Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac review
Our Verdict
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac delivers splendid malware performance and a solid array of features at an affordable cost.
For
- Affordable plans
- Strong malware protection
- Mod and intuitive UI
- Near no performance bear upon
- Well-considered ransomware protection
Against
- Limited VPN is disappointing
- Lacks some features that Windows version has
Tom'south Guide Verdict
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac delivers excellent malware performance and a solid assortment of features at an affordable price.
Pros
- +
Affordable plans
- +
Stiff malware protection
- +
Modern and intuitive UI
- +
Most no performance impact
- +
Well-considered ransomware protection
Cons
- -
Limited VPN is disappointing
- -
Lacks some features that Windows version has
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac: Specs
Malware protection: Expert
System affect, background: Very low-cal
Organization bear upon, scans: Low-cal
macOS compatibility: 10.10 Yosemite and later
Browser extensions: Yes
Firewall: No
Hardened/secure browser: No
Parental controls: No
Password manager: No
Ransomware file protection: Aye
Scan scheduling: No
Webcam protection: No
VPN: Yes, but limited
Back up options: 24/7 phone, email, chat, plus FAQs and forums
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac continues to get just most everything right when it comes to delivering first-class protection for macOS. It has fallen a notch beneath perfect in a couple of the most recent tertiary-political party malware tests, just it remains first among the best Mac antivirus programs, and its combination of affordable pricing and well-implemented features get in a cracking option for nearly users.
Bitdefender is the most user-friendly Mac antivirus program that I reviewed. It has helpful instructions on which actions you should take to stay rubber, and a large drove of features that is organized well so that you don't get lost.
I'd dear to run into a couple more than of Bitdefender'due south Windows features come over to Mac, such as Bitdefender's password manager, too every bit a reduction in the cost of Bitdefender's premium VPN service, just Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac is notwithstanding the best overall Mac antivirus app.
Read on for the residuum of our Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac review.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac: Costs and what'due south covered
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac has a single tier of service, with the only toll variations beingness for the number of devices or years of service. While there is no free tier for Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, you do get a 30-day free trial before you have to enter your credit card.
The bones Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac programme is $40 for a unmarried device for 1 year, just yous tin can save by paying for two years ($70) or three years ($ninety) upward front. Stepping upwards to the three-device plan volition cost $60 for 1 year, and again yous can salvage a bit past paying for two years ($90) or three years ($120) at once. (You lot can oft become the kickoff twelvemonth at half off.)
For this, you go a comprehensive suite of antivirus tools that go beyond basic protection, including file protection, Fourth dimension Automobile protection, Traffic Low-cal browser extensions, anti-phishing safeguards, the Bitdefender Shield automatic malware scanner and a limited amount of free Bitdefender VPN service.
The VPN is capped at 200MB of encrypted traffic per day earlier y'all have to pay for the $50-per-year unlimited plan; it's handy, but it won't take the place of ane of the best VPN services.
If you need to comprehend a variety of devices that aren't Macs, then you lot will want to consider Bitdefender Total Security, which supports Windows, Macs and iOS and Android devices. Beyond the broader support, this package also adds parental controls and a two-manner firewall. Information technology packet covers five devices for $90 yearly or 10 devices for $100. Again, you can salve money by opting to pay for two or iii years at once.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac offers support back to macOS X Yosemite (ten.10) with full support for recent versions of Safari, Firefox and Chrome. If yous wish to use the Bitdefender VPN, you lot will need to be updated to at least macOS Sierra (10.12).
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac: Antivirus protection
Bitdefender provides real-fourth dimension protection for your Mac past scanning continuously for malware, viruses, ransomware and adware. Any potentially dangerous files will be compared against Bitdefender's massive signature-based malware library, and the program too deploys machine learning capabilities that aid defend against emergent threats that have nevertheless to be catalogued.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac is somewhat unusual in that it does non offer a scheduled-scan feature. Users are asked to behave a total scan upon installation, and after that the real-time protection from Bitdefender should exist sufficient to catch any new threats to your organization. Y'all do accept the pick to run 1-off full or quick scans, but it isn't a feature that is stressed.
To be off-white, this should exist no different for the real-time malware protection offered by any of the residual of the antivirus apps that nosotros reviewed. Mod antivirus software doesn't really need to perform scheduled scans, merely Bitdefender is the simply one of the Mac antivirus programs nosotros reviewed to take the step of removing scheduled scans entirely.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac: Antivirus functioning
In guild to make up one's mind the overall efficacy of Bitdefender's malware scanning, we relied on the Germany-based AV-Examination lab and Austria-based AV-Comparatives lab, which conduct regular evaluations of major antivirus apps and services.
