Everybody needs an antivirus, or better yet, a security suite, but not everybody wants to deal with the day-to-day minutiae of managing that suite. For hassle-free protection, Bitdefender Internet Security (2014) offers Autopilot mode. With the Autopilot on, the suite takes care of just about every security event on its own, without asking you what to do or even popping up a notification. You're free to look at recent events at your own convenience; a small number shows how many unread events are pending. Best of all, this near-silent protection proved to be very effective in PCMag's tests and independent lab tests.
The suite's main window looks almost exactly like that of Bitdefender's standalone antivirus. Both reflect overall security status using a green, yellow, or red banner across the top, both signal events pending review with a small numeric indicator, and both display four panels at a time representing significant security components. The antivirus has six panels: Antivirus, ID Theft Protection, Privacy Control, Safego, Update, and Wallet. To these, the suite adds Firewall, Antispam, and Parental Control. You can re-order the panels so that your favorite four are the ones that appear at startup.
Like the antivirus, Bitdefender Internet Security comes with an optional desktop widget that's compatible with Windows XP through Windows 8. The widget reflects overall security status, flags any pending notification events, and graphically reflects firewall and antivirus activity.
Shared Antivirus Protection
The suite's antivirus protection is exactly the same as what you get from Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (2014). For full details, please read that review. I'll summarize here.
Installation troubles on three malware-infested test systems were solved by a full scan using Bitdefender's Rescue CD. The install-time scan on a fourth system damaged critical Windows files, rendering the system unbootable. The Rescue CD offers a full-scale operating environment; I used it to gather information requested by tech support and to run fix-up scripts that they supplied in return. With the test system repaired, I proceeded to finish installation.
Bitdefender detected 83 percent of the malware samples and scored 6.6 points, the best score among products tested using my current set of malware samples. Tested using my previous collection, Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus 2013, Norton Internet Security (2013), and Comodo Internet Security Complete 2013 all also earned 6.6 points. For a full explanation of this test, see How We Test Malware Removal.
Challenged to protect a clean test system, Bitdefender blocked access to the download URLs for an impressive 91 percent of my samples. When I tried to install already-downloaded copies, it detected 92 percent of them and scored 9.0 points. TrustPort Internet Security 2013 and G Data InternetSecurity 2014 also scored 9.0 points. With 9.4 points, Ad-Aware Pro Security 10.5 outscored all products tested against this same set of samples. To understand just how I perform this test, please see How We Test Malware Blocking.
Bitdefender's technology gets top marks from all of the independent testing labs that I follow. Its aggregate score is the best of all current security products. The chart below summarizes the latest test results. See the article How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests for a more detailed explanation.
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