Another European program making inroads into the North American market, BitDefender is headquartered in Bucharest, Romania and is ranked as one of the top 100 private companies in Europe. Its antivirus and computer security programs are currently installed on more than 41 million computers in over 200 countries around the world.

Another European program making inroads into the North American market, BitDefender is headquartered in Bucharest, Romania and is ranked as one of the top 100 private companies in Europe. Its antivirus and computer security programs are currently installed on more than 41 million computers in over 200 countries around the world.

Originally designed in 1995 to root out regionally-circulated viruses "forgotten" by Western software designers, the program worked so well it was launched locally in 1996 and internationally three years later. BitDefender built their programs around a multiple award-winning antivirus engine that's rated VB100% by Virus Bulletin, the highest rating available.

BitDefender offers three products for home users: Antivirus 2008; Internet Security 2008, and Total Security 2008. All three products work on networks, workstations, or stand-alone computers, on Windows or Linux.

The most basic program, Antivirus, offers real-time protection against computer viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, rootkits, and other malware, with proactive heuristic detection (the proprietary B-HAVE system), and includes a drag-and-drop feature to scan specific files as well as a deep system scan and continuous background monitoring. Antivirus 2008 protects against identity theft by blocking the release of personal information through email or web browsing; and protects against phishing attacks by monitoring websites for potential threats.

The database and program updates are fetched hourly, at a user-defined interval, or manually. The company responds within one to two hours to reported malware outbreaks, one of the fastest response times within the industry and matched only by Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0.

BitDefender's most recent version also offers a Gamer Mode, smoothing processor usage and minimizing the program's footprint.

One step up the ladder, Internet Security adds a firewall, parental controls, and a timer and blocker for Internet access as well as certain applications. (Next time the kid says, "I've only been online a few minutes," well, that can be checked!)

Email is monitored (in Outlook and Outlook Express only) for phishing and spam. The program maintains both black and white lists, and Bayesian filters study outgoing email to "learn" the user's individual needs.

Internet Security also offers Wi-Fi network security, alerting users when an unauthorized computer attempts to log onto the network.

The highest end of the market, Total Security, includes security-oriented utilities such as disk defragmentation, an excellent automatic data backup system, and a "file shredder" that erases files from the hard drive to prevent recovery. The Tune-up feature removes unnecessary files and registry entries to improve computer performance.

I downloaded and tested Internet Security for this review. Installation and configuration were simple; some users reported problems with conflicts when installing BitDefender to Windows XP, but I didn't have any.

This is truly an "install and forget" program. Unlike some other antivirus platforms, I didn't detect any hesitations while running BitDefender in the background, even while pushing the system with multiple programs and a live data feed.

The default settings are calculated to balance security with convenience. Users with higher security requirements will have to tweak the system. Unfortunately, BitDefender has no contextual help links to assist the novice. As any sophisticated antivirus platform will not be the most beginner-friendly program, some assistance would be nice particularly during set up.

BitDefender offers technical help via email and telephone 24/7.

Overall, BitDefender is an excellent program, particularly for more advanced users who won't miss contextual help links. It's less expensive than most other antivirus programs on the market and performs as well if not better. Although it would be nice if the email features worked with Firefox or other web browsers, I suppose one really can't have everything.

Just make sure, as with all virus check programs, that you stop one antivirus software before beginning this one. They can sometimes conflict.

BitDefender is a keeper.