Bitdefender free a/v to be discontinued
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Thread: Bitdefender free a/v to be discontinued

  1. #1
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    Bitdefender free a/v to be discontinued

    I recieved an email notice today that Bitdefender is ending it's free a/v version as of end of December. I haven't used it in about 10 months for various reasons but I still get emails from them. I haven't seen this notice on line so if anyone is using Bitdefender free you'll need to find another free solution.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    "It’s especially hard with a product as popular as our Free Edition has been in recent years.
    Since early 2020, we have had to weather immense changes in our industry; changes that upended many of our cherished plans for product development.
    Sadly, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition has been a casualty of those changes.
    As of 1st of January 2022, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition will officially be discontinued and no longer available for use."
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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  2. #2
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    Yes, I received the same notification a couple days ago. It's always a hassle to change a significant and necessary application in my system, but I guess it must be done.

    This leads, of course, to the question of what to replace Bitdefender with. I haven't kept up with the current "best" antivirus programs, so have no idea which free antivirus program to turn to. I'd be happy to listen to any suggestions. I previously used AVAST, but switched when I read that they were selling user data. That's my recollection at any rate of why I switched.

    I'm running Windows 7 on an old Dell desktop. Some might call it ancient. I'm also running Malwarebytes to complete my "protection".

  3. #3
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    I chose Sophos free version on my Win 7 systems. I'd been using Avast for quite a while but switched a couple of years ago when they started to include so many add-ons it was taking over my desktop and their popup ads were exceptionally annoying. I liked Bitdefender but there were some ongoing update issues a while back.

    Microsoft's own Security Essentials was popular but it's no longer fully supported on Windows 7.

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  4. #4
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    Thank you Sir.

  5. #5
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    You're welcome

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  6. #6
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    I was also using BitDefender even though Windows 10 had its own security settings that were running fine. However, since this anti-virus is not available anymore, I think I better stick to the security settings of Microsoft. What do you think guys ??

  7. #7
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    I now use Sophos free antivirus with Windows 7 and stick with the built in Defender on Windows 10. Both seem to be capable of doing the job. I've recently added Malwarebytes Browser Guard as an extension to my browsers for added protection online which is a bit of a weakness with Defender.

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  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by fink View Post
    I now use Sophos free antivirus with Windows 7 and stick with the built in Defender on Windows 10. Both seem to be capable of doing the job. I've recently added Malwarebytes Browser Guard as an extension to my browsers for added protection online which is a bit of a weakness with Defender.
    Thank you so much for replying to me. I was already thinking to add an extension for added online protection. I will try Malwarebytes Browser Guard and will let you know about my experience.

  9. #9
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    UPDATE:

    I'd been noticing that my computer was getting a bit sluggish lately and did some investigating. Sophos was using nearly a full Gig of memory all the time and with only 4G memory installed on my daily use PC that's a pretty big chunk leaving not much if any left once I open my browser(s) and email client etc.


    After some research I've gone back to using Avast free a/v which I'd used in the past and it seems to be doing just fine so far. It's using around 250megs of memory which is reasonable. That's about the same as what Bitdefender used.

    Sophos also had 3 times the number of related sub-programs/processes running at all times compared to the other two.

    Also worth noting is that my current email client, Thunderbird, which I am happy with and just recently started using, uses around 175-200M of memory compared to the 25-30M that my previous email client The Bat uses. Oh well... all these things add up

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  10. #10
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    I'm so glad that this site is back! I had to re-register to get back on. Nice to see the old names again.

  11. #11
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    Welcome back

    Yeah, there are a few of us who are still around.

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  12. #12
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    Right.

    So now I have Avast installed and running and so far it seems fine EXCEPT I go into Firefox settings>privacy and security and I see this blue notice at the top of the page..

    “Your browser is being managed by your organization”


    And I can't change the permissions for a website that I regularly use and need to allow location to be seen.
    It seems Avast has locked me out of doing that for my own safety. @#$#$!!

    If anyone else runs into this little annoyance here's the fix. Requires an edit in the registry..
    Google tells me that it may have been done to my other browsers like Chrome but I looked and it has
    not.

    https://techdows.com/2019/06/fix-firefox-says-your-browser-is-being-managed-by-your-organization.html



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  13. #13
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    So Bitdefender has now changed their mind. Sort of. They did stop distribution of their free a/v but now they've produced a new free version of their paid a/v which has the same interface that it does rather than the pared down version that they had been offering. It's been available for a few months but I just noticed it on the weekend.

    I installed the new one on my media server just to see what it's like. Seems to run ok and has features that I like such as more on line protection than the old freebie but it sure uses a lot of RAM. Well over a half gig.. twice as much as the old version and more than twice as much as Avast which I'm still using on my main every day PC.

    More:

    https://www.ghacks.net/2022/03/19/af...e-for-windows/

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