BitDefender launches 'suck it and see' free anti-virus scanner

Romanian anti-virus firm BitDefender has begun offering a free version of its anti-virus scanner software to consumers. Similarly cut-down versions of BitDefender's anti-phishing and chat encryption software are also being offered at no charge to home users. The launch of free editions of its security suites is designed to …

[Lee]

Total waste....

of time and effort...all you get is a reputation for being the AV client that DIDN'T spot the virus when it broke the pc or laptop.

If you are going to do this then you need your free product to be as good as any paid for product - better if you really want to be noticed.

[Sarah Davis]

whats the point

so they're offering a package that cvan in no way compete with free packages that already exist !! - they're just not serious are they.

I tried out there ThreatFire which only ever found false positives which is very useful if you're looking for false positives !!

[Lionel Baden]

im sorry

but i do beleive they have had a free version at least since version 8 when i first started using it !

[Anonymous Coward]

Clap, clap, clap!

Naff AV firm gives something away for free!

What about the people who make ClamAV, SpyBot, ABP, NoScript? Don't see them crowing about giving their stuff away free do you?

People do something for nothing and expect some kind of reward, in this case increase in future sales? Who are you, Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Free, but at what cost ??

Ya, maybe free tools but -wtf- come with an Ask.com toolbar included.

Seems to go against the grain of a 'security' tool, optin or optout, sometimes neither !!.

Bitdefender not alone ... :(

http://www.securitycadets.com/2009/04/bitdefender-goes-the-askcom-toolbar-route/

[Jerome]

Been around for ages

Lionel is quite right, I too have been using BitDefender free version for years. Just recently it decided to stop working and insisted I download this newer version. Now I get a nice annoying splash screen every time I boot up my PC, telling me how unsafe I am unless I hand over the dosh for the full version. Perhaps this "news story" (i.e. press release) would have been better titled "BitDefender makes their free anti-virus scanner more annoying"?

[Trey Pattillo]

No vault....wth

looking at the 3 dollarwares and the simple one has NO VAULT.

So they take off some file on a false positive and now you are really hosed.

Not to mention had to stop reading to kill the silly little drop down window.

The machine I am finishing today took 4 nights and nearly everything I could throw at it after a XP sp1 repair and I'm still not convinced that it is 100% healed after having an intial 400+ infections.

[Goat Jam]

Pah

I use Linux but sometimes Windows. If I'm downloading some dodgy crap for Windows I just do it on Linux and then check it on www.virustotal.com before it goes near a 'doze machine.

If I did want a real time scanner I would want it to actually work though.

[George]

Free AV...

Bitdefender free? With the features offered in the free version, not worth the bandwidth to download. If you are going to use a freeby, why not try one that has the lot, AV, Malware, Trojan etc. like Comodo.

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the tools and the new interface of bitdefender antivirus free

I like the new interface of the free version, I just upgraded my old bitdefender antivirus free and I also downloaded the new tools from their site. Then I tested the Chat Encryption with my friends, seems to be a cool tool. The antiphishing toolbar works also great, I searched for some phishing sites, and it detects all of them.