You don’t need to pay for third-party antivirus software to protect your PC anymore
Summary Most consumer devices already come with strong default security measures equivalent to or better than third-party software. Common vectors of attack for malware are already blocked by modern systems before they even reach your antivirus program. Individual consumer PCs are not a primary target for cybercriminals, and cyberattacks are often conducted by exploiting vulnerabilities
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8 months ago
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Summary
Most consumer devices already come with strong default security measures equivalent to or better than third-party software.
Common vectors of attack for malware are already blocked by modern systems before they even reach your antivirus program.
Individual consumer PCs are not a primary target for cybercriminals, and cyberattacks are often conducted by exploiting vulnerabilities against third-party software, not the computer OS itself.
Do you still pay for third-party antivirus software like Norton or McAfee? You may be surprised to learn that there’s no real benefit to doing so. Software like this is mostly obsolete today.
Who pays for third-party antivirus software, and why?
It might sound like a bold claim, saying that you don’t need third-party antivirus software anymore. After all, recent statistics show that roughly half of American consumers use such programs. Interestingly enough, those same statistics also show that users over 65 are more than twice as likely to subscribe to paid antivirus software than those under 45.
Why is that? Well, there is certainly more than one reason, but a big one is simply misunderstanding and tradition.
In the past, having third-party antivirus software was prudent, almost mandatory to keep your computer safe. Some people who grew up in that era are comfortable with the idea of paying for these subscriptions, not realizing that things have changed: your computer protects itself just fine these days.
Not only do computers come out of the box equipped with incredibly good security these days, but most malware threats aren’t even targeting individual consumers. But you don’t have to take my word for it right away. Let’s dive into this in more detail.
Default security measures are more than enough today
All of your consumer devices come with default protection right off the shelf. With iOS and Android, their official app stores weed out malware and keep you safe. Mac has been using XProtect anti-malware for more than a decade, and it has an excellent record.
Credit: Microsoft
Windows has Microsoft Defender Antivirus, which has consistently aced security tests run by third-party organizations. Since around seven years ago, Defender Antivirus has consistently earned perfect or near-perfect scores in protecting your PC.
Needless to say, that’s as good as it gets, and the program comes free with your Windows computer. There’s no paid antivirus software that can outperform this free, default option from Microsoft. They may offer more features, but not more practical benefits. But even beyond these built-in systems, there are other re
If you’re looking for a comprehensive online security suite for your family that also includes parental controls, Bitdefender is one of the best options right now. It’s a well-known security provider offering an award-winning antivirus program, along with a password manager, VPN, and identity theft protection. But does its parental control offering, which is bundled
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7 days ago
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If you’re looking for a comprehensive online security suite for your family that also includes parental controls, Bitdefender is one of the best options right now. It’s a well-known security provider offering an award-winning antivirus program, along with a password manager, VPN, and identity theft protection.
But does its parental control offering, which is bundled with its Family plans and not available via a standalone subscription or even a dedicated app, compete against the best parental control apps?
Read on as we dissect the various parental control features it offers, what they cost, how easy the dashboard is to use every day, and what the top competitors offer.
Bitdefender Premium Security Family subscription options:
$99.99/year at Bitdefender
Bitdefender parental control review: Plans and pricing
Bitdefender no longer offers its parental control features as a standalone subscription. You’d have to get one of its four family plans. But note that its entire suite of parental control features is available with each of these four plans.
The Total Security Family plan starts at $79.99 for the first year and covers up to 25 devices across five family members. At this price, the cost boils down to around $16 per member per year, which is more affordable than many other parental control applications. Not to forget that, for the price, you also get 24/7 real-time antivirus protection for up to 25 devices, as well as a password manager.
(Image credit: Bitdefender)
Next is the Premium Security Plan, which costs $99.99 for the first year and also comes with scam protection, AI-based scam protection, and a VPN with 4,000+ servers in 50+ countries. The Ultimate Security Family Plan and the Ultimate Security Plus Family Plan cost $119.99 and $199.99 for the first year, respectively.
The former comes with dark web monitoring and identity theft protection features such as an identity protection score and real-time breach notifications, while the latter also includes $2 million in identity theft insurance, three-bureau credit monitoring, and other bank, credit card, and investment alerts.
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Bitdefender parental control review: Features
One of the standout Bitdefender parental control features is the ability to set screen-time schedules for your children, who would only be able to access their devices during the allowed time intervals.
