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Update: Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac giveaway UPDATE – WINNERS WANTED
Update: Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac giveaway UPDATE – WINNERS WANTED
Avast Security for Mac is one of the most popular security suites available, and it’s easy to see why. It’s effective and free for non-commercial use, providing on-demand tools for quickly. Avast Free Mac Security had a moderate impact on system performance, which we assessed by running our custom OpenOffice benchmark test that matches 20,000 names and addresses on a spreadsheet.
I've been requested by Bitdefender Antivirus to write a review for their product Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac on my blog and to organize a giveaway for my readers.
Though I'm honored for collaborating with a well-established security company, I made it clear that my review will be totally objective and honest.
The readers of my blog know that I don't spare criticisms to anyone. In the previous post, though being a satisfied Mac user, I harshly criticized Apple for a series of bugs present in Yosemite that are frankly inexcusable for a company often considered in the past as a yardstick of excellence.
Testing method
The only plausible way of testing an antivirus program is to see how it does in detecting viruses and, for this reason, I'm going to create an OSX 10.10 Yosemite virtual machine and infect it with as most malware as I can find around. Afterwards, I'm going to run Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac and document the results for you. That's my way of working and I'm sure that Bitdefender as well, being a reputable company, wouldn't settle for less.
After testing Bitdefender for Mac, I'll test one of its top competitors, Avast! Antivirus for Mac. According to the 2014 Mac Security Review, realized by AV comparatives, Bitdefender is the third top antivirus for Mac, based on a series of comparative lab tests on Mac security software.
Prep stage
The installation of Bitdefender for Mac is straightforward and very fast. It took me only a minute to install it and update it. The program comes with a resident antivirus protection and security modules allowing to protect any installed browser, implementing a complete solution.
Testing steps:
- I have created an OSX Yosemite virtual machine by using Parallel Desktop 10. Afterwards I have infected the VM with one of the nastiest Mac malware around, iWorm, which turns the infected Macs into bots and uses them to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. For this purpose I used a pirated copy of a very common graphic program. That done, I performed a full system scan, which lasted for just about 50 minutes and could successfully detect 4 infected files.
- After testing Bitdefender, I repeated the whole testing process under the same conditions with regards to Avast! Antivirus for Mac. The scan was faster in this case (27 minutes against 50) but Avast! detected only 2 infected files, while Bitdefender detected 4 files. What's more, Avast! was unable to scan 4 files, which could have disguised malware. Bitdefender removed the infected files automatically, while Avast! requires you to manually select the files and choose an action (delete or quarantine).
Program Features
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac supports three different types of scan: Critical Locations, Full System Scan and Custom Location.
Critical Locations scans only the Home folder and the users present on the Mac for a quick check up of the situation.
Full System Scan does what its name suggests. I used it for testing the product in an infected environment and you should always perform a full scan periodically.
Custom Location allows to scan a specific file or folder by growing the Finder and makes up for the lack of a right-click item implemented by other products, such as ClamXav.
When the program is active, its icon is displayed on the menu bar but it's not very recognizable as related to Bitdefender because the Continuous Scan icon is different from the main program icon (as shown below). The real time protection module should have the same icon as the main program, otherwise users could have a hard time understanding that the real-time protection is on. According to the mentioned report, Bitdefender developers were allegedly working on this issue but it seems they haven't addressed it yet.
11/19 Update: One of the latest software updates has corrected this problem, changing the Real Time protection icon as shown below.
Default actions for infected files are Clean and Quarantine. In my opinion, a Delete action would be beneficial because, when a file is 100% viral code, there's nothing you can clean. Bitdefender doesn't support a scan scheduler but this feature isn't so common in Mac antivirus products. In my opinion, it could have anyway been beneficial to supply this functionality as a customized option, similarly to ClamXav.
Default actions for infected files are Clean and Quarantine. In my opinion, a Delete action would be beneficial because, when a file is 100% viral code, there's nothing you can clean. Bitdefender doesn't support a scan scheduler but this feature isn't so common in Mac antivirus products. In my opinion, it could have anyway been beneficial to supply this functionality as a customized option, similarly to ClamXav.
You can activate Web Protection module to secure any browser installed in your system against malware and phishing attempt.
By clicking Activate, you'll be redirected to Bitdefender webpage, where you can download a browser add-on that will take care of these issues.
The add-on is called TrafficLight and you may want to add it right away because the latest Safari version features a security flaw, not addressed yet by Apple, that can expose users to phishing scams.
In fact, Safari doesn't display, as a default, the full URL of the page unless you left-click the URL or go to Preferences/Advanced and activate show full website address option.
I tested the anti-phishing functionality visiting a test page and Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac has successfully detected the phishing attempt.
In order to test an antivirus product, security experts created some test files, available by visiting EICAR (European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research) website.
For an antivirus program to work correctly, these test files must be detected as if they were viruses.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac has done good detecting all the downloaded test files. My only negative remark about it is that the pop-up window displaying the infection type disappears too quickly for users to read it or take any action (see image below. I could capture it only by pausing the video).
A standard user needs administrative credentials to disable real time protection, which guarantees a high security level as only users having the correct level of privileges can make changes to the system.
Wrap-up
Pros:
- Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac is a reliable and trustworthy product that can sensibly increase the security level of your OS X system.
- Its installation is very quick and straightforward.
- Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac detects most malware for Mac around and in my testing it showed a better performance and detection rate than other competitors, such as Avast! Antivirus for Mac.
- The Web protection module effectively protects any browser installed in your system from malware and phishing attempts.
- The Continuous Scan service (real-time protection) can be disabled only by a user having administrative rights on the machine.
Cons:
- Lack of a Clean action in case disinfect or quarantine are unsuccessful.
- Lack of a scan scheduler (as a main or secondary option), unlike other programs.
- The Continuous Scan icon is different from the main icon of the program, which can be confusing to users. See update on this point.
- Lack of a Scan item in the right-click menu (on the other hand, Scan a Custom Location allows pretty much to get the same result).
In my opinion pros end up over-weighing cons. Given all the pros listed above, you might want to take advantage of the giveaway of Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, sponsored by Bitdefender.
In cooperation with Bitdefender Antivirus, sponsor of this giveaway, I can offer 3 licenses of Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac , valid for 1 year, each worth $39.95!In order to participate, follow me on Twitter, or post a comment on this post. In collaboration with Bitdefender I will select the winners randomly from among the contestants, so no hard feelings if you shouldn't be selected!
Avast For Mac Review
THIS GIVEAWAY IS VALID UNTIL FRIDAY 12/12/2014, SO HURRY AND PROTECT YOUR MAC TODAY!!
How Reliable Is Avast
12/14/2014: The giveaway is officially closed.
I want to thank all participants for their time. The selected winners will receive an email from Bitdefender Antivirus.