Many security product lines resemble a set of Russian nesting dolls. In the center is a standalone antivirus product, with all the core protections. An entry-levelsecurity suiteencloses that central protection and adds more security features. At the top level, a mega-suite contains everything in the basic suite, with the addition of components such as backup, performance tune-up, and identity protection. In this scenario, BullGuard Internet Security is the middle doll. It has all the expected suite components plus extras like backup and tune-up, but these components just aren’t all top quality.
何w Much Does BullGuard Internet Security Cost?
A three-device BullGuard license costs $59.95 per year, $20 less than the price of entry-level suites from Bitdefender and Kaspersky. If you want five licenses, the price goes to the peculiar figure of $83.95 per year. For 10 licenses, you pay $140.95 per year. You can use these licenses on Windows, macOS, and Android devices. Award-winning Norton 360 Deluxe costs $104.99 for five cross-platform licenses, but that also gets you five no-limits VPN licenses and 50GB of online storage for your backup archives. With Kaspersky Security Cloud, you pay $149.99 for 10 licenses—that’s a little more than BullGuard costs, but Kaspersky is an Editors’ Choice winner. A $159.99 subscription toMcAfee Total Protectionlets you install McAfee on every Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS device in your household.
Getting Started With BullGuard Internet Security
This product’s main window contains a collection of 10 large square panels, in two rows of five, representing suite features. Seven of the panels are enabled for your use: Antivirus Firewall, Vulnerabilities, Backup, PC Tune Up & Game Booster, Parental Control, and Secure Browser. The remaining three, Identity Protection, Home Network Scanner, and BullGuard VPN, require an upgrade. Note that most of these panels are also present in the standalone antivirus, but with only Antivirus, Vulnerabilities, and Game Booster enabled. The suite does as much as possible without leaving the main window. For example, the antivirus scan and vulnerability scan report progress right in their respective panels.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure OnlineImmediately after installation, the window displays the left four panels in each row, with a slider to reveal the other two. You can expand the window to show all 10 at once or shrink it to display three and a half panels in each row. Yes, the latter is an odd look.
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Shared Antivirus Features
This suite offers precisely the same antivirus protection found inBullGuard Antivirus, which ran into some trouble in our testing. Below is a summary of our findings. Please read the full review for details.
BullGuard only appears in test reports from one of the four independent antivirus testing labs we follow,AV-Test Institute(Opens in a new window)．On the plus side, that one test score came in at the very top, an honor BullGuard shared with eight other products, including Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, andMicrosoft Windows Defender Security Center．
In our own hands-onmalware protectiontest, BullGuard showed improvement. When last tested, it scored 8.2 of 10 possible points. This time around, it brought that score up to 9.3 points, the same as and Kaspersky. It still doesn't challenge the perfect 10-point score earned byWebroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus, though.
One excellent way to protect against malware is to keep it from ever reaching the PC. To test this protection layer, we start with a feed of malware-hosting URLs supplied byMRG-Effitas(Opens in a new window), checking whether the antivirus blocks access to the page, eliminates the malware download, or does nothing. BullGuard's total detection rate of 93% is better than the current average, 79%. However, 11 other products have scored even higher. McAfee and Vipre are the big winners here, each with 100% protection.
Phishing websites mimic secure sites in hopes of tricking you into entering your login credentials. Yes, it’s possible totrain yourself to spot these frauds,但很高兴帮助从你的杀毒utility. We test phishing protection using the most recent available reported frauds. Over the past several years, BullGuard’s scores have been all over the map in this test, but the latest results proved to be a new low, with just 5% detection. Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all managed better than 80% detection of the same samples. Among recent products, F-Secure and McAfee hold the record, with a perfect 100% detection rate.
See How We Test Security Software
Other Shared Features
The Safe Browsing component is what steers your browser away from dangerous or fraudulent websites. It also marks up links in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Facebook, so you can avoid clicking dangerous ones.
Many security suites, such asAvira Free Security, Bitdefender, and Kaspersky, seek out and apply missing security patches. BullGuard treats vulnerability scanning differently, looking for security problems with your system configuration. It warns if you've disabled automatic Windows updates, flags insecure Wi-Fi connections, lists unsigned device drivers, and more.
Most modern security products include a gaming mode that suppresses notifications, scheduled scans, and updates when you're playing a full-screen game. BullGuard takes this concept further with a Game Booster module that promises to "protect your gaming experience from framerate drops caused by other programs." Note that this feature requires at least four CPU cores.
Basic Firewall
BullGuard'sfirewallcomponent correctly defended a test system against port scans and other web-based tests, hiding all ports by putting them in stealth mode. However, that's no great feat, as the built-in Windows Firewall can do the same.
防火墙的自动程序控制组件ally defines rules to allow network access for some known programs and Windows components. But you'll have to tell it what to do about any unknowns. BullGuard's firewall pop-up asks whether to allow or block each unknown program's network access. We prefer the more advanced program control found in Norton and Kaspersky. These products automatically configure permission for trusted programs, wipe out malicious programs, and perform their own analysis on unknowns.
When you click to view firewall settings, you see a simple on-off switch, along with two feature checkboxes, both of which are checked by default. Leave them checked. If you un-check the first one, BullGuard won’t automatically create rules for known programs, meaning you’ll see more pop-ups. And if you uncheck the second, it won’t limit its notifications to those that are important, again meaning you’ll see more pop-ups.
Those are the Basic settings. If you click the Advanced button, you can turn off the feature that sends programs to BullGuard for analysis when you click Allow or Block. You also gain access to a page of security-related options such as enabling or disabling attack detection and automatically blocking intruders. Don’t touch these; they come configured correctly out of the box.
Back in the main window’s Firewall panel you can also choose Manage Rules. This brings up a daunting list of all program rules, both those created automatically by BullGuard and those based on your Allow and Block choices. This is where you fix things if you blocked a program in error.
A malicious code monkey might get around firewall and other security protections by simply turning them off, but BullGuard defends against this sort of attack. Its important Registry keys resist modification, and while I managed to delete some Registry keys, it recreated them as needed. When I tried to kill its 11 processes, it denied access to all 11. The Stop option was completely absent from eight of its essential Windows services; trying to stop the ninth got an access denied error. A trickier way to shut down services involves setting the startup type to Disabled and then forcing a reboot. BullGuard resisted this attack as well. This firewall is basic in its functions, but it's tough.
Dated Parental Control
Not everyone needsparental control．一些套件,认识到这一事实,甚至不我nstall it by default. With BullGuard, it's fully available and integrated, but it does nothing unless you configure settings for one or more Windows user accounts. This feature seems to have stagnated for years. Screenshots taken in 2013 look just the same as the current edition.
As with most parental control systems, BullGuard’s offers a content filter that can block inappropriate websites. Parents can choose one of three age ranges to set a predefined profile or pick and choose from the 24 categories for a custom configuration.
You configure the time-scheduling feature on a tab called Access. This flexible system lets you impose limits on computer use, or just on internet use. You can define a weekly schedule of times when access is permitted, set a daily limit for each day of the week, or both. The scheduler defaults to rather strict limits, effectively a few hours after school and more time on the weekend. You'll want to look carefully to determine whether those limits work for your family.
On the Applications tab, you can set BullGuard to block the use of specific programs. By default, it blocks nine chat programs plus TOR and browser-based chat. This list really shows how dated the program is. There is no more AOL Instant Messenger, and I can't believe many kids have even heard of ICQ, mIRC, or Pidgin. Parents can also choose to block the use of any arbitrary program.
Maybe you're OK with letting your older kids chat online, but you still want to prevent them from releasing too much personal information. The Privacy tab lets you list things like your home phone, street address, and anything else you don't want the kids noising about. BullGuard offers a choice of types: Name, Email, Phone, and Credit Card. However, it stores every item in the same way, with no special formatting for the data type.
