I've been a user for several year and the product works ok even if a bit clunky at times (I disabled real-time scanning on my MacBook because it used too many resources). I was very disappointed when an update installed their VPN software without opt-in and start nagging me to buy it after every reboot. I'm happy to pay a subscription for security software but installing other softare without approval is unacceptable and feels more like the malware I'm trying to avoid. I'm going to find a different product.
Bitdefender has a paid version, yes, but this version is not the one that costs money, this version is 100% FREE! “Bitdefender Virus Scanner”, the thing you see here, is the free one. “Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac” (from their website) and “Bitdefender Virus Scanner Plus” (from the Mac App Store) both cost money. Oh and they also have something else free on their website called “Bitdefender Adware Removal Tool for Mac” but it can only remove TWO adware programs, “Genieo" and “Vsearch”, not a very long list, although to be fair, those are the most common ones. Anyway the point is, there are some other reviews here which are rather negative and complain about being ripped off out of money. Well none of those apply to this product because it is completely free, right here in the Mac App Store it is listed as free, sure there is a “Plus” version that costs money but if you get this free version you will NOT be charged anything. I am trying this along with the free version of Malwarebytes Antimalware, hopefully using both of them can clean up my Mac from an infection of some malware.
I had somehow gotten malware on my Mac that caused every single safari page i opened to redirect to Bing, making it nearly impossible to use safari because even after i typed in a search it would clear it and just launch bing. Very annoying. I tried a few other apps that did not work or promised to work after charging me. I tried EVERYTHING to clear it without an app as well. I then came across this app. I downloaded it and after about 5 minutes of setup, I had it run a deep system search on my Mac (I strongly encourage you do the same if you have a similar issue. It took about an hour but it searched EVERYTHING on my mac for viruses. Much more thorough than the regular system search option). After I ran the deep system search I restarted my mac and boom the problem was all gone. Very appreciative of this free app.
I was previously using avira, then avast but now that I did a fresh install on a new machine, I thought of trying something different, with bitdefender. Because I'm the gatekeeper for security at a few firms, I have a few old bits of malware I sometimes use to test apps. Of the 30 files I had, this program detected 24, which is mediocre (no antivirus is 100%, but some get closer). None of the malware samples I have are even zero-day, with some being 3-5 years old, more than enough time for a virus scanner to detect them. What really turned me off was that this program doesn't even have right-click access, which makes scanning incoming files so easy! Once you use an app that has right-click access, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. In all, this app is just too limited for my tastes. For now I'll go back to avg. Maybe I'll look for something else later and rate it.
I'll start with I'm a Mac user and downloaded this app a year ago. The software worked fine. Why does it get a 1star review? Removing this antivirus is like trying to get rid of a virus manually. My partner has Sophos, so I decided to move to that antivirus at the end of my BitDefender subscription. At the T-10 days mark, I deleted the payment method and the account. I then attempted to remove the software. The unistaller didn't work, nor did their additional methodology. I contacted support, but they were cluless what to do to remove it from a MAc if those three methods didn't work. So they escalated the ticket to their "engineers". I never heard back from Bitdefender. So I manually went through every file on my mac and deleted bitdefender. It took a day with countless restarts, but it worked. Yesterday was Sunday. I got 3 emails letting me know my subscription had ended. Followed by 2 more emails telling me they had accepted payment and a confirmation of payments. Remember when I said I deleted payment info and the account? I had to spend time requesting a refund, then confirming I requested the refund. I don't actually know if I will get the refund or if I will need to dispute the charge. Do not do business with these people if you may in the future change your mind about the software.
I knew I had downloaded one of these sucker viruses. I had tryed to search downloads, and finder, but to no avail. The virus had hidden itself within my ammassed amount of files. This virus was running rampant on the computer, It was slowing down the applacations and was always on my screen. But Bitdefender fixed all of that! It ran a fully fledged deep scan on the computer, not only did I have a virus, I had four of them! Apparently those other 3 viruses were studying my search patterns and selling data. Who knows what they would've sold about me if these Viruses were still ravaging the computer. Thank you Bitdefender for protecting my computer! Edit : My good review is now gone. In litterally a day, the viruses were back. I thought the whole purpose of the program was to DELETE the viruses? This is truely a shame.
I have used Bitdefender for years (Mac only). I am very impressed how Bitdefender has continually improved the ease of installation, updating and use. Very impressive how Bitdefender has reduced the virus deep scan time over the years. If you keep your OS updates current, regularly back ups using Time Machine, run adware and popup blockers in Safari, only download approved software from the App Store, and frequently update and run Bitdefender deep scans, you will significantly decrease your risk of malware exposure. There are no 100% full-proof security solutions, but conscientious and committed user security practices including Bitdefender come close.
I downloaded Bitdefender a couple of days ago. I also downloaded Antivirus Zap at the same time. Both seem to work great. I wanted to be able to use both, to see if they both pick up any infected files. They both did, after doing a scan earlier today. Not sure if they were all the same files that they found, though. Next time, I’ll check to compare them both. In any case, they both are picing up adware and trogjans, as well as malware, so I’m happy with the results.
Having enormous trouble getting updates to download!
Having enormous trouble getting updates to download! Tried all sorts of trick when getting error messages. Sometimes able to passby the error messages and succeed in downloading the updates. All the tricks failed at my last attempt which has prompted me to say something here! We need help! It really is not working properly anymore. And just tried to get through to Support and yes the site came up on ;my browser but I could not find the product that I have listed and therefore the site would not allow me to go forward and report my problems and get help. This is NOT good at all!
I’ve used this scanner since my switch to Apple proucts with good results. Now, Bitdefender won’t update its virus definitions with an error message that there is no internet signal. This after updating for hours using line-of-sight WiFi @ 145Mbps. I’m sure I don’t know the reason but am curious if other users have run into this dilemna recently.
False positives and mishandles Time Machine's local snapshots
The “deep system scan” doesn’t understand Time Machine local snapshots, and scans through the entire set of backups as if they were separate instances of a file. The result is that a scan takes *forever* and each false positive will show up literally dozens of times in a given scan. God save you if you’re running this on battery power. The scans also reported eBook files *about* malware as if they were malware. Presumably it was triggered by finding key text strings, but these were not in a context where they would execute. I’m glad I tried the eval before buying.
I’m always amazed at negative reviews of products/apps that I find extremely effective. Bit Defender (paid version) is outstanding. Updates smoothly, uses very little resources to run, and most importantly, detects and removes “bad stuff.” It just detected the Elmedia Proton Trojan and deleted it. Several major on-line publications said that the only way to clean out the trojan was to reinstall the OSX. Not correct — BD cleaned my Mac Mini completely and only required a simple reboot.
My son was blocked out of his work pay portal for half a month because bitdefender decided his company website needed blocked for his protection and wouldn't let us approve the site (Their authorization tool simply didn't work). Tech support was 'meh' with no "How'd we do?" That was on our network... We had even more problems when we loaded their app on my laptop. I couldn't work online for 3 days while I spent hours on the phone with them just trying to get it uninstalled... They now rank as one of my top 2 most dispised tech companies.
Bitdefender is very good for being a free product. I have used this software for 3 years on two of my Macs and I have not felt the need to invest in any other protection. This protects my Mac adequetly fine. If malware is found it is put in a quarantine folder so you can delete the corrupt files. I usually run weekly or monthly scans depending on my usage. Works great.
I've been using Bitdefender a lot over the years. I'm thankful for the free verson. The first thing this software does is update the virus database. It then scan the files. This takes quite a while. Some software takes a few seconds. I like that it takes time to scan the system.
Thought I'd try the free version. Decided it wasn't for me (no biggie on that and not deserving a poor rating). There is no uninstaller for Catalina and the website is useless giving two options, neither of which work. I now have to go through a massive library / containers / everywhere search to find all the places where it inserted itself so I can get rif of it. That is certainly worth zero stars. Very poor form for a program to not allow itself to be removed. It's like getting a tattoo. Make sure you wanna keep it forever.
Sadly, it is completely unusable… I have a terabyte drive from my windows machine that I know is infected with something, so I want to scan it on my mac so that I have no cross contamination… it starts scanning just fine, and fined hundreds of things to delete or quarantine… but instead of finishing it crashes… and all of those items are now still on the harddrive. There is not ‘quarantine folder’ or anything for me to just delete, etc. The drive is still infected. I would really like this to work! Arg.
Bit defender may be a great program. I guess I'll never find out. After attempting to read the extremely long terms of use, written in indecipherable legalese, I decided I wasn't able to agrree to it. You may be signing over rights to your firstborn without knowing it! I had my mac read the terms to me, and it took maybe twenty minutes or so. Really, Bit Defender? You can't do better than that?
