Bitdefender Cloud AV

[Guest]

[wasgij6]

This product seems to be fairly new i think it came out around october of last year. The weird thing is its free for romanian users and cost for others. There is no english version that i know of (yet). Here is the romanian site for the product. What really seemed interesting to me is there are no options or popups with this product. Here is an interview with Bitdefenders Senior product manager. He definitely has something interesting things to say about the product.

Here is just a small portion of the interview

Usually, antivirus solutions, once installed, alert the user on the fact that the system has not been scanned, mentioning the fact that there are 'issues'. Initially, we didn't even plan on implementing an on-demand scanning system, at this point, the system being available only to help those who write product reviews.

Our Autoscan actually works by scanning once a day all the critical system areas (System32, Program Files) and once a week it sweeps the entire system, regardless of the size of the hard drive. All this happens without any impact on the performance of the machine, tests being made with games and applications.

This background scanning relies on a system that could be perceived as being similar to the 'idle' scanning implemented in other solutions.

Normally, idle scanning means that when the application finds CPU resources, it steps in and scans the system. With Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition we not only took the concept to another level but we reinvented it all together.

Upon installation, a calibration library checks the CPU and hard disk performance in order to align the algorithms fine-tuning the impact in system performance with the overall system performance. Basically this ensures that whenever needed, Autoscan can run in background while heavy-duty tasks (gaming, for instance) are being performed in the foreground, without interfering with their performance.

This might not seem like something out of the ordinary, but we do it with a millisecond precision. For instance, let's take Photoshop. If we look at the performance graph when it loads, we can see that it doesn't take up all the system resources instantly, instead the graph oscillates.

In a simple test, if we were to compare how fast Photoshop would start on two identical computers, on one machine, the program runs without any interference, and on the other a scanning thread is launched.

While they would both start in precisely the same time, in the meanwhile, the scanning thread manages to scan somewhere around 2 files, which means that the scan is not fast, but it doesn't interfere in any way with the regular processes.

Here is a discussion about this product at Wilders security forum.

[spainach_12]

I'm currently testing it. astoundingly fast and easy to use. Little to configure really which may be a downside for some.

You also have to log in to your bitdefender account to activate it. I am yet unsure if this has to be done each start. I'll get back after a restart (by the way, installation took no more than a minute and it included a quick scan, no restart needed). When you're creating a new account, it's just name, email, password and then retype password. activate it afterwards. (you're control panel link would look something like this. https://my.bitdefender.com/ro_ro/...  just change ro_ro in the link to en_us)

Sort of irritating how I have to keep on clicking it in the system tray each time I'd like to take a look (because I was trying to translate a bunch of stuff). It hides automatically when switching windows.

Minimal system impact, but resource intensive. two process, one of 65.2 MB and another of 90.61 MB (quite possibly because it's scanning in the background).

here are a few translated phrases you might find useful.

Trimite statistici privind utilizarea produsului (send statistics on product usage)
Sunt de acord cu termenii acordului de licenta (I agree to the terms and conditions)
porniti o scanare rapida a systemului (perform a quick scan of your system)
scanarea fisielor sistemului pentru detectarea virusilor (scanning system files for viruses)
descarcarea fisielor aplicatiilor (downloading application files)
anulare (cancel)
inchide (close)
parola (password)
stergere lista (clear list)
jurnale (logs *this is also where you'll find quarantined files)
fisiere in carantina (quarantined files)
curatare in asteptare (clean on reboot)
evenimente (events)
arata (show)
scut antivirus (virus shield *the one that scans in bg*)
actualiza (updated)


Hope I was of some help.
 

[NSG001]

Julian has reviewed this recently
http://youtu.be/2p_uJtayFr0

Hoping that Comodo's cloud av will be forthcoming now.

[spainach_12]

Julian has reviewed this recently
http://youtu.be/2p_uJtayFr0

Hoping that Comodo's cloud av will be forthcoming now.

Watched it and I should say that it performed better in my tests^:

Panda: 10/15
Avast: 8/15
Bitdefender: 15/15

I was hoping to test Unthreat and ESET as well, but couldn't get them to install properly. Having no time, I gave up.


