OT: Bitdefender anti-virus problems, recommendations for alternatives?
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,681
This morning I bought a one year subscription to Bitdefender, an anti-virus suite that earned the top rating from many reviewers. Some hours later, I am starting to believe, as I did when I bought Red Dead Redemption 2 based on what the 'experts' said, the experts appear to be completely wrong. I can't stop the splash/thank you for purchasing screen from coming up every time I start it, it says that "services are not responding" and to restart, which I've done about twenty times so far with no luck, and it won't even let me uninstall it because it won't recognize me as the administrator for this machine. If anyone else has this software, could you perhaps give any advice before I attempt to contact customer support?
If you're happy with your anti-virus protection, could you recommend some alternatives? I don't want anything bloated that will slow down Studio or Photoshop, and I'm kind of reluctant to consider Kapersky or Norton. Thanks in advance.
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Comments
I just use what windows 10 comes with and have never had any problems. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I use the paid version of Malwarebytes. Since I have I haven't had any issues with any bad stuff at all. Granted, I'm not a high risk person for getting a virus, but it still does a wonderful job. And I have no issues with it and DS. There was a problem a little over a year ago, but the company had it taken care of and fixed nearly right away.
Laurie
Windows defende, the A/V included with all recent versions, is just fine. At this point I'd avoid everything else unless you have a corporate IT department to handle things for you.
BTW malwarebytes isn't an antivirus program but anti malware software. There is a difference.
Interesting that Windows Defender is now apparently all you need, I remember when it came out, everyone was saying to ignore it because it didn't work. Thank you for the replies.
I was able to bludgeon BitDefender out of my system using a somewhat hard-to-find official separate uninstaller, and reinstalled it. This time it's working as it should, and even more strange is that some of the extra features that I had access to when it was acting wonky are now listed as separate purchases. I wonder if my original download was a screwy trial of the Ultimate edition instead of the correct version...who knows. Least it's working for now. :)
Free protection has always been fine for me for years, but a couple of weeks ago, I had a pretty scary experience when a Chrome window opened out of nowhere and tried accessing Amazon. The truly freaky part was that when I tried moving the cursor away from the address bar, it 'fought back', like someone elsewhere was manually moving it. I shut the system down immediately and did some research later, but couldn't find any real explanation other than 'it sounds like malware'. Hopefully this new suite won't cause a performance hit, guess we'll see. Thanks again for the advice.
I use Kaspersky Internet Security (Paid, with the payments going through an Irish server), and it catches a LOT of stuff that Defender misses (mostly spyware and malicious downloads). As for notifications, there's no advertising, just advice when you near the renewal date, plus all the notifications when nasty stuff appears. I've used Kaspersky for years, plus other AV software, and Kaspersky is the one I recommend.
Also, I've never seen "false positives" from Kaspersky, such as when other people say their AV software blocks legitimate programmes and sites.
Kaspersky had a spell of deleting part of the Iray engine, giving users pink renders.
SnowSultan - that almost sounds like someone managed to opena remote desktop session onto your machine.
i just moved to Windows Defender a month or so ago after reading it is as good as anything..or close to as good. I have used a lot of free ones. So far all is well, other than you have to approve a lot of stuff by adding it to a list of approved programs. It blocks DS from using memory places, as well as Vue, and several other programs. They have to be added to the approved list. Had a real hard time installing Vue acutally ... I couldn;t figure out what app it was blocking and the program wouldn't work. Still not sure its installed correctly. I also use Spybot search and destroy and run free malwarebytes now and again just to make sure I'm clean.
Same here !
I'll second this! MWB has found/blocked several malicious sites for me. Back when the javascript coin miner was being passed out by compromised web sites I got popup warnings from MWB about a blocked web site - the mining code host site - when I went to CNN.com, and this was on day zero of that particular exploit.
This is on my laptop, used for most internet surfing at wifi hot-spots and I will admit to visiting the seedier side of the internet from time to time. Usually by following links from Japanese art sites, but sometime just based on curiosity.
Been trying a few but chose Avast Internet Security which I've been using for several years now. Problems are rare and tons of configuration options and features, contrary to some of the other brands I've tried, so you're not stuck with some factorys settings that may drive you nuts. Good discount offers, last time I renewed I paid less than $100 for 3 PCs / 2 years.
I agree with Taoz, have had no problems since switching to Avast, except the occasional panic overreaction. The nice thing about Avast is that you can try it for free with the free version, and often get a special offer to convert form the free version to the paid for version.
I dislike Avast.
I used to reccommend Kaspersky, but don't now considering where it's made.
I've been using ESET for over a year now.
I live and breathe NortonSecurity. Available via NewEgg.com a few times a year for $20 for a 5 machine license.
(Quickly running and dodging rocks) But I also use the free version of MalwareBytes that I run immediately after a suspicious incident. MalwareBytes is better for malware. NortonSecurity is better for viruses (in my A/V religion) 
.
