BitDefender 9 Professional Plus Review

Compared to other more expensive antivirus and security products I have tried over the past few months (Symantec Norton Antivirus and McAfee Viruscan), I am truly impressed with the design and efficiency of BitDefender 9 Professional Plus. Like most antivirus/security software, Bitdefender 9 Professional Plus comes equipped with antivirus, antispyware, antispam, and firewall modules. Installation of Bitdefender 9 Professional Plus was quick and setting up personal preferences such as timing of scheduled scans, scanning options, and frequency of automatic updates was so simple that even
a novice computer user would not be overwhelmed.

The antivirus module, while slower than most antivirus scanners, was very effective at detecting both low-risk and high-risk viruses. I also found that its CPU usage burden was not as substantial as other virus scanners I have previously used.

The firewall was easy to use and set-up, and made granting or denying internet access to certain applications very straightforward.

While no antispyware software can identify every malware and spyware threat, the antispyware module in BitDefender 9 Professional Plus had a very high detection rate and was very easy to navigate.

If there was any major downside to Bitdefender 9 Professional Plus, it would undoubtedly be its antispam module. While decent at detecting actual spam, the antispam module on several occassions had marked important emails to be moved to the spam folder. Even more, when the module does misclassify certain spam emails, it is difficult to correct using the software settings provided. When I called support to see if they could assist me in tweaking my settings, they were very eager to help, however, their suggestions were only semi-effective. Finally, unlike other antispam modules found in other security suites, Bitdefender 9 Professional Plus does not give you the option to add certain keywords that would automatically mark certain emails as spam.