Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Positives: BitDefender is well-reviewed by PC Magazine for good reason. I see no noticeable drag on PC startup or processing. Two-year price for five devices is very good, although one should always keep up-to-date on price. On my PC the product immediately found and fixed six malwares that a competitor did not find, let alone fix. Negative #1: The "rent" angle. Apparently it is not possible to download the software, let alone obtain it on a CD in the first place. A buyer must create an online account with BitDefender, which of course involves surrendering one's personal information and inviting unsolicited email and maintaining yet another ID/password in one's life. Then a buyer downloads an install routine, which in turn downloads the software, for which one must type an activation code. Inconvenience aside, it appears that a customer who does not retain the ID and password and activation code cannot install or reinstall the product. Negative #2: Some useless complexity. The product designers invented concepts like "Autopilot" and "QuickActions" which don't help anything. Negative #3 related to #2: Even BitDefender itself considers the dialogue to be so counterintuitive that it advises a "tour" to use it. Negative #4: So far I have come across two cutesy, annoying, useless graphics. The product seems to work very well, so I cannot justify a rating under four stars. A given reader can decide if the negatives offset the positive.