This app used to be useful but now is nothing more but a plecebo. I have used it countless times and I compared it to Malwarebytes and the latter was able to find two pieces of maleware while "Bit defender" finds and removes nothing. please update your Mac free app. This is an obvious scam and wont contribute to mac OS health overall. The "loading update" bar is probably just an animation and nothing more. You guys need to update this thing and make the free version actually work, otherwise what's the point?
I had picked up a pesky popup adware. It would pop up and want to delete my photo duplicates. I couldn't close it but I could drag the App from the App Folder to the trash. I was able to get rid of all the leftover bits this app put into many folders using Bitdefender. I'm a believer.
After 5 years plus of no issues, after the Sonoma 14.4 update it causes freezing, crashing, etc. Doesn't play well with apps like Photos if you have editing plugins, etc. I'm sure they were part of the Alpha team, how did these issues get missed? Dissapointing.
Purchased the product last year. Renewed this year on their website. Big mistake! They stopped my subscription, stating that I had disputed the charge with my bank (which I had not). Been going around and around with Bitdefender for over a month and they are unable to resolve the situation, so now I have disputed the charge. To add insult to injury I can’t uninstall this bleeping program from my laptop…. and am concerned it will interfere with another antivirus program.
After an hour plus to download v3.8, no virus or malware found. How can this be that my computer has escaped all the antivirus and malware programs that everyone else gets? Not sure if Bitdefender is working, or if just a pretty icon, after deep system scan, and nothing found.
Stay away unless you're 100% absolutely sure it will work because the uninstall software they provide will not work for MBP M1 and the VPN configuration is locked in and will reinstall. Applecare won't help to remove it even with an active subscription. Netgear is offering this free trial with thier awful newer router with the Bitdefender VPN and anti-virus installed in it. Trashed my network for quite some time and still working to get it removed.
This app works very smooth and quick , perfect for a Mac which probably only needs on demand scanning . Update’s are very substantial and Bitdefender has the reputation and strong database . You just can’t beat it !!! Highly recommended !!!!
Free and efficient. Most times it just catches things in email, seems that is the only place my Mac seems to have things lurking, typcially spam/junk. No complaints!
Works Well, is non invasive, Quarantines infected files as well.
I am impressed as Bit Defender caught several malicious programs and even malicious windows executable files lurking on transferred usb drives. The Deep system scan can run in the background. It also has a quick scan feature and ability to scan user selected files, disks, or folders. It is non invasive and doesn’t cause disk permission problems. It’s very easy to use. Get it you’ll be glad you did.
Free Bitdefender did a pretty good job of cleaning up my mac, and found some spyware, but it didn't detect a pervasive Adware I couldn't get rid of. I had to use the upgraded paid version of Bitdefender to get that. This version is free and not bad, but it doesn't get everything. Buy the paid version.
I keep getting a pop up notification that the app 3.7 needs to be updated. However, when I open system updates, version 3.7 won't update then directs me to try to update in my purchases page. Again will not update AND I cannot open the app itself in applications to scan and update. I have to restart my iMac to open version 3.7 so there is no bux fixes in 3.8.
Scanning no longer works (neither Critical, Deep nor Custom). They all appear to initiate, then immediately report that they completed. The Deep Scan for sure used to take at least 30 minutes on my Mac…now it’s immediate??? Safe to say it’s not working an longer.
I'm truthfully unsure if this actually helps or not. the raiting here is "meh" while some reviews are raving. I cant tell if its added lag or reduced it or helped clear files or just reads everything without me knowing..
Downloaded an installer and scanned it. The installer was 2.2GB and this scanned it in roughly 2 seconds. I then used Virus Barrier Scanner and it opened and showed the count of files it scanned… over 3000 files and it took a bit longer than 2 seconds. Suspect BitDefender does not scan inside of “img” and “zip” files… nice. Easy place for malware to hide..
Am not sure what happened but it keeps crashing after a few minutes of scans. Used to be great and scans well. I like it because it does not slow down my Mac. I had bought the full version before but that brought my Mac to a complete crawl. Please advise why it crashes. It has done so 3 times now that i tried to do a deep scan.