After setting up parental control for a test Windows account, I put BullGuard through its paces. With the time scheduler set to prevent computer access, trying to log in to my fake child account just got the message, “Your account has time restrictions that prevent you from signing in at this time.” However, when configured to just control internet access, the scheduler proved ill-designed.
During times of no internet access, the browser simply displays a big error message saying, "This page can't be displayed." A one-time transient pop-up explains that parental control blocked access; miss it and you'd have no idea what's wrong. In addition, a child with an Administrator account can evade the scheduler by changing the system time. Sure, you're not supposed to give Administrator accounts to your kids, but people do, for convenience. I turned off this feature to make continued testing possible.
BullGuard’s content filter is entirely browser independent. It had no trouble blocking unwanted sites in a tiny browser that I wrote myself. It also handles secure (HTTPS) pages with no trouble.
I couldn't find any raunchy websites that the content filter didn't catch. It even blocked Victoria's Secret, though it allowed access to some less-racy lingerie sites. I tried doing an end-run around the filter by using several different secure anonymizing proxies, to no avail. It blocked some based on the Anonymizer category, and others because they were uncategorized. Parents can't even turn off blocking of Anonymizers and Unknowns.
The application-blocking component is tough. Kids can't get around it by moving a blocked program or creating a copy with a different name. However, it has the same visibility problem as the internet time scheduler. Trying to launch a banned program just gets a small, transient message that parental control blocked it. Subsequent launch attempts just fail, with no message, which can be confusing if you missed the initial pop-up.
The personal information blocker does work, but it only blocks the exact text string you entered. For example, if you put in a phone number in the form 555-555-1212, the kid could still send 5555551212. If you blocked the address "1600 Penn," the kid could write "sixteen hundred." You may be better off just having a talk with the kids about what they should and shouldn't post online.
Many parental control systems handle reporting on children's activity by displaying a summary, with links to dive in for more information on, say, blocked websites, or search terms used. BullGuard just generates a HTML snapshot of activity at the time you requested the report. The list of all sites visited is tough to interpret, because BullGuard throws in advertisers, analytics, and other sites that the child did not actively choose. If you click the View button, hoping for more detail about an item, all you get is a list of timestamps.
Modern parental control systems likeQustodioand Kaspersky Safe Kids take note of the fact that modern kids use multiple devices. They let parents define a single configuration profile and apply it to all the child's devices and user accounts. BullGuard doesn't offer this cross-platform support.
BullGuard's dated parental control system does handle the basic task of filtering out icky content, I'll admit. But the time scheduler is awkward and can be defeated by a child with an Administrator account. A child who misses the tiny, one-shot, transient pop-up explaining that BullGuard has blocked internet access, or prevented the launch of a blocked program will wonder what's going on. The list of chat programs contains some dead services and other very dated choices. If you truly need parental control from your security suite, consider Norton orKaspersky Security Cloud．
New Secure Browser
New this year, BullGuard includes a Secure Browser component, designed to isolate your online financial activities. When you launch Secure Browser, it spends a short while “creating a secure environment.” Once it loads, you see a dark-themed browser window with tiles for your favorites. It comes prepopulated with Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress, so you’re not confronted with a big blank. This browser doesn’t support extensions, and its settings are minimal.
Bitdefender’s Safepay and Kaspersky’s Safe Money serve the same purpose as Secure Brower. However, if you start to open a known sensitive site in an unsafe browser, Safepay and Safe Money both jump in with an offer to use the hardened browser instead. With BullGuard, it’s on you to remember when you should use the Secure Browser.
DIY Backup
Ifransomwaregets past your security protection and encrypts your essential files, or if your computer simply dies, you'll be extremely happy to have a recentbackup．BullGuard offers a traditional backup system, in which you can create and schedule as many backup jobs (called profiles) as you like.
