[Review] Bitdefender Internet Security 2014: Best Companion of your PC

Life has become so fast these days, and people too are enjoying this speed. The continuous addition of advanced technologies offered by various organizations lead people live a smart and hassle free life. However, the problem is Computer Viruses too have gained too much power to bypass our PC’s outdated security measures, and to deal with these smart hazards (read viruses) we need the smartest Antivirus Programme in order to protect our beloved PC by ensuring maximum security.

There are many users who think that installing an Antivirus Software is enough, but the actual fact is our PC deserves much more care. A free Antivirus may shield your computer from normal viruses, but to stay protected both offline and online you have to spend some money. Nowadays it has become a must to ensure top level security while working online in your PC, as hackers are spammers are always waiting to make your life hell by breaking into your IPs or stealing your important information like credit card details, bank details etc. You might have already heard a few cases about these type of incidents in near past.

Today I’ll talk about such a product which has already won several awards in its category for several outstanding features, user-friendly interface, and a superb customer support team. When it comes to choose an Antivirus Programme, you can blindly trust on Bitdefender. It has been offering top level products to its users for a while now, and it deserves all the recognitions and critical acclamations. It is indeed one of the most trusted names in PC security world.

This year Bitdefender Antivirus has launched three new products, which are Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, Bitdefender Internet Security and Bitdefender Total Security. Today I’ll talk about the Internet Security only.

Bitdefender Internet Security 2014 is such a product which not only ensures ultra maximum security but also demands lesser interaction from your side. It has a great Auto Pilot mode, which can easily manage almost every necessary security measures on its own. It will not ask for your permissions every now and then by showing up idiotic pop-up messages every now and then. You can even track down all the recent events at your own convenience; a user-friendly box shows up to offer information about the pending events.

I was using free Antivirus software in my PC, but it was giving me troubles every now and then. So I decided to make a switch to the best, and for that I preferred to undergo a research. After that I found out that almost every leading and trustable websites (like PC Mag) gave Bitdefender Internet Security 2014 awesome ratings. I decided to go for it, and since then I have been using it on my own PC, and trust me guys the experience is better than what I expected. It is the best antivirus I have ever used for sure.

Bitdefender Internet Security offers a non-intrusive and extremely fast scanning technology by enhancing silent security against all type of e-threats. The main suite of this software is very easy to use. It uses red, green and yellow banner across the top to reflect the overall security status of the protection. It also notifies about the pending events with a small numeric indicator, and it shows only four panels at a time representing significant security components. This product has as much as 8 awesome panels: Antivirus, Privacy Control, Firewall, Update, Anti Spam, Safego, Parental Control and Wallet. The best part is you can easily re-order these panels as per your own choice so that only your favorite four appear at startup.

Bitdefender Internet Security also comes with a cool desktop widget which is compatible with Windows XP through Windows 8. The widget informs about the pending events and clearly reflects overall protection status. It graphically showcases antivirus and firewall activity too.

This latest edition is having better performance technology, strong password manager tool, more accurate spam detection capability and much improved reporting.

How to install?

It’s very easy to install this awesome suite on your PC. You just have to download the compact set up program, which basically checks the PC for other incompatible security programs. If you are using any other antivirus suites in your PC then you have to remove them, otherwise the installation will not be completed. Then a pop up dialogue box appears in which the suite performs a thorough scan, downloads and installs all the components. After that you are all set to explore this awesome software.

Once the primary set up is done, a user-friendly interface appears which offers quite easy navigation options. Even non-savvy PC users can access it without any trouble as all the important settings and panels are just a click or two away. After the installation Bitdefender enables an autopilot mode and auto-gaming mode by default. It’ll be followed by a system scan to check for any corrupt files or existing viruses.

[Note: The installation process is easy but the updates can take some real time to complete.]

Bitdefender Internet Security Key Features

Antivirus Panel

After installing the suite first I tried a full system scan on my own PC. Honestly it take quite a long time (almost 2 hours) which I didn’t like that much. But it successfully detected all the malware-affected files and took necessary measures automatically. After that I tried the same one more time, and to my surprise this time the whole scanning process took only 35 minutes. This is only because of Bitdefender's new Photon technology, which is basically an innovative antivirus technology that accelerates scanning speed by gradually adapting to your PC. Personally I loved this.

If you don’t want to wait that much, then you can always go for the Quick Scan option. This is also a good option, and it checks key system areas and run time packers. In my PC the first Quick scan took only 15 seconds to complete.

There is an Auto-schedule option that allows a user to run the scan automatically, but this feature has some limitations. You can use it to run the scan only once a day and the process can’t be automatically triggered by events like shutting down or starting up.

