Temporary disabling via system tray icon

Hello,

This feature request was indeed discussed on several ocassions in the community and not only.

In short, if you want my honest opinion, I think there are very small chances that such a function will be implemented, for several reasons that have to do with the safety of the user. There are other ways to troubleshoot and address false positives, such as temporarily disabling the security modules one by one, or sending samples to the Bitdefender Labs to investigate possible incorrect detections. But temporarily disabling protection completely is not one of them and this is not something that the security researchers would endorse.

I would like to share with you a couple of insights and a bit more context concerning this feature that would pause protection. I know that this may not be the outcome you expect, but I think it's important to have the full perspective when it comes to product changes that may affect the security of the users and to analyze every aspect of this proposal. Please keep in mind that, when adjusting the products or developing new features, the product management teams always take multiple criteria into account and each modification must be designed for both advanced users and less tech savvy users as well, to meet overall requirements.

The developers understand that users may have specific needs and that there are situations in which you are willing to expose yourself, either to get a better experience during games or to run certain tests, and the fact that the security solution does not facilitate an option to completely disable all defenses at once, may pose an inconvenience.

However, the first and perhaps most important measure of protection is prevention. As a trusted service provider, Bitdefender is responsible for the integrity of your systems and data, and any vulnerability can be exploited, which they want to avoid completely, as part of the promise to keep users safe at all times.

As a security company, we are at the forefront of the evolution of threats and their manifestations, and the fight between us and the bad guys is happening behind the scenes, as transparent as possible for users. For this reason, our solutions include several layers (prevention, protection, remediation - to name a few) and complex technologies developed precisely to ensure that we can protect everything that is important to you. The product developers and security researchers always take into account all possible vulnerabilities and scenarios of usage. Having an option to completely disable the antivirus protection can pose certain risks for less tech savvy users.

You might argue that a simple notification would resolve this. However, we cannot rely solely on a notification informing the end user that the defenses have been disabled when it comes to resuming protection. If the user dismisses such notification and overlooks to enable protection afterwards, his devices will be at risk and we will not be able to protect him until the antivirus is reactivated. But this is just an example. There are other risky scenarios that may happen.

So, although other security solutions may provide such an option, and you can certainly find ways to ensure that users who use the setting remain unprotected for as little time as possible, I invite you to think about the real importance of this trade-off. Keep in mind that you are as strong as the weakest service you are using.

Thank you for your understanding.

Regards,

Alex