Norton defines a default backup profile that sends logical things like documents and pictures to online backup. Kaspersky offers a wizard that walks you through the steps of creating a profile. With BullGuard, it's a do-it-yourself proposition. To create a new backup profile, you must specify What, When, Where, and How, each on its own tab. The What tab, up first, lets you choose Documents, Photos, Music, Videos, and Desktop. You can edit the precise details of the ones you've chosen or add arbitrary files and folders.
Next, you select a destination for your backed-up files. BullGuard doesn't offer hosted storage foronline backups, the way Panda, Comodo, Norton, and a few others do. However, it will use your existing online cloud storage. On the Where tab, you can connect it to your Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive account. Naturally, you can also direct your backups to any local, removable, or network drive.
By default, a new BullGuard backup profile just runs when you launch it, but you can schedule a daily, weekly, or monthly backup. Some backup systems offer detailed scheduling options, like backing up on the third Monday of each month. BullGuard's system is simple. You set the first scheduled backup date and time, and it runs once per day, week, or month thereafter.
There are just a few settings on the How tab. You can choose to compress the backup, trading a longer time for less bandwidth used. You can protect your backup using encryption. And you can synchronize the backup. This has nothing to do with syncing files between computers. Rather, it means that when you delete a file on your computer, BullGuard deletes it from the backup set as well. If you’re backing up to a local target, you can configure how BullGuard retains earlier versions of files; that feature doesn’t apply when the backup target is in the cloud.
BullGuard's backup system doesn't offer fancy features like online access, secure sharing, or file syncing. In the current edition it doesn’t even store multiple versions of files. But it does its job with a minimum of fuss.
PC Tune Up
Tuning your PC's performance isn't precisely a security task, unless you’ve been tempted to disable security to boost performance. Cleaning up traces that could give away your browsing or computer use history more directly helps your security and privacy. System tune-up is a common component in security mega-suites, and occasionally, as with BullGuard, in entry-level suites. And BullGuard'stune-up systemdoes more than many.
In the main window, PC Tune Up and Game Booster share a single panel. That panel’s pull-down menu offers six choices: Game Booster, Optimize, Cleanup Helper, Duplicate Files, Boot Manager, and Settings. When you click Optimize, BullGuard scans for various potential speedups. It defragments the Registry if necessary, notes any broken shortcuts, and calculates how much space you could save by clearing browser caches, Windows junk files, and application temp files. You can click for details about its Windows cleanup suggestions. Click Optimize my PC and it goes to work, quickly applying the changes you've accepted.
After that initial optimization, it offers several additional cleanup options. You should let it remove broken Registry entries, as these do you no good. You can click to manage System Restore points, which take up space on disk. If you don't need hibernation or fast boot, you can disable the hibernation file. There's also an option to change the startup mode for a bunch of Windows optional services, but I don't recommend meddling with these.
The post-optimization window also offers buttons to invoke a collection of additional cleanup tools that isn’t quite the same grouping as found in the tune-up panel’s menu. Duplicate Files, Cleanup Helper, and Boot Manager are the same, but there’s also a button for Startup Applications. The redundancy is a bit odd, but harmless.
Storing identical files multiple times wastes disk space, so BullGuard can scan your system for dupes. By observation, it doesn't bother checking files smaller than 1MB. Also, unlike the similar feature in Trend Micro, it includes executable programs in the duplicates scan. Be extra careful with these, as you might wind up deleting the one that's pointed to by shortcuts in the system. Trend Micro's dupe finder also skips files smaller than 1MB.
The Cleanup Helper looks for the files and folders that take up the most space on your disks. You get a list of the biggest folders, as well as a pie chart showing distribution. Cleanup Helper offers a list of recommended files to clean up, when appropriate, and also lists the very biggest files. In testing, it recommended cleaning up such things as Windows temp files, the browser cache, and unneeded log files.