During the March-Apr 2021 round of testing by AV-Examination lab, Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac detected 100% of Mac malware. During this same round of testing, Avast (100%), Norton (100%) and Trend Micro (100%) all matched Bitdefender. Intego and Kaspersky were non tested in that circular, only Kaspersky got a 100% score in May-June 2020, while Intego got 98.5% in Nov-December 2020.
| AV-Test, almost recent | AV-Test, previous | AV-Comparatives, near contempo | AV-Comparatives, previous | |
| Avast | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Bitdefender | 100% | 97.3% | 100% | 100% |
| Intego | 98.5% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Kaspersky | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Norton | 100% | 100% | Not tested | Not tested |
| Trend Micro | 100% | 100% | 99.6% | 100% |
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac avoided getting any false positives, meaning all detections were accurate, but this was true of its competitors every bit well. It detected more than 99% of Mac potentially unwanted programs (annoying programs that sneak into other programs' installations) and more than 99% of Windows malware, but so did Avast and Trend Micro.
Bitdefender's previous round of AV-Test Mac evaluations resulted in an uncharacteristically poor performance of 97.3% detection. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac had previously failed to observe 100% of malware threats in AV-Test's evaluations but one time since Apr of 2017.
Turning to the AV-Comparatives testing, Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac successfully identified 100% of the Mac malware threats, as well as all the potentially unwanted programs and Windows malware, in June 2021 tests. It has been perfect on each of the AV-Comparatives tests going back to July 2017. Avast, Intego and Kaspersky all detected 100% of Mac malware in June 2021 examination as well, while Trend Micro detected 99.six%.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac: Security and privacy features
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac doesn't become all the features that Bitdefender 2021 for Windows offers, just it does bring a fiddling more to the table than more Spartan options such as Avast Gratis Mac Security or Intego Mac Internet Security X9.
One helpful overarching feature that Bitdefender offers is Autopilot. This is your "personal security counselor," which appears at the pinnacle of the main dashboard and gives you advice regarding actions you might want to have to ensure the health and security of your Mac.
Beyond Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac'south real-time and antivirus scanning, you have a number of web-protection features bundled into a browser extension known as TrafficLight. Once installed on Chrome, Firefox or Safari, TrafficLight attempts to filter out whatsoever malicious content you lot run into on the web before it ever hits your system.
Ransomware protection comes in the course of Safe Files and Fourth dimension Machine Protection. Both these features are designed to prevent any authorized access or changes to any files or folders that you have designated as personal or sensitive.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac also includes Bitdefender VPN. Unfortunately, the service is limited to 200MB per twenty-four hours — merely enough to check your email when traveling — and won't let you choose your server location. To break free of those limitations, you'd need to upgrade to the premium VPN service for $50 a year.
While I didn't have an appreciable speed striking from the Bitdefender VPN, you would probably be better served past one of the best VPN stand-alone services in terms of features Yous could also try Kaspersky'due south VPN service, which uses the same leased VPN lines as Bitdefender but costs just $30 per year.
A new anti-tracker feature is another privacy component to Bitdefender, blocking any trackers that will effort to follow yous effectually the web. This tin can be enabled for Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Edge.
One characteristic in Bitdefender Antivirus Plus for Windows you won't become is Bitdefender Wallet, Bitdefender'due south password manager, which inexplicably won't run on Mac, iOS or Android. (Kaspersky'south password manager will.) Another is Safepay, which lets you open banking and shopping sites in a secure browser that enforces encrypted links and blocks extensions.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac: Performance and system touch
In order to measure the operation impact of Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, nosotros ran the Geekbench five benchmarking test prior to installing the app and then ran a serial of tests with the tool after installation. The 2016 MacBook Pro 13-inch laptop that we used for the review had a 2.9Ghz Intel Core i5-6267U processor, 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM and a 256GB SSD with 42.18GB of files installed.