When it came down to performance* however:

Startup (first startup after installation)
Panda: no impact**
Avast: +2 minutes
Bitdefender: +6 minutes

Shutdown:
Panda: +2 min
Avast: +5 min
Bitdefender: no impact

App launch*** (first):
Panda: +1 min
Avast: +2 min
Bitdefender: +1 min

App launch (subsequent):
Panda: no impact
Avast: +33 seconds
Bitdefender: no impact

Installation (used MangaMeeya):
Panda: no detectable impact
Avast: +4 mins
Bitdefender: +2 mins

^The formula for this is c - (m + f) where c = constant (15), m = no. of missed samples and f = failed to clean (still running in memory or main executable remains). All three managed to detect all 15 samples.
*Methodology: Obtained control values using a system without an antivirus and measured the values. Then installed each of the products for testing before measuring. Formula: (t - T) where t is the amount of time with an antivirus, and T is the amount of time without an antivirus.
**no impact is rated when the amount of time added to the base amount is < 30 seconds.
***App Launch is tested using Microsoft word.

So now I'm using Bitdefender Free (Romanian). Troublesome really how it adds up to startup time but it cleans up fairly well. I am supposed to have recorded the whole test but the screen recorder ended up being paused and failed to capture the test. Apparently, I accidentally typed in the shortcut key for pausing the recording without noticing. Stupidity strikes again. There's hardly anything  to configure so I doubt I or anyone at home will tinker with it 'til it breaks. And it's in Romanian to top that. Very simple and easy. No false positives yet.

Oh and to update my previous post, you only have to sign in once on your bitdefender account. And the memory usage drops to 40 MB below when an application is running. I think it scan only when the system is idle. I don't know.

Alright. Hope this'll be of some use to anyone. good day.

[wasgij6]

Nice test spainach_12. Bitdefender has always had great signatures which is what really makes this product strong. I really hope comodo cloud av will be strong. i just wonder if it will have some type of zero-day protection or if it will be just valkyrie/sigs.

[naren]

I think Valkyrie too is a zeroday protection. And they are testing behaviour blocker so I guess it will be included in comodo cloud beta coz Melih have mentioned that few things ironed out well in comodo cloud will be added to CIS 6 subsequent version they suppose. So I guess BB will be there in cloud AV, atleast I hope it will & should be there.

[spainach_12]

I said before that it adds 6 minutes to start up. well, with each restart, I'm seeing lesser and lesser added time. from an additional 6 minutes, after three restarts, it's now down to a minute and a half. surprising. I'm testing to see if it still works offline. Will update ASAP. Right now, I'm collecting as much malware as possible. I have around 3000 now. Oh and it got a perfect score on Spycar tests. As for EICAR, it doesn't detect it when downloaded on https protocol (though it gets locked). So I guess it does work offline. Let's see it's detection rate offline.

UPDATE:
I collected 6000+ malware samples and ran them all. Then something weird happened. First, Bitdefender quarantined 48 files. Then the remainder of files could not be launched because I don't have "sufficient rights". I thought maybe because I was using WTF. So then I rebooted, ran Revo Uninstaller to record whatever change will happen and ran the virus and in addition, ran them as admin... Strangely enough, none of them launched. Looking at BD, it was scanning them, but not reporting any detection. Afterwards, I rebooted again and tried running them. This time, it says it's corrupt. Strange. I don't know if it was BD or not.

 In any case, the startup time shows no impact. No running malware found. BD detected some things in the temporary folder (i.e better world or something like that) and was to clean them after a reboot (but I did for it what it planned to do and cleaned it using CCleaner).

Meh. I don't know what happened, but none of the 6000 ran though I'm quite sure they were working the last time I tested them using panda, avast and Emsisoft. But the beautiful thing is this: I wanted to see if I could get it to crash as was the case with avast and panda. Surprisingly, no. And not only that. The system was working...smoothly... it felt as if it wasn't even scanning. Peering over the task manager however, it was using a little over 211 MB or memory for both processes. This is a first for me and I am taken aback.

Verdict: I have little to say with its detection rate due to complications and doubtful results. But the way it works is simply elegant, smooth and amazing. If it were anything, this could be the next standard for antiviruses. Absolutely fast, silent and intelligent. I think I'm starting to fall in love. I'll keep on testing this for a month or so. See if I could find something wrong with it.

Anyone who'd like to test it, please do tell me the results. Languy did a test, but I want to see how well it does offline.

Alright then. Good day.

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