Bitdefender Antivirus Plus

Bitdefender is an established name on the antivirus market, and for good reason. The company regularly ships reliable software that always ranks high in virus protection tests, while keeping performance impact to a minimum.

There are multiple editions to choose from, namely Antivirus Plus, Internet Security and Total Security. The latest version of the basic edition, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2020, comes with one new major feature and multiple improvements, and it should be enough for most home users.

The websites you visit typically collect information about you and your device, which is mainly used for personalization, user identification and targeted advertising. Third-party trackers are the most troublesome, as you may end up handing over personal information to various companies without even knowing it.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2020 enables you to prevent websites from collecting your data when browsing with Chrome, Firefox or Edge. For the first two, you will need to install the dedicated extensions from the Bitdefender agent.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2020 does a good job of protecting you from all kinds of threats, including ransomware, zero-day exploits and rootkits. The real-time scanning engine blocks them before they have a change of infecting your PC, and its performance impact is negligible.

Aside from running quick scans to find threats, you can also create customized jobs and run them on a specific schedule. You can choose exactly which locations and items should be scanned, as well as set the task’s priority.

There are several ways Bitdefender Antivirus Plus can help you keep your private data secure. Aside from the aforementioned anti-tracker, it also comes with its own VPN, though you will have to deal with a daily traffic cap unless you upgrade your subscription.

The product also includes a password manager, which helps you store your account credentials, credit card info and other types of sensitive data. If you want to get rid of something instead of secure it, the file shredder is also worth a mention, as it can prevent deleted files from being recovered even with specialized software.

Lastly, you can take advantage of Safepay, Bitdefender’s dedicated secure transaction browser. It is intended to prevent online fraud, and it can fill in credit card fields automatically.

This shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a downside, as Bitdefender Antivirus Plus was designed for users who need relatively basic protection and are happy with the firewall included in Windows.

If you feel that you need that extra bit of intrusion protection, as well as the ability to filter network traffic, you can upgrade to Bitdefender Internet Security, which also includes a few other extra features.

In short, not much has changed with the latest edition of Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, and that’s a good thing, as the previous edition was already one of the best antivirus products out there.

It does now include an anti-tracker, which is invaluable for users looking to maintain their online privacy, as well as a bunch of other improvements. It is just as easy to use as before, and its performance impact has remained very low.