The Antivirus Panel features "Rescue Mode”. It is cool Linux based data recovery environment that helps to restore the PC even if the main Windows will not boot. Honestly I didn’t try it for my PC, as it didn’t need to restore. However, it should work just as fine on any other systems and it is indeed a very good addition to this awesome suite.

It sports a vulnerability scan option which works to find the missing updates to Windows and several other important installed applications such as Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash Player, Web browsers, Java and more.

Two-way Firewall

The Bitdefender Internet Security possesses a two-way firewall support that can securely monitor your internet connections. It protects any unauthorized or hacking activities whatsoever by ensuring intruders have zero access over your Wi-Fi network. This blocks port scans too for better performances.

Enhanced Bitdefender Safepay

With the Bitdefender Safepay you can protect your system from hackers by opening all your banking and online money transaction pages in a separate and ultra secure private browser. It obviously keeps all the important credentials safe and secure and well within your reach. This allows you to transact online without compromising your credit card details. This basically creates such an isolated environment which can’t be tracked by the harmful malwares. I used it while making a purchase on Amazon using PayPal, and it worked fine, as it perfectly bypassed commercial key loggers and screen grab tools on my system. 

Click the Image to enlarge

Bitdefender Wallet

Bitdefender Wallet securely stores your favorite website’s login credentials, credit card details, network set ups and several other sensitive information. If you set it up properly and turned on then it starts to save your user names and passwords as you enter them for the first time and later filling up the forms automatically whenever it is needed.

I think it’s a very helpful feature as it records all the data in one place. In fact the ‘Email Settings’ tab helps you to store all of your email account user names and passwords. This is a cool way to keep it safe and out of reach from spammers.

However, the Wallet is not that perfect in my view. It can’t generate strong passwords and it is not saving the credentials on a cloud storage or online. This means in order to use the Wallet on a different system you have to transport and sync the whole database manually, which is pretty boring indeed.

Strong Parental Control

This program is also having a strong parental control system, which reveals the online activities of your kids by generating a detailed report. As a parent you can even restrict them from using unwanted websites or accessing unhealthy contents. I’m not suing this on my own PC, as my parents don’t want to track my online activities.

Enhanced Cloud Anti Spam

This internet security suite has an anti spam filter to restrict unwanted emails from reaching your inbox in order to keep it junk free. In this edition it is fully based on Cloud technology which is ensuring its optimum usefulness. I am personally recommending it as it blocked as much as 85 percent of spam mails, which is outstanding in my view. However, I will suggest you to spend a little bit of time on whitelisting to improve its performances.

Useful Browser Extensions

It features a cool set of icons which are automatically added to your search engine results upon installation the suite. It indicates whether a web page is safe to use or not. In case of potentially dangerous pages it shows a red color, and if you click on them then access will be blocked to ensure the system’s safety. However, this can be overridden if you feel that the site is trustable and safe to use.

System Requirements

Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP SP3 (32 bit), Vista (SP2), Microsoft Windows 7 (SP1), Microsoft Windows 8

CPU: 800MHz processor (minimum), Intel CORE Duo (1.66 GHz) or equivalent processor (recommended)

Memory (RAM): 1 GB (Microsoft Windows XP and 1.5 GB (Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Windows 8

Available free hard disk space: 1.8 GB (2.8GB recommended) free space (at least 800 MB on the system drive)

Software Requirements

Internet Explorer 7 and higher

.NET Framework 3.5 (automatically installed by Bitdefender if necessary)

Integrates easily with

Firefox 3.6 and higher

Outlook 2007, 2010

Outlook Express and Windows Mail on x86

Thunderbird 3.0.4

Pros

1. Outstanding Auto Pilot mode that reduces user interaction

2. Excellent reviews and antivirus scores from PC Mag and other featured websites

3. Awesome protection against phishing

4. Ultra accurate spam filtering service

5. Secure browser and protection against spammers and hackers

6. Developed Parental Control System with Facebook monitoring option

7. Two-way Firewall support that stops any direct attack

Cons

1. It is difficult to install malware-affected systems

2. Password Management can be improved

3. Cloud Storage is limited and should be enhanced

4. Default firewall configuration cancels some protection measures

5. Wallet credentials can’t be saved online

Wrap Up

Bitdefender Internet Security has all the potentialities to become the best companion of your PC. It ensures maximum safety and that too without disturbing the users that much with unnecessary alerts or queries. It is surely a great choice if you’re looking for a antivirus suite for your PC. The price might be on a little higher side, but trust me it is worth every penny of it.

Price: £39.95 for 1 PC/1 Year and £44.95 for up to 3 PC/1 Year