Firewall protection

The firewall module offered by Bitdefender Total Security 2018 can detect the network profile you set in Windows, and it can automatically configure itself accordingly. That is an excellent thing because it means less user intervention is necessary. However, if you want to assign a public or private profile to your network manually, you can also do that.

To get a better idea of the efficiency of the firewall module offered by Bitdefender Total Security 2018, we have run some tests with two vulnerability scanners: Nessus and Nmap. The good news is that neither of them managed to find any open ports or any meaningful information about our test laptop when we used a public network profile on it. However, when we used a private network profile, Nmap was able to identify one open port, and Nessus found two. The only other interesting piece of information the two scanners were able to find in both situations was the MAC address of our test laptop.

Bitdefender's firewall module is still one of the best we have tested, and its efficiency is highest when you are connected to public networks. It watches every bit of information that goes in and out of your computer, and it can block any network attack with ease.

Antivirus and antispyware protection

The first thing we checked on Bitdefender Total Security 2018 was how good it is for protecting you when surfing the web. As you know, Bitdefender does that by scanning and filtering all the internet traffic that goes on your computer so, at least in theory, that means you will be protected in any web browser you use. To see if that is true, we have used some of the most popular web browsers today: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Opera. Using these browsers, we made the repeated attempt to visit a series of dangerous websites, but Bitdefender Total Security 2018 blocked our access to the perilous websites each time we tried, in all browsers, and that is a very good result.

Then, we checked what Bitdefender Total Security 2018 does when it comes to removable drives that contain malware. To do that, we copied a bunch of malicious files on a USB memory stick and plugged it into our test laptop. Bitdefender Total Security 2018 immediately started scanning and cleaning the viruses found on the USB memory stick. In a short while, there was nothing bad left on it, and that is great!

The last test we did was to install Windows 10 on our laptop, infect it with several dangerous viruses, including some ransomware. Then, we asked Bitdefender Total Security 2018 to install and clean the infection. As expected, Bitdefender Total Security 2018 did all that without any issues. After a full system scan, the laptop was running clean again.

An antivirus engine might be very good at detecting and removing malware from your computer but, if it is too slow and it takes forever to do it, it is not that good. Fortunately, Bitdefender's antivirus engine is a fast one: it needed 5 minutes on average to scan our 126GB Windows 10 system partition with 35GB of data on it.

We also took a look at what independent security organizations had to say about Bitdefender:

• AV-Test awarded Bitdefender Internet Security with their top score of 6 points out of 6 for Protection and Performance, and with 5.5 points out of 6 for Usability.

• AV-Comparatives gave Bitdefender their Advanced+ mark in all their tests: "Real World - Protection Test," "Malware Protection Test," and "Performance Test."

• Virus Bulletin awarded Bitdefender their VB100 badge.

Bitdefender Total Security 2018 does not disappoint this year either - it is still one of the best security suites in the world, and it is more than capable of handling any malware threat.

Extra features

Bitdefender Total Security 2018 comes bundled with quite a few additional extra features:

• Vulnerability Scanner - a module that checks for and installs available critical Windows and application updates, as well as checks for weak Windows account passwords and wireless networks vulnerabilities.

• Wi-Fi Security Advisor - checks the security of the wireless networks that you connect to, and lets you know if they are insecure.

• Safepay - is a secure environment that includes a web browser that keeps your online financial transactions protected against any phishing attempts, malware, keyloggers, session hijacking and all kinds of fraud activities.

• Wallet - is a password manager that keeps your personal and financial data secured (encrypted). It can hold information about your email accounts, passwords, credit cards and so on. It works with Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Bitdefender Safepay.

• File Vaults - creates special folders which are encrypted and secured using a password, so that any files inside them are protected against unwanted access. It is a useful tool for those who work with sensitive and valuable files.

• Webcam Protection - blocks unwanted access to the webcam found on your computer, so that bad apps or hackers cannot access it without you knowing.

• Parental Advisor - a tool designed to help you manage your child's online activities. Setting this feature requires you to access the Bitdefender Central web page. While adding and configuring a child profile are both easy and simple tasks, this feature cannot be configured to work only for a child user account on your Windows computer. Instead, it blocks inappropriate content on any user account. However, if all you want is an extremely simple to use the parental tool, you may like it.

• File Shredder - a tool designed to help you permanently delete files that you do not want to be recoverable.

• OneClick Optimizer - scans your computer for junk files, registry issues and privacy issues that can be cleaned or resolved.

• Startup Optimizer - analyzes the programs that load on the Windows startup and lets you disable them, enable them or delay them. All these features work well, but they are things you can do from Windows too.

• Anti-Theft - uses your Bitdefender Central online account to help you locate your devices if you lost them or if they are stolen.

• Disk Cleanup - checks your storage drives for large and unnecessary files that you could remove to gain free space on your device. This is something Windows does on its own anyway, so it is not that useful.

• Bitdefender VPN - a VPN service offered by Bitdefender in association with Hotspot Shield. Using this VPN service is a great idea if you want to stay safe on public unsafe wireless networks. It is an excellent addition to the security suite, but you should know that you only get 200 MB of internet traffic a day. If you want more, you must buy a separate subscription. When we connected to the server recommended by the VPN solution, the decrease of internet download and upload speeds was obvious, but that is a necessary compromise if you want security.

Bitdefender Total Security 2018 bundles many additional tools, and most of them can be useful to their users. We especially like the fact that the security suite bundles a VPN solution to protect its users when connected to unsafe networks like those from coffee shops or airports.

Default settings that you might want to adjust

Bitdefender Total Security 2018 is a security product that is well configured by default. However, there are a few things you could adjust:

• Configure a scheduled antivirus scan. By default, there is no such scan configured in Bitdefender Total Security 2018 and, to achieve a higher level of security, you should create one such task to run monthly or even more often. You can do that in Protection -> View features -> Manage scans.
• Disable the "Display notifications with special offers" option, if you do not want to be bothered with such notifications. You can do that in Settings -> General.

Bitdefender Total Security 2018 is well configured by default, and there are very few things you could improve.

What is your opinion about Bitdefender Total Security 2018?

You read our review, and so you know that we like Bitdefender Total Security 2018 a lot. Before leaving, we would love to hear your opinions about this antivirus product too. You can share them below, in the comments section.