Along with this, Bitdefender also offers several preset routines: Focus Time, Family Time, and Bedtime, which you can customize as per your child’s daily activity and schedule.
(Image credit: Bitdefender)
There’s also a pretty handy internet time management feature, which allows you to control how much time your child spends on the internet during a day. A nice addition is the ability to reward extra screen time for your children for responsible online use.
In addition to internet scheduling, parents can also choose to cut off internet access directly on their child’s device using Bitdefender’s Stop Internet feature.
(Image credit: Bitdefender)
Bitdefender also offers predefined age-appropriate filtering categories to help you filter out inappropriate content such as porn, betting, or online gaming for your children. As with screen time, you can also fine-tune these filters to better suit your child’s day-to-day use.
Apart from category-level filtering, parents can also allowlist or blocklist specific URLs individually, in case you want to go beyond the category selection.
(Image credit: Bitdefender)
Parents can set up to five child profiles, each with the child’s name, photo, and birth date. Bitdefender automatically applies age-appropriate filtering as soon as the profile is created, which parents can then edit as per their needs.
Along with this, there’s also location tracking, which helps you know where your child is on an interactive map at all times.
(Image credit: Bitdefender)
Lastly, there’s Safe Search, which lets you remove explicit and harmful results from search engines, as well as YouTube restrictions, which ensure your child only views age-appropriate videos on the platform.
However, note that content filtering and safe browsing require an active VPN connection to function, as per Bitdefender’s listing on the Google Play Store.
Bitdefender parental control review: Interface and in-use
Bitdefender parental control works across Android, Windows, iOS, and macOS. That said, Windows and Android get full, unrestricted enforcement of every feature, whereas macOS and iOS are noticeably more limited, largely due to Apple’s own platform restrictions.
For instance, iOS content filtering runs through Apple’s Screen Time and not Bitdefender’s own engine. Parents have to create a child account through Apple ID, then Bitdefender’s app hooks into Apple’s Screen Time restrictions rather than doing its own independent content filtering.
However, the setup is pretty simple. You just have to download the app on your child’s own device. Unlike other parental control applications, you can’t download the app on your child’s phone remotely – you’ll need physical access to the device to do so.
One thing worth noticing is that, after the 2025 overhaul, parental control is no longer configured within the Bitdefender Central mobile app, but from the Bitdefender Central web dashboard, which can still be accessed through the mobile application.
(Image credit: Bitdefender)
Once you’re on this dashboard, day-to-day use is genuinely easy. Bitdefender’s Activity Dashboard is filled with several graphs and charts, which allow you to check your child’s phone activity at just a glance.
For example, there’s a bar chart showing their daily internet time over the past few days, as well as a pie chart showing their current day’s internet usage along with their remaining time. The dashboard also gives parents visibility into what’s actually being blocked and when.
(Image credit: Bitdefender)
The Prevented Content Access panel is a running log of every link blocked on the child’s device over the past 7 or 30 days. This allows you to see whether your filtering settings are actually able to catch anything, or whether your child is repeatedly trying to search for restricted websites on their device.
You can pay every month for Office 365’s productivity tools, but you still can’t escape Microsoft Defender’s habit of turning everyday links into fake security alerts. On September 2, Office 365 subscribers ran into an unusual incident: Redmond’s endpoint antivirus engine began flagging Google Search results as potentially malicious URLs.Read Entire Article…
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2 weeks ago
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You can pay every month for Office 365’s productivity tools, but you still can’t escape Microsoft Defender’s habit of turning everyday links into fake security alerts. On September 2, Office 365 subscribers ran into an unusual incident: Redmond’s endpoint antivirus engine began flagging Google Search results as potentially malicious URLs.Read Entire Article… Read More
Macworld The security, antivirus, and VPN company Malwarebytes has an interesting post on its Malwarebytes Labs blog detailing a new and sophisticated scam. The web-based trick is meant to make users think that they just made a big payment with Apple Pay, with the goal being to trick them into calling a fake “Apple Support”
Published
3 weeks ago
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Macworld
The security, antivirus, and VPN company Malwarebytes has an interesting post on its Malwarebytes Labs blog detailing a new and sophisticated scam.
The web-based trick is meant to make users think that they just made a big payment with Apple Pay, with the goal being to trick them into calling a fake “Apple Support” number… Read More
