Bitdefender Mobile Security review
Our Verdict
Get it if y'all can spend $15 per year. Bitdefender Mobile Security is the best accommodating Android antivirus app, and its inexpensive cost almost makes it a no-brainer.
For
- Height malware protection
- Affordable premium version
- Many useful features
- Small-scale organisation impact
Against
- Expensive unlimited VPN option
Tom's Guide Verdict
Get it if y'all can spend $15 per year. Bitdefender Mobile Security is the all-time accommodating Android antivirus app, and its cheap price well-nigh makes information technology a no-brainer.
Pros
- +
Pinnacle malware protection
- +
Affordable premium version
- +
Many useful features
- +
Small arrangement bear on
Cons
- -
Expensive unlimited VPN option
It may not boast the massive installation numbers of some competitors, but Bitdefender Mobile Security is an exclusively paid Android security app. The fact that it has more than than 10 one thousand thousand paid downloads may be more than meaningful than the massively larger installation numbers of some of its gratis and freemium competitors.
Bitdefender Mobile Security maintains a 4.7 out of 5 rating in Google Play and has consistently performed well in third-party testing of antivirus apps. It slipped a bit in our system-impact rankings this year, but it remains almost the top and still represents a compelling value for those willing to pay for their mobile antivirus solution.
Norton Mobile Security remains its strongest competitor, only because Norton costs twice as much every bit Bitdefender after the starting time year, it'southward hard to justify looking beyond Bitdefender Mobile Security when considering the all-time Android antivirus apps.
Bitdefender Mobile Security: Costs and what's covered
Bitdefender remains ane of the alone antivirus apps that hasn't gone freemium. New users are able to accept advantage of a 14-day gratuitous trial to run into whether Bitdefender is correct for them, just after the trial is upwards, it's $14.99 a year.
While the chief app doesn't have a gratis tier, Bitdefender does offer a gratuitous Android solution chosen Bitdefender Antivirus Free. It uses the same antivirus engineering as the paid app, but has an older user interface and lacks the extra features I'll cover afterwards in this review.
Bitdefender has a couple of options for anyone also looking to secure one or more computers, a great deal considering Bitdefender also makes some of the best Mac antivirus software and best antivirus software overall.
Bitdefender Total Security offers protection for up to 10 devices across Windows, macOS, Android and iOS devices, starting at $89.99 per year. Bitdefender Family Pack 2019 bumps that upward to xv devices for $119.99. Discounts of up to 50% per yr are frequently available for new subscribers.
If you lot have a late-model Netgear Nighthawk or Orbi router, you can get Bitdefender Total Security for an unlimited number of devices, forth with Bitdefender's smart-home-defense router firmware, as function of Netgear's Armor system for $100 per year.
Bitdefender Mobile Security: Malware protection
Bitdefender had one of the slowest total scans, at approximately one infinitesimal, of any of the viii Android antivirus apps that I tested in early on 2019. Fortunately, every bit we'll cover afterward, information technology had one of the smallest impacts on organization performance during a full scan. You can't schedule a scan, simply the app performs one every time annihilation on the phone is updated or installed, and y'all can also trigger a scan manually.
Bitdefender'south web protection blocks malicious pages from reaching nigh widely used Android browsers, including Chrome, Dolphin, Firefox, Opera and Opera Mini. I tried to navigate to a test site known to be malicious using each of the supported browsers, just that always triggered a warning from Bitdefender to avoid the page, with the pick to go there anyway if I wanted to.
Bitdefender Mobile Security: Malware detection
Bitdefender Mobile Security has had perfect scores in all of German contained lab AV-Test's evaluations of Android security products for the past twelvemonth.
In the near recent exam, conducted in March 2020, the app detected 100% of the 3,102 "real-time" malware threats used, and 100% of the iii,086 "widespread" malware samples that were collected in the previous four weeks.