I have a paid up version of Avast Premier, as before I used the free version which I always found good and as such decided to get the full version.. And all can say I am happy with it..
I use Kaspersky Pro. I never had a issue with it using daz studio or any other programs. with the new update I noticed its lighter on resources only drawing 3%, Kaspersky Pro gives me complete control over my apps with a control panel where you can see all the activity. with options on how to manage whats running, plus I got the extra apps to tie my cell phone protection to my windows server as well. I love the new fix w10 updates button..lol and also does my app updates for me giving me options on what I want updated and when including windows.
I got a 3 year enterprise subscription deal for Kaspersky pro for $120 bucks plus it came with a the cell phone and server whitelist app which was part of AV
I know the system works because I downloaded a freebie at sharecg a few weeks ago that had a crypto-locker 2.0 in the download and it stopped it cold. I won't use anything else but Kaspersky Pro
Apparently not. I've never caught anything since I've had it.
Laurie
So? Do you receive a lot of unsolicited email attachments that you open? Do you visit a lot of sketchy websites and let them install stuff? Do you install a lot of free software from sources you don't know? If not then how would you get a virus in the first place?
The non-free MWB is a full package. I have done most of the things you asked about - somewhat. No, I don't open crap email, and I'm cautious about where I download software from - but that doesn't mean the package isn't contaminated. I've had MWB suppress installation of some downloads. And I've done some torrent downloads and get the MWB popups about blocking access to web sites on their black list. And at least one of the torrent packages I pulledd down was a trojan, caught by MWB when I tried to open it.
But, to your point - if you do not read email in html formatted mode and block all ads you're quite unlikely to get a virus these days. I also do not allow third-party cookies from web sites. And, if I'm even remotely worried about the contents of a download I take the system off my local network, shut off wifi, and create a recovery point before unzipping/opening the package.
Thanks again for all the suggestions, it's obvious there's no consensus on this. ;) BitDefender is now working well for me and I ran some renders with Studio and The Legend armor (probably the most demanding 3D content I own) with some dForce simulation as well (trying to recreate one of my old characters which I still can't do, grrr) and didn't notice any performance hit. So, I'll take back my rant about this suite, once you get a working installation, it seems to be fine.
Not taking back my rant about RDR2 though, that's still the most disappointing game of 2018 IMO...
"it's obvious there's no consensus on this"
One of the problems that I have found, Snow, is that choosing the best antivirus program is like trying to hit a moving target. Today's very best is likely to be tomorrow's also-ran. In the end, just avoid the ones that do not get good ratings for actually capturing malware, produce a lot of false positives, are resource hogs or contain a lot of nagware. Anything else will probably be fine. Since you have already purchased bitdefender, go with it. You have a year to decide whether you want to stick with it or consider alternatives.
BTW, relative to the issue that you had, how do you connect to the internet? Hard-wired, or WiFi?
"Today's very best is likely to be tomorrow's also-ran. "
Exactly, and that applies to hardware, a lot of software, celebrities, etc. ;)
I have home wi-fi, but my PC is connected only via ethernet cable.
Between Windows Defender, keeping backups, and running Deep Freeze, there really shouldn't be a need for much else. For the average user, Kaspersky is probably one of the best, although I wouldn't recommend it for individuals that work for any government or intelligence agency. In the end, you're never going to have 100% protection; especially if you frequent questionable sites or download questionable files(pornography, pirated material, modified games/programs that violate their ToS, etc.).
Nope, don't do any of those things (I might look it, but I ain't stupid...lol). Years ago tho, I landed quite by accident on a desktop wallpaper website and my files and desktop started disappearing (before I started using Malwarebytes Premium). It can and has happened to me and can happen to anyone.
Laurie
I have had Bitdefender before. I liked and and it ran fine along side DS as I recall. Glad you got it working :).
Laurie
MWB has recently started going online for checking suspicious files at virustotal.com (VT). I discovered this by accident, I'd updated an app I've written and before publishing the update I checked it at VT which I always do as an extra security measure. After uploading the file VT said it had already been scanned and displayed the file name and CRC checksum etc. as it always does when a particular file already has been checked there. I thought what the heck, no one else but me have had access to that particular file so far so how could it have been checked already? I couldn't be an earlier version of the program, for each file has its own unique CRC signature, and the VT time stamp said it had been checked just a couple of minutes ago.
After considering different explanations I concluded it might be either Avast or MWB doing something I didn't know, so I shut down MWB, made a minor change to the code (changes the CRC value) and uploaded the app to VT again for checking. Nothing - it hadn't been checked. Started MWB and repeated the procedure, and now I got the "already checked" again.
I just read an article a couple of days ago that confirms this:
"VirusTotal also offers an API that allows subscribers to integrate their own systems to the VT database. This allows vendors that detect a suspicious file to automatically check it against VT and return results to the customer as if they were their own."
And MWB is a subscriber to VT, just like all the other big AV companies.
https://www.securityweek.com/virustotal-policy-change-rocks-anti-malware-industry