BitDefender Total Security 2009 improves on an already impressive array of features to bring it into line with the most comprehensive security suites on the market. The tidy all-in-one package offers worthy competition to household names such as McAfee and Norton by adding improved scanning, IM encryption, a file vault for sensitive data and 2GB of online storage.

There's also family protection here that allows you to individually configure various machines on a home network and this, along with other settings such as identity protection and user control, can be configured from a startup wizard that guides you through an initial configuration.

The first decision you'll have to make when using the software is whether to choose basic or advanced views for managing the various tools available. Other suites use a similar system but we were particularly impressed by BitDefender's ‘basic' approach where the software is split into security, tune-up, file manager and network categories.

Rather than bogging you down with lists of tools identifying the various forms of protection, you're simply presented with a list of checkboxes that allows you to enable or disable the wide range of features available. The main ‘dashboard' view then tells you if there are any issues affecting your machine and if so, you'll be told which of these categories needs attention.

You can either choose to seek out the offending item yourself or run a ‘Fix All Issues' utility which fires up the necessary components of the suite, most of which are in the form of a step-by-step wizard, to shore things up. The software constantly monitors selected areas for you and if problems are detected there's always a straightforward and simple solution to help correct them, which makes this an ideal solution for beginners.

When you switch to the advanced view you get a better idea of the range of tools you have to hand. The expected anti-virus, anti-spam and firewall security can be found here under their own categories and a combination of tabbed pages and slider controls helps you easily adjust settings. We found the anti-virus and anti-malware tools to be some of the most comprehensive around in terms of recognising and eliminating threats and the straightforward approach makes firewall tweaking pretty easy.

Elsewhere you'll find parental controls for Internet and application access and privacy control to protect you while online. Impressively you can also request that the software monitor your ‘system vulnerability' status, which basically keeps an eye on Microsoft Windows updates, critical applications and Windows passwords to make sure you have the latest versions (and help you download and install them if you don't) and that you are keeping your machine as secure as possible.

Backup tools help you configure schedules for saving data to local discs or the 2GB online drive and a file vault encrypts important data and instant messages. You'll also find optimisation tools here in the form of a disk defragmenter, registry cleaner, registry recovery and disk cleanup, rounding off an impressive collection of utilities.

As well as offering access to these features through the main interface, BitDefender adds a number of options to the Windows right-click context menus such as a File Shredder for securely deleting files (which is also added to the recycle bin), a manual file scan and the ability to add files to the vault for secure storage.

This is an impressive array of applications in itself, but what makes BitDefender so good as a whole is the way they are all so well integrated into a single suite and the minimal impact it all has on system performance.

While scans took a little longer than average, this is a small price to pay considering the advantages on offer and with the ‘Basic View' being so effective at notifying you and helping you fix potential security risks, it makes BitDefender Total Security 2009 one of the best beginner-oriented ‘set and forget' solutions we've seen yet.

Verdict
BitDefender Total Security 2009 takes on the best in the business by offering effective anti-virus and anti-malware tools, a capable firewall and optimisation and backup for an all-in-one solution. When you combine this with a straightforward approach that makes it ideal for beginners, and with little impact on system performance, it makes BitDefender's latest effort one of the best around.

Company: BitDefender

Contact: 08451 305096

Tags: mcafee microsoft windows bitdefender filevault antivirus security personal computer windows