Free Upgrade Offer Splash Screen Legitimate?

I went for this free upgrade by clicking on this advertisement from Bitdefender, but have landed in trouble.

It uninstalled my current version of Bitdefender, and the installation of the new version 2016 has been failing multiple times.

When I try to reinstall my old version now, that too is failing.

Now my computer is without any antivirus. This is really bad!

I attached a screen shot. Is it legit?

Perhaps I'm making too much out of this, but what caught my attention in your attachment is the Bitdefender Logo in the background. I'm unfamiliar with this one.

Has Bitdefender made any changes?

(although I am a little concerned about the "won't last forever" statement)

Of course it won't last forever. As we speak Bitdefender is busy pumping out Bitdefender 2017. " />

Yes, I noticed that as well. The logo does not seem as refined and somewhat different than what I have seen before. That made me suspicious as well. If that splash screen is legitimate, how do I stop it coming up every day without updating at this point?

I'm actually familiar with the new logo. You can see it in all its glory on the Internet Security 2016 product information page:

http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/internet-security.html

Ultimately, yes this pop up ad is legitimate. There is no reason to be suspicious of it. However, you did express that you were annoyed with seeing it. I believe the solution to turn it off would be to go into the General Settings. Once there, turn off the option to "Display special offers and product notifications". Leaving this setting on is probably why you are seeing this pop up. I have never actually seen this pop up myself, however, I've always had the "special offers" options turned off since I first installed Bitdefender 2016.

Thank you Capt. for your comments, observations and suggestions. Unfortunately, under general settings I do not have a "display special offers and product notifications" option. I am running Bitdefender Internet Security, I think it's either 2013 or 14. (The original box does not state).

You have Bitdefender Internet Security (2014). The reason this isn't labeled is because at one point, Bitdefender was going to drop year branding altogether. Instead, there would just be "Bitdefender Internet Security" or "Bitdefender Total Security" and they would always be the latest version. No longer would there be any distinction between versions. They'd all be the same.

Then one day, a manager noticed that someone had made a good decision (probably an engineer), and decided to immediately "correct" this. So the very next year, they went back to their old ways of "year branding".

Regarding your lack of "Notifications" options in your 2014 version, I have a story to tell. Once upon a time, back in the bad ole' days, we used to get pop ups like this all the time. They would pop up every time we boot our computers to tell us a "new", "better" version had been released. We all knew that other than a few minor GUI changes, the product would most likely be the same; so we tried to ignore these pop ups. But try as we might to ignore them, they just kept popping up and popping up. Some people found registry hacks to disable these, but many people didn't want to modify their registry just to stop the pop up ads. So we started to complain. We complained in the forums, we complained to Chat Support, and we complained with hundreds up emails. Eventually, Bitdefender got fed up with our complaints; and starting with the 2015 version, finally gave us a way to turn off the pop up ads. And we all lived happily ever after.

Hope that helps answer your question.

I appreciate all your insight. So I guess you're saying I might as well take the free upgrade to 2016. Are you happy with 2016?

Well, kind of. First of all, there's the annual tradition of including one or two BSODs free of charge with the release of the new yearly version. Fortunately, as it's been a few months, most of them have been fixed.

Regarding Bitdefender Internet Security 2016 specifically, there's been a few changes; and one of them has me concerned.

First the change that I am NOT concerned about: greater connectivity. I believe you still use the old "Bitdefender Dashboard" as your server controller. However, with the 2016 line of products, they superseded this with the new Bitdefender Central. This gives much greater server control than ever before. For example, if you click "Update" from the Bitdefender Central "My Devices" tab, the signal actually reaches your computer (it never did when I used Bitdefender Dashboard). Second, the amount of installations actually is synced in real time. For example, if I would uninstall and reinstall Bitdefener for whatever reason; the amount of installations on the Dashboard would never sync. When it was all said and done, I had like 15 different installations in my Dashboard. Ultimately, I found the Dashboard meaningless. Now, however, the new Bitdefender Central has a greater range of control and accuracy. Now, when you uninstall Bitdefender from your computer, it removes that device from the "My Devices" tab. And, when you remove a device from the "My Devices" tab, it actually sends out a "Deactivate" signal from the sever. I remember removing all my devices from the Dashboard without it actually effecting anything. So essentially, the Bitdefender Central actually does something this time around.

Second, the change that I AM concerned with: Streamlining. With the new Bitdefender 2016 product line, it is more streamlined that ever before. In fact, I found that entire settings have been removed. For example, just look at the Firewall settings. Have ever you seen anything so pathetic?

One setting? ONE SETTING??? Wow... I was blank faced for a second when I first saw that, but then ended up bursting out laughing. Albeit there were only 3 or four options to begin with (I remember "Monitor Wifi Connections" and "Block Internet Connection Sharing" being two of them), and 90% of people probably never used them let alone knew what they were for. But still, it's a slippery slope that I hope doesn't become a problem in the coming years. Seriously, the Firewall settings can't get much more streamlined than that without serious cost to functionality.

The rest of the settings are intact. "Intrusion Detection" has been taken out of the Firewall settings section, and has been made its own module. I'm assuming this was done just to "balance" out the GUI's Feng Shui? he he he. " />

Also, as you can see, they added a new module called Ransomware Protection. However, this is utterly useless as its best, and prevents your computer from executing necessary tasks at its worst. So what you're going to end up doing anyways is leaving this turned off essentially making this a legitimately useless setting. But it balances out the GUI quite nicely.

Ultimately, my opinion on the software as a whole is that it isn't any better or worse than any other version of Bitdefender that I've used save for the Firewall settings streamlining and the more powerful connectivity with the new Bitdefender Central. Other than that, it's essentially the same product you're getting with Bitdefender 2014, just with a different GUI facelift. There's no real reason why shouldn't upgrade to 2016, unless there's something you specifically hate about it.

One final note: once you upgrade to 2016, the license itself is permanently upgraded. What this means is that you can't go back and use it for the 2014, or 2015 products. It can only be used for 2016 and above (2017, 2018, etc.). So keep that in mind. Once you go 2016, you can't go back.