Bitdefender Mobile Security has had perfect scores in all of German independent lab AV-TEST's evaluations of Android security products for the past year.
This was well alee of the scores among the xvi Android antivirus apps tested in March, in which existent-time threats were detected an average of 98.5% of the time, and widespread threats 96.7% of the time. Even if you discount Google Play Protect's terrible scores, Bitdefender nonetheless came out ahead.
Of the seven other Android antivirus apps I most recently reviewed, five others were submitted to AV-Examination for this round. Kaspersky Mobile Antivirus and Norton Mobile Security likewise got 100/100 percent detection rates. Right behind them was Avast Mobile Security, which got 100% of real-time and 99.9% of widespread malware.
A bit further back was McAfee Mobile Security, which scored 99.six% on real-time malware even as it aced the widespread test.
Bringing up the rear was Google Play Protect, which had the lowest scores on both metrics among all apps in the tests at 77.4%/47.eight%. That'southward pretty terrible, simply in the Jan 2020 tests, it scored simply 37.0%/33.1%, the worst Google Play Protect has done since AV-Exam added information technology in September 2017.
Since the outset of 2017, Bitdefender has fallen curt of a perfect score confronting existent-fourth dimension malware only three times in AV-Examination's bimonthly Android antivirus tests, and it has always detected 100% of widespread malware.
Norton Mobile Security is the only app amid all those AV-Test has evaluated that can boast meliorate operation, with 100/100 on every exam in 2017, 2018, 2019 then far in 2020.
The other two apps I recently reviewed, Qihoo 360 Security and Sentry Security & Antivirus, no longer submit samples to AV-TEST for evaluation.
In a limited only in-depth evaluation of xi Android antivirus apps conducted past Austrian lab AV-Comparatives in July 2019, Bitdefender Mobile Security stopped 99.nine% of real-time malware, the aforementioned equally Avast, Kaspersky and McAfee. Google Play Protect stopped 83.2%.
Business relationship Privacy
You might already be using ane of the best password managers, just if not, Bitdefender's Account Privacy feature might inspire you to do and then. When you outset actuate it, yous will need to enter and validate your email addresses, and from and so on, you will be notified of any security breaches involving services that you used your email addresses to sign upwardly for.
By default, information technology scans for news of new breaches daily and notifies you immediately in the event of a pregnant breach. Once you have taken whatever steps necessary to secure a breached account, you can become dorsum into Account Privacy and tap on the breached service to mark the incident as Solved, equally far as yous're concerned.
Anti-Theft
Bitdefender has a solid collection of anti-theft features that are either triggered automatically or from the web portal at www.fundamental.bitdefender.com. At 1 fourth dimension, you could besides use SMS commands to remotely trigger anti-theft features, but due to recent changes in Google Play store policy, this is no longer possible.
Using the web portal, you lot tin can locate your device on a map, trigger an alert (a message, a siren or both), lock the device with a code that you input at that moment and finally wipe the device completely. I tested all only the last selection, and each worked within 2 to iii seconds of issuing the command on the web portal.
The anti-theft user interface is pretty basic, with a full-screen map so a minor overlay with icons for each of the corresponding anti-theft options.
The one automated anti-theft feature is Snap Photo, which volition capture an paradigm using the forepart-facing camera afterwards three failed attempts to unlock a protected app or 3 failed attempts to unlock the device.
App Lock This characteristic is user-friendly if you often find yourself handing over your phone to friends or children. It lets y'all employ a PIN or your fingerprint to lock specific apps that yous may not want someone else to access.
You simply check the box next to the app that y'all want to lock, then yous can choose to require an unlock every time, or someday the screen has been off, or if you have been out of the app for at least 30 seconds. One nice impact here is the ability to add trusted Wi-Fi zones where these apps remain unlocked.
