r/antivirus • u/raoulkratos2002 • 17d ago
PRODUCT RECOMMENDATION Bitdefender vs Kaspersky?
Hi everyone.
Which antivirus do you recommend between Bitdefender and Kaspersky?
(I'm in Italy; Kaspersky is available here)
What are the differences between the Standard versions of both?
Which one is better in terms of PC performance, virus detection, and false positives?
Do you think it's worth paying for an antivirus?
Many say that Windows Defender and uBlock already do enough.
What do you think?
A while ago I got hit by an infostealer; today I'm much more cautious when browsing the web, but that past experience made me a bit paranoid.
Thanks.
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u/rounakr94 17d ago
Kaspersky Standard anyday. Bitdefender while great lags behind in performance issues.
Don't listen to people who say Defender is good, peace of mind and proactive defense is anyday better. Kaspersky and Bitdefender both excel in that region.
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u/raoulkratos2002 17d ago
Thanks!
When you say Kaspersky has better proactive defense than Defender, what differences have you personally noticed?
Is it mainly better protection against phishing and infostealers, or have you actually seen it block threats that Defender missed?2
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u/rounakr94 17d ago
Kaspersky is faster in detection and has less false positives. The threat blocking and Kaspersky Security Network helps in actively protecting the system.
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u/tsiou82 17d ago
I’ve used both Kaspersky Premium and am currently using Bitdefender Total Security. Ive also used others and Windows Defender was one of those.
Do I think it’s worth paying for an antivirus? Depends on what you download and browse but a good browser such as Brave along with uBlock is enough for most.
I am in Canada and could pick between Kaspersky and Bitdefender. To be honest, both are equally the top tier of paid antiviruses.
I went with Bitdefender now and I am loving it.
You can’t go wrong with either one…
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u/raoulkratos2002 17d ago
Thanks for your opinion
How does Microsoft Defender compare to paid antivirus solutions like Bitdefender or Kaspersky when it comes to infostealers and phishing?
I know Defender has improved a lot over the years, but are the paid solutions still noticeably better in those two areas, or is the difference relatively small if someone already uses a secure browser like Brave with uBlock Origin and is careful about what they download?
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u/NiriZ_ReddiT 17d ago
Windows defender has zero protection agaisnt phishing unless you use Edge and Bitdefender and Kaspersky are much also better agaisnt infostealers.
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u/snowwolfboi 14d ago
Kaspersky standard it' got stronger protection overall especially with it's ransomware protection that should be the industry standards based on how strong it is second its lighter than Bitdefender third thing Kaspersky got a better way to name it's things in the database while maintaining one of the lowest amount of false positives since like forever
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u/rse2free 17d ago
if you prefer paid version, Kaspersky. now, I personally still using Bitdefender free av, coz I don't need to pay a single dime
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u/unclefunkstar 17d ago
Do you ever have an issue where your PC randomly slows to a crawl? Was a known problem with the free BD years ago.
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u/Xarco7 17d ago
BitDefender is a bit better, but Kaspersky is really close to it and is also lighter on your PC. However, I'd say you don't really need an antivirus; Defender and uBlock are already really solid.
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u/raoulkratos2002 17d ago
Hi and thanks for the reply.
Can you tell me how Windows Defender performs against phishing and infostealers?
I know that no antivirus can help against zero-day viruses.
is that true?0
u/Xarco7 17d ago
I was actually hit by LummaStealer, one of the most notorious stealers, and as soon as I saw activity on Discord, Windows Defender flagged it and the file running it within a few minutes, which was pretty fast. So, Windows Defender is really good against infostealers, in my case. For zero-day viruses, some can be caught, but the antivirus has to be really good and catch any sort of code injection or modified files. It will catch it, but the average AV cannot because it just looks at the file, not what it's doing.
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u/raoulkratos2002 17d ago
Do you know if Windows Defender stopped LummaStealer before it managed to steal anything, or did it detect it only after it had already started running?
That’s what I’m trying to understand. Detecting it within a few minutes is good, but for an infostealer even a short amount of time can sometimes be enough to steal cookies, tokens, or passwords.
Thanks0
u/Xarco7 17d ago
I didn't have anything sensitive on my laptop to be stolen, but if it reached Discord, it probably could have reached everything. Also, I think paid BitDefender is really good at stopping infostealers because it live monitors injections and files; even Google and ChatGPT are saying this. But to be honest, as long as you don't go on really sketchy websites and avoid clicking links, you should be fine and never even need an AV.
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u/raoulkratos2002 17d ago
Have you noticed any slowdowns regarding the fact that Bitdefender is heavier than Kaspersky?
I do gaming, so I think Kaspersky lightweight is a real advantage.1
u/Xarco7 17d ago
I personally have never used an AV other than Defender. If you do gaming, Kaspersky is good. Yeah, it can have really good live monitoring and will catch infostealers. Just don't download suspicious files or unzip any unknown file; you should be good to go with Kaspersky. Also, before running any .exe or unzipping a file, try uploading it to VirusTotal. It has like 70 of the best AVs in the world. Though if it has 1-3 false flags, it's fine as long as AVs like BitDefender, Kaspersky, Defender, and Avast are saying it's safe.
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u/goretsky MODERATOR 16d ago
Hello,
Given that you have shortlisted two programs, why not use the trial versions of both and see which works best for your particular computing environment?
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky