

(Potentially Unwanted Programs)

'Suspicious' (Ask | Quarantine | Delete | No Action)

(based on heuristics logic)

2. FullScan should be restricted ONLY to Windows/Boot partitions, not to other (data) partitions !!!

3. The user should be able to disable Email Client protection.

Email Client Protection ON | OFF

4. The user should be able to disable Web Access Protection.

Web Access Protection (URL address management) ON | OFF

5. The user should be able to exclude folders/files from AutoScan!

Exclusions from AutoScan

Folder 1

Folder ...

FIle 1

File ...

File ...

6. The user should be able to override AutoScan default frequency.

AutoScan Frequency

QuickSweep 2 days (default)

FullScan 2 weeks (default)

The deep scans happen more often than once a week if you leave auto scan turned on. It's more like every 3 or 4 days.

Baloney! Exclusions are an absolute requirement. Even in a free product. Not including them is like giving away free firearms with no trigger safety, or free automobiles with no brakes, etc, etc. The fact that they aren't included is such an unbelievably brain-dead, deal killing decision that one wonders just who gets these guys dressed in the morning.

Quoted from Graciliano's post above

Normally, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition shows detected threats in the main interface providing a quick access. Quarantined files stay in their original folders with the added extension ".gzquar" and they are blocked. To manage suspicious files, select LOGS on the main panel (bottom left) and then, on the logs panel, select Threat Control (bottom center right). False positive may be restored/excluded there.

It seems that things can only be excluded after they produce a false positive. That's fine with me but I have yet to have any file detection of any kind and nothing has ever been quarantined (except for EICAR). The only detections I have had have been blocked web pages.

Honest Iago,

this is only one of several very bad programmings in Bitdefender's GUI and program.

Since this forum seems to be almost orphaned, it should be appropriate to write this to the support.

At least they have answered to my findings that they would hand them over to the programmers.

Kind regards,

cc-bit