I have got a license of Bitdefender and Norton antivirus software. Last week I got rid of the former program from my laptop and installed its counterpart. There is not just one but multiple reasons for the same. I’ve covered the reasons why I uninstalled Bitdefender in this article by comparing its features with that of Norton.
Note: There are several websites that have shared the malware/virus detection rate of the two software. I won’t be discussing the same here. Also, I haven’t discussed these features – scanner, database updates, browser extensions, and UI in detail. The scanner can take hours or even minutes to complete a full scan operation. The latter case is highly unlikely because the Windows operating system may have thousands of files.
Security updates are carried out on a regular basis automatically. You can see the “about” section of the program to find out when the DB or the software was last updated. UI of Bitdefender and Norton’s user interface is excellent. The tools they provide are easy to locate. What is this article about? I have shared the major differences between the two antiviruses.
Bitdefender antivirus vs Norton
Disk Cleaner
No matter what operating system you use, there will always be some useless files on your system. These files are generated by games, programs, or users. To eliminate the leftovers of uninstalled software or the junk files created by applications, Windows provides a “Disk Cleaner” tool. Norton has a basic junk remover utility in case you don’t want to use this tool of Windows operating system.
To open the tool, run the program, and click on the “Last Cleanup” message. The software will now show the following utilities:
- Optimize disk, file cleanup.
- Startup manager, graphs.
Click on File Cleanup. Norton will now remove the temporary Windows and Internet Explorer files.
Firewall
Norton ships with a fully customizable firewall utility. It allows you to create traffic rules and prevent certain applications from using the network connection. The firewall has the option to enable the browser protection feature which blocks malware before it infects your PC. It can block SSL attacks, prevent access to ports, etc. Bitdefender antivirus doesn’t have this feature. The internet security application from the company comes with the firewall.
RAM consumption
If your computer doesn’t have a lot of memory, it wouldn’t be wise to use a RAM hogging application. The RAM usage of Bitdefender on my ThinkPad laptop was between 200 to 220 megabytes. Whenever I downloaded a file or installed another application, the RAM usage increased up to 400 MB. Norton is a resource efficient antivirus. The system memory used by it on my laptop never increased beyond 110 megabytes.
Software updater
Linux operating systems have a command line utility called “package manager”. This utility finds, displays, and updates all outdated applications on the PC. If you’ve installed a program which is available in the Linux operating system’s repo list, you can update the program with the package manager.
Windows OS doesn’t have a universal package manager. Its Windows Store lets you update all programs you’ve installed with it. It doesn’t support non-Windows-store listed applications yet. Thus, unless you’re using a dedicated software updater on your computer, you will never know which program is outdated. Norton antivirus comes with this tool.
Cloud backup
Bitdefender doesn’t offer free cloud storage space to the users. Its counterpart provides 2GB free space on which you can back up your files. Norton has a backup manager tool built-in. So, this is another cool feature of the program.
What if a virus infects your computer?
Norton security products come with a “virus protection promise”. If you have an active subscription plan of any of their software and your computer is infected by a virus, you can ask the company’s tech support team to clean your computer. If the team/executive is unable to remove the virus, you may get a refund (the money you paid to purchase the license).
Price
Norton security products are expensive compared to their counterparts. In my country, i bought its license for around 12 dollars. Bitdefender antivirus is priced less than half of that of Norton. I purchased its subscription for around 4 USD.
