BitDefender

I bought Bitdefender (4/2023) and used for about three months after all the rave reviews by computer mags, etc. I have a fairly high-end desktop (Win 11 Pro, Intel i9-*******K CPU, 64 GB of Corsair 3600 ram, all SSD drives) and Bitdefender made it run like a 10 year old machine, it really brought my PC to a halt. Bootup took 3 minutes or longer. Uses almost 700 mb of ram continually. Went back to Eset Nod32 and my performance is instantly back.

I bought a 12 month subscription at the beginning of June 2023 and one month later they informed me that I have to refresh it! I tried to contact them many times via email but there was no response from their side. So I was forced to buy another program because of their unreliability

My girlfriend bought the $49.00 package. Recently, I started getting renewal notices. They warned my subscription would expire and I'd be without a firewall or virus protection.

I bought the next round, again, for around $49.00. YESTERDAY, I checked my bank statements and see these asses pinged my account for $151.00.

Checking back to the first purchase, we learned they stole $49.00 for a subscription we didn't use.
Keep in mind, I set up the accounts to void auto renew, which is a feat, since these dirt bags act like they are the virus and bury the means of doing so deep enough the average person couldn't find it. TOO, they set the means of canceling auto renew up in such a way there is no visible evidence you did cancel it.

It appears those of us being burned by these scumbags should be filing complaints with our state attorneys general.

NOW, another problem pointed out by several, I just checked the task manager and see the program is eating 500 MEGS and more of memory. This program acts as much like an infection as it does a virus program.

Bitdefender will screw you royally. Every year they set your renewal to Auto-Renew which then automatically charges you the ridiculous High List Price and then when you call later they won's give you a refund. This is the Worst Company and Customer Service I've dealt with.
I'm done with this company.
I highly DO Not Recommend.

Would not recommend. They use very shady methods of keeping you from canceling, they're phone numbers online are just dead ends to waste your time and they dont respond to emails about refunds or cancellations.

Basically if they could not handle something as easy as a sales call, what would happen if a real virus issue arises. Tried to find out what would be the best product to put on servers and was planning to install that day. After a 2 hour hold I was told I would have to wait another 2 hours for a return phone call, which never came. Tried to call back the next day, they got sassy at me and I unloaded on them. They have blocked my calls. Imagine a 400 seat company getting blown off, never happened in my 30 years of IT.

I have by far the worst experience with Bitdefender VPN, they want me to review their stupid offer about upgrading vpn. I did and didn't like their offer. You would hope this the end, but no they will not close the page offer or send you to your normal vpn that I bought when buying the efing Bitdefender. I want my money back!

Takes up so much cpu and ram on a gaming desktop, has done nothing useful for me. If you have a brain and know how to keep yourself safe online there is no need for an antivirus use windows defender and youll be fine. Delete this hunk of junk and move on with your life (if you can find a way to delete it good luck with that)

If you want to pay to be hacked, breeches, blocked, locked out go with Bitefender. I am in absolute disbelief of the endless issues I've encountered due to this joke of a "security" company. Absolute nightmare. I believe all the long standing issues I've encountered with Xfinity, credit cards, banking phone accounts stems from them. Beware!

Bitdefender betrayed my trust. I don't feel safe; they have all my personal info and CC numbers...
I do not want your services. Return my money. You just keep charging...94.99 - 59.99 - 49.99...
They know most of us do not have the time to track call and dispute the charges. And credit card companies only accept dispute for 60 days. I spent hours to call my CC, then CC processing company then bitde...I did not get any results. I could only dispute 29 dollar... Shame on you Bitdefender. I need to buy another software to protect me from you...
No wonder, you lost a class action sue from Ca for 950 mil$...

Auto renewal was cancelled on the day by email but they are still refusing to refund. Customer service is ignorant and unhelpful

I cancelled my Norton antivirus subscription with 10 months left on it and recieved no refund. After having been with Norton for years and putting up with poor products and Bad customer service I switched to Bitdefender. AMAZING difference! I wish I had done this a few years ago. The bottom line is, I would rather pay for Bitdefender now than wait for my Norton subscription to run out. I have had Bitdefender for 3 weeks and LOVE it!

I purchased Bitdefender for Linux and once paid, the website made me an offer of 3 mobile licenses for €6. A good deal so I clicked yes.

5 minutes later I receive an email confirmation that Bitdefender had charged my card €7,839.48 (seven thousand eight hundred and thirty nine euros!).

I leapt into action and called Bitdefender support, who raised a ticket - that no-one has answered.
I then emailed support and got no response.
I then submitted a support webform (again, no response).
Finally I emailed again and got a response from a lady who told me that 'this was their mistake, and it would be rectified'. Sadly this needed management approval which took 24 hours.

The response from management was that the 7,839 would be credited back to my bank account on 2nd Oct, after 1 week! Then on the 2nd Oct I got an email telling me the incorrect repayment had been authorised for refund, and that this may take a further 5-7 days.

In the meantime, I am now £4,500 overdrawn on my bank account, paying overdraft penalties and overdraft interest charges, all at the same time as not being able to make any purchases, because my account is overdrawn.

So, Bitdefender may be a perfectly adequate and average anti-virus platform, but when they screw up, they
A) don't respond quickly,
B) don't bother to fix the problem quickly
C) leave you with the problem, even when it is their website that caused the problem.
D) when they finally do fix the problem, you are left with the costs that they caused.

Date of experience: 25 September 2023

I got a "Total Security" subscription for 5 devices. One of the worst purchases I've ever made.
As a software developer, I'm always getting false positive alerts for basic operations, such as; running a server, opening a VPN software, package installations, etc.
It's almost impossible to rule out those notifications. To make things worse, they're hiding the option to temporarily disable the protection within the options, and you have to disable each "component" of the antivirus individually so basically you're going through menus and menus to try to stop the false positive alerts each time you get them.
Plus, if you ever thought that paying for a service would stop it from throwing ads at you, you're wrong! These thing keeps bringing "suggestions" from the taskbar.

When attempting to utilize Bitdefender VPN when downloading the Down Load Speed I realize is about 128 kb/s. When using competitors VPN (2 Different) my down load speed is 2.26 Mb/s. I have raised this issue with BD support not once but twice and it seems I have been ignored (they haven't done anything but send worthless automated messages) They have even talked me into sending log files, with only goodness knows what kind of personal info collected. No response but a simple mindless automated email assuring a solution will be found. It is 3 months in and no solutions have been found. They even claim no requests received, meaning no efforts have been made to solve issue. And no emails from Bitdefender do not go to junk. That was one of agents pass the buck lines.
It is quite clear that Bitdefender does not have the ability to correct this matter, in fact, I seriously doubt that the next level of support even exists.
It is important for the public to realize that despite a pretty website, glowing accolades, and bogus reviews, even a reasonably priced security solution can screw up and does, and there does not seem to be a solution forthcoming.
If the reader is looking for a security solution, with a built in VPN for downloading, do yourself a favor and look elsewhere, there are better solutions available; pity it took me 3 months and $70 to figure it out

These guys r cheaters. Save card details and renew without informing customers with 3 times more price.

It automatically renews, without any prior prompt, any prior notification. Then, you realize it when you check your account. And when you change the automatic renew to manual for preventing this, it automatically offers 50% discount. To me, it looks like stealing money.

This is one of the worst nightmare piece of antivirus software we have ever purchased.
(1) Instalation on multiple computers (purchased a 5 PC license) a horror. The company will NOT, not even on request, give you the link to the full download. You only get a starter mini package and then have to repetitively downlaod over and obver again the full 500+MB package. Good luck when your company has 100+ machines to cover... I had to research the user forum to find the link to the complete download package - So facit: It is available, but the company are unwilling to share - ZERO stars!
(2) But it get's is worse: After about one week the software was detecting a thread in one of our Chrome browser tabs and froze up, leaving a white or black field on the screen to make it impossible to operate the PC any further. A reboot did not help, after the thread was discoered again, Bitdefender software crashed again and blocked the PC. No help was offered from Bitdefender, Refund ewas not offered, even the suggestion to make a donation to the Ukrain was refused.

Summary: Horrible company, incopetent customer service and NOT working anitvirus software! Stay away, not waste your $$$, purchase the much better and way more reliable competitor software (McAf...)

I purchased Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, did regular scans, used the add ons, and it didn't detect me being hacked or the scripts being written that disabled my laptop. All this just four days after I purchased it., but it kept telling me my Mac was safe !

Bitdefender includes a product, SAFEPAY, that tries to interpose a Bitdefender specific browser for all banking transactions. This puts BitDefender in the position of being able to scarf up all of your bank passwords. SAFEPAY is not vetted. Google, Firefox, and Safari may security issues, but they are well know, well vetted programs from reputable venders. SAFEPAY may be perfectly safe, but it behaves like malware intent on capturing all of your banking information. Perhaps the authors intend to hold this information for a few years, then bank fraud theft on a grand scale.

Most worrisome, the ability to whitelist banks (e.g., chase.com) in SAFEPAY does not work. Additionally, the instruction "do not use SAFEPAY" does nothing in the BitDefender settings does nothing. SAFEPAY insists that it be used to communicate with your bank.

This is very worrisome. If someone wants secure browsing, the open source Firefox would be a good choice. That is what TOR uses.

I asked BitDefender software support how to disable safepay. Since I am using the paid version, they are supposed to respond promptly to this request. They never answered - also worrisome behavior.

I would strongly advise against using BitDefender until the company explains why they added their own proprietary, non-vetted, and highly intrusive browser for banking transactions, why SAFEPAY whitelisting fails, while disabling SAFEPAY in the settings does nothing, and why BitDefender will not answer emails about how to disable SAFEPAY.

If you want to verify my experience, just Google "Disable BitDefender SAFEPAY." You will find may accounts of user frustration over this. All the more reason to worry!

