Contrast Between Bitdefender and Norton Antivirus for macOS

 If you are a macOS user, this blog will help you make a better decision in the choice of antivirus you should use. If you go by the reviews, you will come across two antiviruses, i.e., Bitdefender and Norton. Both have superseded every other antivirus available in the cyber market in the Editor’s Choice category of PCMag.

However, which among the two antiviruses will safeguard your system in a better way? Let us explore. 

First, we will look at the benefits of Bitdefender Antivirus and Norton 360 Deluxe for macOS.

Advantages of Bitdefender Antivirus

1. Highly-rated antivirus verified by different testing labs. 
2. Ransomware protection. 
3. Splendid anti-phishing feature.
4. VPN coverage.      
5. Seamless auto-pilot mode. 
6. It terminates all the trackers in the browsers. 

Advantages of Norton 360 Deluxe 

1. No-cap VPN coverage. 
2. Highly-rated antivirus engine verified by reliable testing labs.
3. Rapid scan. 
4. Intelligent firewall.
5. It removes all unwanted and unsecure files immediately. 

Disadvantages of Bitdefender and Norton Antivirus

Bitdefender Antivirus: One of the most troubling deficits found by experts in the Bitdefender Antivirus is that it offers full VPN coverage only for a separate subscription. 

Norton Antivirus: Norton Antivirus offers many benefits, but it is also found to be lacking in malware detection. It only offers limited protection against Windows malware. 

Differences in Key Specifications and High-Tech Features 

Both Bitdefender and Norton 360 Deluxe propose some key specifications and high-tech features to aid cyber protection users. Apart from providing some standard features such as parental controls, VPN, and a reliable antivirus engine, both of the Editor’s Choice preferences come with features such as on-demand malware scan and on-access malware scan, website ratings, threatening URL-blocking feature, anti-phishing, etc. 

The differences can be found in the malware detection and firewall feature. While Norton has an intelligent and capable firewall feature, its malware detection isn’t as robust as Bitdefender. The most primitive product of Bitdefender antivirus, i.e., Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, does not have a firewall feature. Though Bitdefender is a reliable antivirus tool, the lack of a firewall is a demerit. A firewall is one of the most useful antivirus components as it safeguards the system against malicious cyber attacks.

Differences in Testing Lab Results 

Some high-profile testing labs such as AV-Comparatives have given a perfect score for Bitdefender antivirus. They even consider it better than Norton. The AV-Test Institute verifies products based on their protection, performance, and usability. A 17.5 score of Bitdefender in the AV-Test results tells a lot about the efficacy of the antivirus. 

Norton is also one of the highly-rated antivirus tools from the testing labs, but its limited malware detection makes it fall behind Bitdefender in this category. Another product, “Kaspersky,” has also impressed cyber experts profoundly in recent times. 

Overall, the testing labs prefer Bitdefender to be a better antivirus than Norton because of its powerful protection against malwares. 

Differences in VPN Coverage

Norton has eased past Bitdefender in this category. Now, as you know, your data might remain safe up until the point it remains in your system; however, when you send it to a server via the internet, nothing guarantees the fact that it will remain safe. So, to counter this dilemma, nowadays, nearly every antivirus comes with VPN coverage.

A VPN can be understood as an undetectable tunnel established between your system and the server of the VPN company. It not only provides much necessary anonymity and privacy in today’s cyber world, but it also protects your data from the prying eyes. 

Bitdefender proposes only limited VPN coverage developed by Hotspot Shield. It has a data cap of 200 MB, and a user cannot opt or switch your VPN server. However, it does provide unlimited bandwidth and the option to select the server of preference at an additional charge of $40. Meanwhile, Norton antivirus comes with a VPN protection called “Norton Secure VPN” with all the features and no data and access to use it on all the five devices (only for Norton 360 Deluxe). In Norton, you can also prefer to use the server that serves you better.

Prices 

Bitdefender cannot be called an expensive antivirus as its prices lie in the range similar to all the other macOS-centric antiviruses in the market. Bitdefender comes at a nominal cost of $40 per year. If you are doing something in a group and you want more system coverage, you can go for the package that comes at around $60 per year. 

For Norton, you have to pay $104.99 per year for multiple device coverage. It is more expensive than Bitdefender, but the package will offer protection for up to five devices. 

Which Antivirus Is Better in Anti-Phishing?

Phishing is one of the clever tricks that hackers have adopted to access your information. They create authentic-looking fake websites such as a bank site or your office domain that looks exactly like the authentic one. However, once you fill in your login credentials at a fake site, the credentials automatically get saved into their database, and then the hackers can exploit your account in so many ways.

Some phishing websites are so malicious that they transfer you to the original website using a hyperlink after accessing your information. Now, antiviruses such as Norton and Bitdefender have taken note of this behavior from hackers, and they are now coming with an “anti-phishing” feature that detects such fraudster websites and automatically blocks them. 

In the antivirus test performed by PCMag, Bitdefender outscored every other antivirus software with a brilliant phishing detection score of 99%. Norton was not far behind either, as it scored 94% on that test. 

Firewall Protection

As stated earlier, Norton really doesn’t have any competition in firewall security. Its firewall is intelligent and efficient. Meanwhile, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus does not have a firewall. Still, Bitdefender is capable enough to compete with the highest performing antiviruses in the market, such as Kaspersky and Norton.

Conclusion

There is not much to differentiate between Bitdefender and Norton as they come around the same price but offer different sets of features and benefits. With Norton, you will get an efficient and unlimited VPN, and with Bitdefender, you will be exposed to one of the best anti-phishing and malware-detection technologies. If you are a macOS user, you may proceed to buy either one of those features depending upon your preference of the features.  

Source: https://nation-uk.com/contrast-between-bitdefender-and-norton-antivirus-for-macos/