The remaining items on the post-optimization screen, Startup Applications and Boot Manager, work as a team. When you click Boot Manager, it asks to reboot the system, so it can analyze the boot process. You get a detailed timeline of all boot-time activity. If you determine that some noncritical program is slowing the process, click Startup Applications to disable it from launching at boot, or set it to launch after a delay.
That last step is easier said than done. The only way I found to invoke the Startup Applications component was to run the Optimize process all over again. Why doesn’t this feature appear on the menu with Boot Manager?
Near-Zero Impact on Performance
A security suite doesn't do much good if the user disables it because it impacts performance. Security companies know this is true, and they work hard to minimize the performance impact of things like real-time antivirus protection. I run a few simple hands-on tests to measure each suite's performance impact.
I use the same low-powered PC for all performance tests, but of course Windows updates and such make changes over time. To account for those changes, I run my tests many times with no suite installed, then install the suite and immediately run them again. Comparing the averages before and after suite installation shows me how the test times changed.
My boot time test reboots the system and then runs a script that watches for 10 seconds in a row with CPU usage no more than 5%. At that point, it considers the system ready to use. Subtracting the start of the boot process (as reported by Windows) yields a measure of boot time. BullGuard didn’t slow the boot process at all.
One thing we do more often is work with files on disk. To check a suite's effect on file manipulation, I run a script that moves and copies a large file collection of various types between drives. This test took just 4% longer to complete with BullGuard installed. Another script that zips and unzips the same file collection repeatedly came in 2% longer.
BullGuard's three-test average is 2% impact, which is hardly anything at all. A handful of products have done slightly better. ESET, K7, and Webroot had no measurable impact on any of the three tests.
Limited Mac Antivirus
BullGuard doesn't sell an antivirus product for macOS separately. It's available only as part of this suite or BullGuard's top-tier suite. To run it, you need macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) or later. But don't bother. Had I reviewed this product as a standaloneMac antivirus, it would've received a poor score.
I look toAV-Test Institute(Opens in a new window)and AV-Comparatives for lab test results. The best Mac antivirus utilities take high scores from both.Avira Free Antivirus for Macis the only product with top marks in the latest reports from both labs. Alas, neither lab includes BullGuard in its latest testing report.
The main window is extremely simple. A toggle turns real-time protection on or off. You can click buttons to view files in quarantine or launch a full or custom scan. A large panel at the left reports security status. That's it.
Settings are likewise simple. By default, BullGuard quarantines found malware, but you can set it to try disinfection first, or just delete the threat. You can turn off scanning inside archives or set a maximum archive size for scanning. And you can decide whether to have it scan Time Machine backups.
I don’t have the macOS resources and expertise that I do in Windows. I can’t write apps to analyze Mac malware. But I can expose Mac antivirus tools to my Windows samples. Most of them try to wipe Windows malware, so your Mac doesn’t become a carrier. When I mounted a thumb drive containing those samples, BullGuard quickly quarantined 78% of them.
Or rather, itsaidthat it quarantined them. As far as I could tell the files were still on the drive. I highlighted them all in the quarantine window and clicked Delete, at which point BullGuard crashed with a big Problem Report display. It did manage to eliminate the malware files from the thumb drive, but that crash wasn’t encouraging.
Last time I reviewed this product on a Mac, the Full Scan simply didn’t work, a known problem confirmed by tech support. I’m pleased to say it worked this time, and finished in 11 minutes, less than half the current average for macOS antivirus products.
虽然我不能复制我的大部分基于windows的tests for macOS antivirus, my phishing protection test does carry over. Phishing frauds work no matter what operating system or browser you’re using. If you log in to a fraudulent site, you’ve given away your security credentials, and you’re in big trouble. Alas, BullGuard’s Mac antivirus doesn’t include the Safe Browsing feature that aims to protect users of the Windows product from fraudulent and malicious sites.