I've been using Bitdefender for almost two years, and I like it. It's unobtrusive, reasonably priced, attractive, and I've never had (knock on wood) any virus problem since I installed it. And that's the bottom line, is it not? I'm currently using their Antivirus Plus 2015, and I have every intention of renewing when the time comes. I had a little glitch once, and they solved it. Bitdefender is one of the major players in the field, and there's a reason for that. It's a great program. It works!

Bit defender was once a good product, but starting with Internet Security 10 (and definitely with IS 11), it has goon straight down hill. IS 10 had problems that the company was aware of back in 11/8 (as shown on their own forum). IS 10 would just shut down, so unless you noticed the grayed out icon in your tray bar, you thought you were protected, but weren't. IS 11 was supposed to fix that problem, but it slowed my computer so much that it was basically unusable. They were also aware of this problem and have suggested everything to fix it except fixing their software. I wasted a 3 yr license ($100+) and have stopped using the product.

I recently purchased bitdefender total security 2016, After 2 mouths it would not update at all. L contacted the customer support team at *******024. When a representative came on I advised her that the product would not update at all. I also advised them that in the interface it shows it is the we have got this auto pilot mode.

She advised me that I would need to upgrade the version 2016 that I purchased from the store I bought it from and download it again from there central web site.

She then emailed me an uninstall toll and told me to follow the information. I asked her to stay on the line while I did this. I followed everything she said to do and downloaded the new 2017 from there site.

She then advised me that this should take care of my problems and that bitdefender would not update automatically care free. RIGHT

About 3 days later I noticed that my simple pass would not work, and that my fans on the computer would not stop running. I called them back and they then advised me to do a repair on the product from there central site.

I did what she said and while I was on the phone I advised her that while the repair was talking place that a Microsoft message was appearing warning me to be careful in allowing this vendor top make changes in my computer because it could be harmful to the hard drive. It also said that they did not recognize this publisher for having a valid licensed certificate. I asked her why?

She said to ignore it and run the repair anyway. She advised me that this was a problem with Microsoft and she did not now why they could not recognize them as being a certified publisher.

After I got done I advised her that my processor fans where burning up and would not shut off. I also told her that I was b=very concerned as with any anti-virus software the fans may run while a scam is being done but they turn back off when the scan is done.

I shut the computer off because I was afraid that the heat would break the computer.
Three days later I called again because my computer would not boot and the screen and fan ran constantly.

The rep advised me that they needed take remote access to my computer. I advised her that I was not going to keep the computer running while the fans where going so fast in full force and the heat was getting hotter on the compute. She told me she was email me another download to run a logging tool for me to run and then send the files to bitdefender via e-mail so they could see what was going on.

I run the tool and saved the files to my desktop and called them back. I was unable to open that log to see what files where being taken from my computer they where gathering.

I advised her that I would call HP to get a smart friend to try and help. They also told me to uninstall Malware bytes because I could not use this with bitdefender. I advised her that I have had several different anti-virus products that never conflicted with Maleware bytes and that it was just a free malware scanner not another ant-virus.

I had to call them every 3 days as the computer ran worse and worse. Finally after all of that going on for about 4 weeks I finally got HP smart friend who took remote access of the computer and advised me that the bitdefender was causing all of this and to take it to the store where I purchased it and have then remove it immediately.

The smart friend also opened that file log that bitdefenders log tool took of the files they wanted me to send to there company. The smart friend said that they took my personal work data files from my my computer that where proprietary files that had nothing to do with any thing about there product. He the destroyed that save zip file. And advised me never to allow or send any of my personal files to anyone.

I advised him I had no idea what bitdefender was trying to do.
The smart friend team tried to do a full system recovery bu phone 4 times it would not work. All of my files where lost during this process even though they tried to back them up on a flash drive. I then had to wait for them to mail me a recovery media flash drive to try and get the computer fixed, The computer would not even turn on anymore for them to be able to work remotely on it.

YEA BITDEFENDER. GREAT PRODUCT THAT WIPED OUT MY HARD DRIVE AND COMPLETELY DESTROYED MY WINDOWS OPERATION SYSTEM. I also got message from the hp recovery report that said this.

CKK err. BB. CMD Detect some error PININST_BBV
CKKerr. BB. CMD Check c:\system. Sav\logs\Burnboot warn.log
Critical error condition was detected at BBVI

Switch to 2ndcap's WinPE and show recovery manger incomplete dialog. Because RM'S dialog can't appear on start screen on WINS environment customer may not notice RM already shows error dialog

There might be unexpected reboot during BBV clean or last The process will cause panic.

I was told by the HP team that they hope that the recovery media would fix everything.

I took the recob=very media to the store where I purchased bitdefender and the store manager replace the ant-virus with another one. They also worked free of charge to run the recovery manager and to get my microsoft office reinstalled they had to reinstall windows 10. They also installed the new anti virus. And tried to get the recovery manager to open the flash drive to put back my backup files but it would not work. I am left now with nothing in the computer as it had to be replaced back to the original factory setting and have lost years of work files that where save to my flash drive. GO BITDEFNDER. THIS IS THE WORST PRODUCT ON THE MARKET. Please beware if you don't BITDEFENDER WIPEOUT

I hope and pray that anyone who reads this is takes this review very very seriously.