Bitdefender Internet Security Is Retired: What Replaced It

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Bitdefender Internet Security is no longer a product you can buy. Bitdefender’s own page for it says the solutions it has been replaced with protect all your devices and offer more security than ever, and names Bitdefender Total Security Individual and Bitdefender Premium Security Individual as the replacements.

1. Buy Total Security Individual if you want the like-for-like replacement. It carries the Privacy Firewall that Internet Security was sold on, plus the Password Manager, and covers five devices across Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.
2. Buy Premium Security Individual instead if you want unlimited VPN traffic. Bitdefender publishes the 200 MB per day per device allowance on Total Security and unlimited traffic on Premium.
3. Buy a Total Security Family plan if parental controls are the reason you are shopping. Bitdefender lists Parental Control on Family plans, not on either Individual plan.
4. Consider Antivirus Plus instead if the firewall was never the point. It is multiplatform now, covers three devices, and carries the same protection stack.
5. Do not go looking for Internet Security keys from a reseller. A product Bitdefender has withdrawn is not a bargain.

Bitdefender publishes the replacement products but not the transition terms for an existing subscription. If yours is still running, ask Bitdefender what happens at your renewal date rather than assuming.

If that settles it you can stop here. If you want to know where each part of the old tier ended up, read on.

Why it happens

This began as a review of the middle rung of Bitdefender’s consumer range. There is no longer a middle rung to review. Bitdefender’s page for Internet Security answers the question of whether it is still available with the statement that the solutions it has been replaced with protect all your devices and offer more security than ever, and it names Bitdefender Total Security Individual and Bitdefender Premium Security Individual as those solutions. The current consumer line-up runs Antivirus Plus, Total Security, Premium Security, Ultimate Security and Ultimate Security Plus.

The same page summarises what the retired tier carried: essential real-time protection for Windows, the Privacy Firewall, scam prevention and detection, and 200 MB per day of VPN traffic. That is a useful list, because it lets you work out which replacement you want rather than guessing from a price.

The Privacy Firewall is the component the tier was sold on and it is the one that survives, in Total Security. It is still worth being clear about what a third-party firewall does for a home user. Windows has blocked unsolicited inbound connections by default for many years, distinguishes between private and public networks, and needs no attention to do it. What Bitdefender’s firewall adds is control in the other direction: rules about which applications may talk out, and alerts when an unfamiliar program opens a connection. That is worth having if you will read the alerts and think about them. If your instinct on any prompt is to click whatever makes it disappear, you have added a dialog box rather than a defence.

The other reason the old tier is not simply replaceable by a cheaper one is that the tier below it has changed too. Antivirus Plus was the Windows-only entry product when Internet Security existed. Bitdefender now publishes it as multiplatform across Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. So the comparison the old article was built on, a Windows-only cheap tier against a Windows-only middle tier, has stopped describing anything real on both sides.

One correction matters more than the rest for a specific buyer. If parental controls were your reason for looking at the middle tier, neither replacement gives them to you on an Individual plan. Bitdefender lists Parental Control on Total Security Family plans, which is a different and more expensive purchase. Discovering that after buying Total Security Individual is the failure this article exists to prevent.

Webcam and microphone protection and mail filtering were also attributed to the old tier by reviews written while it was on sale. Neither appears in Bitdefender’s current published feature comparisons under those names, so we are not going to tell you which replacement carries them. If one of them is your reason for buying, ask Bitdefender or your reseller to confirm it against the product you are actually ordering.

Full reference

Where each part of the old tier went

Choosing between the two named replacements

The device counts are identical, which is the row people get wrong. Moving from Total Security to Premium Security does not buy you more seats. It buys the VPN and the privacy layer, and nothing else changes.

If you are still running Internet Security

• Nothing breaks the day the product leaves the price list. Your installed software keeps working while the licence is live.
• Bitdefender publishes the replacement products but not the transition terms, so ask what happens at your renewal date rather than assuming a straight swap.
• Do the parental control check before you renew into anything. If you need it, you need a Family plan and that changes the sum.
• Check your device count while you are at it. Both replacements are five devices on the Individual plan, and the old tier was licensed differently.
• Do not buy a discounted Internet Security key from a third party. It is a retired product and you have no way to know what you are getting.

The firewall question, settled

If the only thing you wanted from the middle tier was the firewall, be honest about whether you will use it. Outbound application control is a real capability and it is genuinely useful to the person who investigates an unexpected prompt. It is worth nothing to the person who approves everything, and for that person Antivirus Plus on three devices carries the same detection for less. The Privacy Firewall is a good reason to buy Total Security. It is a bad reason to buy Total Security if you were only ever going to click Allow.

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