Running our Geekbench 5 examination prior to installing Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, the test achieved a score of 1,848. That dropped only to ane,847 post-obit the installation of the app, a well-nigh ephemeral lag of about 0.05%. This was true for most of the antivirus apps that I reviewed. The only ones whose background system impact didn't round out to nix were Trend Micro, with a 1% lag, and Kaspersky, which showed the biggest drop at a mere 3%.
| Mail service-installation | Total scan | Quick scan | |
| Avast | 0% | 27% | 3% |
| Bitdefender | 0% | 19% | 1% |
| Intego | 0% | 34% | three% |
| Kaspersky | three% | 12% | iv% |
| Norton | 0% | 12% | 0% |
| Trend Micro | 1% | 46% | ane% |
The full scan was also a fairly solid attempt from Bitdefender. It resulted in a 19% performance hitting, the second-lowest result behind Kaspersky (12%) and Norton (12%), which tied for get-go place. Avast (27%) was non besides distantly far behind, but Intego (34%) and Trend Micro (46%) were specks in the rearview mirror.
A Bitdefender quick scan was almost perfect, with just a 1% drop. This matched Trend Micro (i%) and was second just to Norton (0%). None performed likewise poorly on the quick scan, but Avast (3%), Intego (3%) and Kaspersky (4%) brought upward the rear.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac's starting time full scan took 27 minutes and 55 seconds and scanned 606,565 files. That was the 2d-slowest initial scan, ahead of just the afar concluding-place finisher Kaspersky (39:05). (Subsequent scans will exist shorter.) No others even crossed 13 minutes, with Trend Micro (12:03), Norton (11:45), Avast (10:25) and Intego (6:22) topping the list.
Bitdefender's quick scan looks at the about mutual areas for viruses or malware. On my exam system, this scanned 14,765 files in 16 seconds. Considering the number of files, this was an excellent result, with but Intego (00:11) and Norton (00:thirteen) finishing faster. Avast (00:xviii) was hot on its heels and then it was a distant fifth and sixth stop for Kaspersky (00:53) and Trend Micro (1:06).
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac: Interface
Bitdefender does an fantabulous task of keeping its user interface compact without overwhelming you lot with besides many options or settings. The left cavalcade is divided into Dashboard, Protection, Privacy and Notifications, with the content of those sections displayed on the right.
The Dashboard puts Autopilot recommendations at the top with options to run a quick or full browse only beneath. Another row of options lets you manage your device subscriptions or view your protected files and the status of your spider web protection browser extensions.
Protection is dissever into 3 carve up tabs. The start, Antivirus, offers y'all the full selection of scans, including Custom and Organization scans. You can also view quarantined files and specify files that you would like to exempt from scans.
The 2d tab, Web Protection, duplicates the Dashboard section of the aforementioned proper name. The final tab, Anti-Ransomware, lets y'all utilise Safe Files to specify which files or folders you would similar to protect as sensitive content. Y'all can see which applications accept requested to change or access these files. Time Automobile Protection is essentially identical to Safe Files but solely focused on Time Machine backups.
The Privacy section has just a couple of features: Bitdefender VPN and Anti-tracker. I've described the limitations of the Bitdefender VPN already, merely using it is quite unproblematic. Click open and a Bitdefender VPN pop-up appears to show how much of your 200MB daily allotment is remaining and a big blueish button to plow information technology on.
Anti-tracker, much similar Web Protection, doesn't have an interactive component to information technology. It only shows that the tracker-blocking feature is operational on your installed browsers.
The last main section is Notifications. Every bit y'all would look, this displays all the activities carried out by Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac: Installation and support
Y'all can download Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac direct from the Bitdefender website. The installation file is just 20.5MB, and the installation footprint is small besides, at just 18.5MB. Bitdefender does an excellent job of walking you lot through the permissions that need to be granted then requires a restart of your Mac to complete the installation.
Completing the balance of the setup took about five minutes and mostly involved enabling the browser-based protections.
Bitdefender offers 24/7 tech support via telephone, email or live chat. If yous accept a fairly common question, the company's site offers extensive FAQs, videos and community forums.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac review: Bottom line
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac may not have quite every bit many features as Norton 360 Standard, only from a pure antivirus-app standpoint, it covers everything that most users should be worried nigh in an accessible way.
Bitdefender's pricing is extremely competitive, particularly if you have multiple Macs to protect. My master complaint is the VPN limitations and upgrade pricing, merely yous can turn to an outside VPN solution if necessary and still come in below the price of a Norton 360 Standard subscription.
If you lot desire a good-looking and easy-to-use Mac antivirus solution with a proven track record, then Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac remains the best choice.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/bitdefender-antivirus-mac
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