Unlock the Secrets of Bitdefender Antivirus 2023 with Forbes Advisor UK’s Rave Review!

Bitdefender Antivirus at a Glance

One of Bitdefender’s strengths is the number of features each plan offers. Forbes Advisor breaks down the key attributes to summarise what Bitdefender offers.

Bitdefender’s consumer-centric plans start at £18.98 per year for one device and go all the way up to £54.99 for 10 devices for the first year. With the personal plan, you get standard features including anti-phishing capabilities, vulnerability assessment reports and a file shredder that permanently removes sensitive information off of your machine.

This review mainly focuses on the business on the business package option, but Bitdefender’s personal plans are also impressive. If you run a small or one-person business, those packages may be worth considering.

The GravityZone Security Platform

Bitdefender’s protection is built on the company’s GravityZone platform. GravityZone is a powerful security solution that can protect email servers, deal with security patches and encrypt your most sensitive data.

Pricing for Bitdefender’s entry-level business security plan starts at £101.49 per year with protection for up five devices and two file servers. Depending on what package and add-ons you go with, the software can easily cost over £5,000 per year for larger teams. This is in line with other business antivirus platforms we’ve seen on the market.

GravityZone also offers security for virtual machines, full disk encryption and protection for mobile devices, all of which you can manage through a centralised control console. Some versions of GravityZone security also provide a risk management console that shows your company’s overall risk to attacks and breaks down the specific machines that are causing problems.

Endpoint Detection and Response

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is one of the newest features in Bitdefender. This add-on module provides a visual overview of your computer systems that highlights potential attack paths by identifying any weak links in your systems and suggests the steps to patch any holes. If an attack happens, EDR lets you isolate and analyse where it came from and why it happened in the first place.

Protection for Small Businesses

Although Bitdefender offers a lot of tools for a large enterprise, it also offers protection for small businesses. Bitdefender offers GravityZone Business Security, designed for anything from three devices to 100, which features a list of tools that are tailored toward small businesses without a dedicated IT team.

GravityZone is still at the heart of the service, so you have access to features like application behavior monitoring, ransomware protection and web-based security. Over similar small business services, however, Bitdefender also offers server protection.

You can protect a virtual or physical server as part of your plan, no add-on required. Server protection compromises 30% of your total devices, so you can protect one server with three devices and five servers with 15 devices. If you don’t have a server, you can still use your available devices as normal.

This is a huge benefit for small businesses with a local file server or two. A lot of competing services only offer server protection through an add-on or reserve it for more expensive plans. With Bitdefender, you can increase safety for your servers no matter how many devices your business needs to protect.

Other Benefits

Although we’ve focused mainly on Bitdefender’s business protection, it offers personal protection, too. The personal service is one of the most robust on the market, offering a VPN, banking protection and webcam security in addition to ransomware detection and real-time security.

Bitdefender offers multiple antivirus packages depending on the features you need and the number of devices you need to protect. In addition to protection for a single user, Bitdefender offers plans for families and small offices that only need to protect a few devices.

This is what makes Bitdefender so easy to recommend. Almost across the board, you can choose one from a number of antivirus packages offered by the company and it will deliver the security you need. That includes massive enterprises, growing businesses, small offices and even individual users.

Related: Best Antivirus Software

Fine Print

Bitdefender is packed with features and continually ranks at the top at independent antivirus testing outfits. When it comes to protecting your devices and offering the latest in protection technology, it’s hard to beat Bitdefender.

It’s not perfect, though. Independent testing shows that it is slightly more demanding on your computer than other services. It’s also been reported to occasionally flag a false positive, though they’re few and far between.

One of the biggest drawbacks to Bitdefender is price. It’s one of the more expensive services on the market, and some critical features, such as email security, will cost you extra. You could end up spending hundreds more on a subscription compared to other options depending on the features you need.

Some context is important with pricing, though. Although it’s more expensive than services like Avast, Bitdefender offers a generous discount for the initial term. Plus, it offers features like server protection across most business plans, whereas many other services charge for the extra protection.

It’s important to note that the higher-than-average pricing only applies to the business service. As we’ll dig into in the next section, Bitdefender’s personal plans end up cheaper than much of the competition.

How Bitdefender Stacks Up

Comparing Bitdefender to other popular antivirus services, it becomes clear that it’s in the top class of services. Avira still outpaces it based on our rankings, but Bitdefender still manages to beat several other top companies, including Malwarebytes.

The biggest upfront difference between the three services is price. Keep in mind that Bitdefender offers a generous discount on annual pricing, which is why it’s so much cheaper than Avira and Malwarebytes.

As for features, Bitdefender and Avira are directly comparable. Both go beyond simply scanning with a suite of security and PC tune-up features. Both include a VPN, anti-tracking measures for your browser and anti-spam measures for local email clients.

Malwarebytes includes some of these features, including a VPN and browser protection. However, it’s missing some features, too. Notably, it doesn’t include a PC clean-up tool or a file shredder, both of which are available with Avira and Bitdefender.

There are some areas where Avira may be a better choice than Bitdefender. For example, Avira includes a few non-essential extras that Bitdefender lacks, like a price comparison tool for your browser. But the two systems are fairly similar in what they offer.

Compare Bitdefender with Malwarebytes

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Bitdefender

Why We Picked It

Bitdefender’s GravityZone business memberships go beyond simply protecting your devices from threats. In addition to real-time protection across desktop, mobile and web, Bitdefender offers a suite of threat forecasts that can help you seal up any leaking holes before they become a problem.

Before an attack, admins can monitor things like the number of unencrypted web pages employees visit. After an attack, Bitdefender gives you the tools to break down and understand why the attack happened and how to avoid it in the future.

On top of that, Bitdefender leverages machine learning to predict and block threats before they can impact your business.

Who Should Use It: Businesses that need to monitor and analyse threats before they can happen.

Pros & Cons

• Threat forecast and analysis tools
• Helpful insights into employee behavior
• Subscription includes server protection

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Malwarebytes

Why We Picked It

Malwarebytes can protect as little as a single device and as many as 100 devices. Malwarebytes for Teams can protect up to nine devices, and it includes all of the antivirus’ key features. Those include real-time protection on desktop, ransomware and phishing protection and zero-day exploit detection.

If you have a larger team or need extra security, Malwarebytes has you covered. The premium package includes threat isolation and recovery, ransomware rollback and the ability to add server security. From protecting a few devices in a small office to defending dozens of devices from large attacks, Malwarebytes has something for everyone.

Who Should Use It: Malwarebytes offers a scalable platform that fits in the small office as well as it does in the sprawling enterprise.

Pros & Cons

• Plans for businesses of any size
• Ransomware rollback on Windows
• Automated endpoint discovery

• Server protection costs extra
• Teams plan doesn’t have access to premium support

Is Bitdefender Right for You or Your Business?

As one of the most secure options on the market and packed to the brim with features, it’s hard arguing with Bitdefender. That said, it’s possible to save some money on a business plan while getting a similar list of features and protection.

Bitdefender’s business service is expensive, especially as you add on new features. The upside is protection for servers, which could make the difference depending on what your business needs. In some cases, however, businesses will be paying more for features that are available elsewhere.

That’s not the case with the personal tiers. If you want to protect yourself, your family or a small office, Bitdefender is one of the best options on the market. It’s cheaper than the competition while still packing the same features and protection.

Thankfully, you can try out Bitdefender before you commit to a plan. It offers a free plan for individual users that you can use to scan your PC for threats. Businesses can also request a free trial to see how it works.