What we have, then, is an antivirus that has just two features, real-time protection and on-demand scanning for malware. At least the scan works now. If you have more licenses than you need, you could use one to protect your Mac. But if Mac antivirus protection is a primary need for you, rather than an afterthought, look instead at our Editors' Choice products in this area, Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, Norton 360 Deluxe (for Mac), andKaspersky Internet Security for Mac．
Basic Android Protection
You can install BullGuard Mobile Security on your Android devices for free, and you getall the best features at no cost(Opens in a new window)．Paying the $19.99 price activates the so-called parental control—more about that shortly. You can also activate using one of your BullGuard Internet Security licenses.
App installation went quickly. When I logged into my BullGuard account to activate protection, I found that I had already used my three licenses on one virtual machine, one physical PC, and one Mac. Conveniently, a single, simple tap removed one existing activation and transferred it to the Android device. After activation, the app went right to work. A system scan finished in just a few seconds.
I follow four antivirus testing labs for my Windows antivirus reviews, and three of them also test Android products: AV-Comparatives, AV-Test Institute, and MRG-Effitas. None of the three includes BullGuard in their latest tests, unfortunately.
As with most Android security products, you must enable a few special permissions to get the antitheft component up and running. Once that's done, you manage antitheft from the Mobile Security Manager online console. Here you can click to locate the phone on a map or make it sound an alarm so you can figure out where you left it. Be warned; the alarm is quite loud, and it sounds for 30 seconds even if you find and unlock the phone. You can also remotely locate, lock, or wipe the device.
A thief who swaps out the SIM card can effectively take over your phone. From the online console's Settings page, you can set BullGuard to automatically lock or wipe the phone if that happens. You've still lost your phone, but the thief can't get at your apps or personal data.
With a quick click, you can back up your contacts and calendar to the cloud. The online console offers a convenient view of the backed-up data.
As noted, paying for the app gives you access to parental control, but that's a bit of a misnomer. There's no filtering of nasty websites, limiting of screen time, or any other kind of control. The app simply monitors activity. From the online console, you can view the child's calls and texts, eye any photos that were snapped, and see which apps are installed. There's no geofencing, but you can go into settings and tell BullGuard to track the child's location for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, or 12 hours.
At first, I thought the parental monitoring didn't work. It insisted that there were no photos or apps on the test device. A chat with tech support revealed that by default, BullGuard only syncs every two hours. Once I set it for instant sync, the photos and apps appeared. Both lists have a scary button labeled Remove All. Don't worry; it doesn't remove photos or apps from the phone, just from the list, leaving you free to focus onnewphotos and installations.
Tapping the Wi-Fi Security panel checks your current Wi-Fi connect to make sure it’s encrypted and properly secured. The security report goes on to point out that you could improve your online privacy by using BullGuard’s VPN.
BullGuard's Android protection includes antivirus and antitheft, plus a few additional simple features. You won’t find advanced features such as guidance on apps with inappropriate permissions or the ability to silently snap a mug shot of a phone thief. You probably won't want to expend one of your licenses on Android protection.
Look Elsewhere
BullGuard互联网安全的所有预期的年代ecurity suite features, plus bonuses that include backup, PC tune-up, and a scan for vulnerable system settings. The problem is that these components just aren't top-notch. The firewall relies on users to make security decisions, the parental control system is both limited and dated, and the scan for system settings doesn’t do a lot. The Android edition handles the basics, but you can get most of its features for free. The very limited Mac antivirus omits protection against fraudulent and dangerous sites. Furthermore, the phishing protection—which even basic antivirus apps should get right—is dismal.
据网络安全提供了一船bonuses too, and it gets top marks from the antivirus testing labs. Kaspersky Internet Security scores even higher with the labs, and its intelligent firewall makes its own decisions. These two are our Editors' Choice products for basic security suite protection. They cost a bit more than BullGuard, but the difference is money well spent.
BullGuard Internet Security packs a lot of features, including backup and performance tune-up, but the quality of features doesn't match the quantity.
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