Reports
This is an overview of the security actions taken by Bitdefender. You can view it as a weekly report with only the highlights, or switch over to the activity log, which is virtually everything that the app has washed. I can't imagine reviewing this content — obviously, the app puts any real bug forepart and eye, so most of what you'll notice here is going to be completely innocuous.
Scam Alert
Added in the autumn of 2021, Scam Warning scans SMS text messages, messages from instant-messenger apps and screen notifications for known malicious links. If it finds 1, you'll be alerted and advised non to open the link.
VPN
New since the last time I reviewed Bitdefender Mobile Security in mid-2017 is an integrated VPN customer. Standard Bitdefender subscribers get 200MB of VPN information per twenty-four hour period and tin can't choose the server to which they connect. This daily allocation is enough to cover light spider web usage or checking electronic mail, which is all that many users wait for.
If yous need more than data or want to be able to choose your server location, prices get pretty steep at $6.99 a month or $39.99 per year. I strongly recommend looking at a stand-alone VPN service if you need more than Bitdefender's free allotment.
WearON If you own a Wear OS sentinel, you'll take a couple of extra security features to assist you keep tabs on your telephone. The first just triggers an alert if you lot get out the Bluetooth range (generally 25 to thirty feet) of your telephone while wearing your watch. The 2nd is the Scream feature, which tin can trigger an audible alarm from your telephone if yous are having trouble finding it.
Bitdefender Mobile Security: System affect
Bitdefender remains one of the least functioning-sapping Android antivirus apps effectually.
To evaluate the impact of running Bitdefender Mobile Security, I conducted multiple tests using the Geekbench 4 Android benchmarking tool on my Google Pixel 3 running Android nine.0 Pie. I commencement established a baseline performance before Bitdefender was installed and and then ran boosted tests following installation and during full malware scans.
MORE: Google Pixel 4 Allegedly Caught in the Wild
Following installation of Bitdefender Mobile Security on my phone, I saw a 0.5% decrease in performance from the baseline average in my Geekbench four results. A total scan dropped it below the baseline boilerplate by four.42%.
While information technology didn't equal its No. 1 performance in both passive and agile-scan categories from my 2017 tests, Bitdefender remains one of the least functioning-sapping Android antivirus apps effectually, with a No. 2 finish on the mail service-installation test and a No. three placing during a full scan.
Bitdefender Mobile Security: Setup and support
Bitdefender had the most straightforward installation process of any app that I tested. It's got a simple guided process to turn on a few key features, a home screen with the remaining features and a push button marked Activate that walks you through adding each of them.
Support options for Bitdefender remain some of the best, with 24/7 live chat or phone support in over a dozen languages. There's likewise a knowledge base of operations covering a wide diverseness of topics and an active network of forums in a handful of languages.
These options are still bafflingly hard to discover in the app, even so. You have to navigate to Most in the master menu then tap the Contact u.s.a. link in minor print at the bottom of that screen.
Bitdefender Mobile Security: Interface
Bitdefender has undergone some other major redesign since I last reviewed it. The whole app now has a white interface. While it is a unlike wait, the same full general principles remain, with a clean and simple blueprint. The primary features are accessible from a tabbed interface across the lesser of the app and an overflow menu at the bottom-correct corner of the app gives you lot access to the balance.
If anything, the principal screen is a scrap too thin, with nothing merely white space and a "You lot are safe" message beyond the height with quick access to the VPN. If Bitdefender'southward pattern team would just overstate the top bluecoat and message to fill in the space amend, that would be visually preferable.
Bitdefender Mobile Security review: Bottom line
Unless you are looking for a costless antivirus solution or are particularly swayed by some of the unique features that Norton Mobile Security brings to the table, Bitdefender Mobile Security remains a phenomenal choice for its value, minimal system impact and consistently flawless performance in third-party malware evaluations. That makes it our Editor's Choice amidst all-time Android antivirus apps.
Updated with addition of Scam Alert feature. This review was originally published in October 2019.
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/bitdefender-mobile-security
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