Sometime ago with this version one had to start the definition update, get an error (60), then start the update again and it would work. Now it will not update at all (error 1008). No information on their website for this product for any issues. Time to look for an alternative.
This thing hasn't been updated in over 2 years, and I'm beginning to think that this app can't reach the server to get the proper updates that are required to run the software scan. please fix this
What's the point of an anti-virus program if it gets stuck downloading it's own virus definitions? What's the point of scanning your system if it doesn't have the latest threat protection - waste of time! Trying this out to see if I liked it ..... so far it's a NO GO! AND, slooooow! Running for hours and it's half way through a deep scan.
I can't delete a damaged file from my Mac that belongs to this app that appeared when I uninstalled it, now's temporary on my desktop until I find out how to delete it because when I try to do so, it just crash followed by a text saying that I can't delete it becuase it's a damaged file, so stressful.
They used to be better. They are falling behaind. They are not giving the Mac as much attntion as they used to. They are not reaady for the new Mac OS Catalina. Thier is not Safari extention (trafic light) and even thier support web page for the instruction how to add the Safar extention is old (they are even still showing thier own App old interface!!!!!).
After installing this app on my late-2013 iMac 27", the system ran much more slowly. I had tried to delete it for two years(!) without success, as it somehow gave itself admin privileges that exceeded my own. I just bought a brand new iMac, and this app is going nowhere near it. I wish I could give negative stars.
Odd on APPLE how PAIED unknown names getting 4 stars yet ones that we all know that work great and are free get 3 or less.. how odd. Workd great for me.. no slow downs.
Wow, it has taken me days and hours to try to cancel my trial and get a refund. It didn't help me with fixing any problems. It just showed me problems that I know about from free services. It doesn't help me fix anything on it's own. Not worth the money and a nightmare to cancel/fund.
A new piece of macOS malware called Proton.B was discovered on Saturday, May 6, 2017. WIthin hours Apple had released an update to the macOS builtin XProtect database to block infection to Mac's. Pretty good for a weekend! However, as of May 9, 2017 at 7pm ET, BitDefender Virus Scanner with the latest virus definitions fails to detect this virus sample.
I’ve always wondered at the size of the malware signature download. Looks like this scans Mac OS for Windows malware. My last scan found a ##.exe file that it didn’t like. Might be a lot faster if if focused on the OS that it is built for.
Keeps trying to install after being cancelled and DOES NOT WORK
Bitdefender did nothing but slow down my mac, and viruses still got through that I had to manually get rid of. It keeps trying to install after I deleted it, and I do not want it!
Installed this software (supposedly free), never giving them my address or signing up on their website. The next day I received an email telling me they were going to charge me in 30-days. Sorry but FREE is supposed to be FREE. Never again Bitdefender.
2017 can’t remove old copies when you upgrade. Gets in your launch Daemons and launch Agents. Spent hours with apple online people. They can not remove. New program cant be installed until old removed.
Worked fine previously. Now it consistently crashes every time I try to do a scan or download latest update. Tired of this crap. I deleted it from my mac.
Essential security for your Mac! Bitdefender Virus Scanner finds Mac malware as well as Windows viruses with ease. Virus Scanner will detect any infected files that you downloaded or got in your inbox, so your Mac will be safe and you won’t pass anything bad to your friends’ computer. Grant Bitdefender Virus Scanner access to the locations on your computer that you want to scan against malware. Choose ‘Deep System Scan’ or ‘Scan Critical Locations’ to scan. The award-winning Bitdefender engines will find that piece of malware. For free! Make sure your Mac is free of infected files. Don't put your friends and family at risk by unknowingly passing along malware. Features: - Detects both OS X malware and Windows viruses; - Before a scan, it updates to detect the latest malware; - Searches for malware even in archives and inside various types of files such as pdf, pkg, zip, rar, etc.; - Critical locations scan - rapidly scans system areas that are prone to infections. - Award-winning Bitdefender antivirus engines; Also: - Quarantines dangerous files; - Deep system scan for all the locations the user has granted access to; - Drag-and-drop scan of files or folders; - Option to exclude files and folders from scan (i.e. Time Machine backups, etc.) - Easy-to-use interface. Constraints: - Due to sandboxing in the App Store, the app has access only to the locations that the user has explicitly granted access to. Grant access to the entire disk for increased protection; - Disinfection limited by the privileges of the user running the app; - Doesn’t scan programs stored in memory.
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