General Overview
Founded back in 2002, BullGuard was founded by a couple of Danish businessmen. The company started off with the goal of providing powerful Internet security features through various services. These services include their all-in-one Internet Security Suite, which is comprised of an antivirus, firewall, and more.
More recently, BullGuard has expanded its services from being an antivirus company to offering VPN services as well. Known as BullGuard VPN, the company’s services are easy to use and come with various perks.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Affordable pricing
- Anti-phishing system
- Anti-ransomware system
- Anti-malware system
- A powerful scanner that checks for vulnerabilities
- Bonus features such as game booster
Cons
- Customer support isn’t very helpful with certain aspects of the antivirus
- Lacks some staple features in security software
Security
BullGuard comes with various features that make it an all-in-one security solution for subscribers. These features range from safer browsing to enhanced performance during gaming, as well as other handy tools that are useful every day.
Perhaps one of the most powerful features that BullGuard has to be its anti-malware software. With “triple-layer protection”, the software finds apps that are deemed suspicious and remove them, with various conducted tests resulting in positive numbers. One test run by AV-Test, an independent laboratory, even gave it a 100% rating on zero-day malware attack protection.
One additional feature that BullGuard has to protect your data is their powerful vulnerability scanner. The scanner prevents any potential malware applications from downloading files and makes sure that all the apps that you install are genuine by detecting their digital signatures.
Other features of the vulnerability scanner include notifying you of missing important security updates, and warning you whenever you connect to an unsafe public network. Basically, the vulnerability scanner checks for any possible way that your system can get compromised, and informs you of it so that you can take immediate action.
Features
Aside from just protecting users against malware and ransomware, BullGuard comes packed with plenty of other features that make it one of the best in the industry. The company adds new features each year, too, giving potential users more reason to subscribe to their services.
One of these newly-added features is their custom-built, integrated browser. This browser is different from your usual web browser as it gives users a “much more secure platform” for errands such as online payments. Browser-based attacks are much more difficult with this secure browser, having various layers of protection.
Another added benefit of the integrated browser is the fact that it doesn’t load cookies, extensions, or plug-ins. These bits of information can either compromise your system or share your private data with others, which is why they’re disabled in the browser to keep you anonymous.
Identity protection is a feature that’s also rolled out recently. The system allows users to more safely store their sensitive information, such as debit and credit cards, phone numbers, email addresses, and more. You also receive notifications via e-mail in case something happens to your data. Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available worldwide, and only select countries (mostly in North America and Europe) can use it at the moment.
If there’s one feature BullGuard has that other antiviruses don’t, though, it’s their Game Booster feature. As the name implies, activating the feature can minimize the impact of other applications while playing games, and in some cases, the feature even improves performance. It works by optimizing the use of cores in a computer system to dedicate other cores for gaming.
Finally, BullGuard gives subscribers access to a versatile Parental Control feature. This is perfect for parents who leave their kids alone to their own devices, and don’t want to worry about them downloading anything suspicious. Parents can block any website that they deem suspicious, as well as monitor activity and limit the time that their children can spend using the device.
Platforms and Devices
BullGuard is limited in the number of platforms that it supports:
Supported Platforms and Devices:
- Windows
- macOS
- Android
As you can see, while BullGuard does work with Windows and macOS devices, only Android devices are supported for mobile platforms. iOS devices do not have BullGuard support (at least, not yet).
Also, depending on the plan that you subscribe to, you can install your antivirus in up to 10 or more different devices. Keep in mind that their most affordable plan, known as “Antivirus”, only supports Windows and that you’ll have to subscribe to more expensive plans if you want to have BullGuard for Android or macOS.
Pricing
BullGuard 2020 Edition Prices
- Antivirus (1 Device) - $29.99 (discounted at $23.99 at the time of review)
- Internet Security (3+ Devices) - $59.99 (discounted at $29.99 at the time of review)
- Premium Protection (10+ Devices) - $99.99 (discounted at $40.00 at the time of review)
BullGuard’s antivirus subscription plans are on a per-year basis, rather than per-month. The plans differ in terms of available features. As mentioned earlier, only Windows users can really avail of the benefits of the BullGuard Antivirus plan.
The Antivirus plan comes with the essential features, such as the antivirus itself, the antiphishing software, anti-malware, and vulnerability scanner. It also has the Game Booster included, which makes the antivirus plan perfect for Windows users who play games. Other, newer features, such as advanced machine learning, are also bundled together with the Antivirus Plan.
Moving up to the Internet Security plan, users can enjoy all the perks of the Antivirus plan with some added benefits. Aside from being able to use the software on macOS and Android devices, BullGuard Internet Security also features the parental control and secure browser features mentioned earlier. Other features such as a firewall, cloud backup, and PC tune-up, come with this package, too.
Finally, the Premium Protection plan offers everything from the Internet Security plan, as well as a few critical perks. For one, the handy identity protection system is a Premium Protection-only feature, and you also get to use their home network scanner. The plan also allows 10+ devices to use the antivirus.
Ease of Use
The BullGuard antivirus app itself is pretty hit-or-miss. The layout is relatively simple, with the key features laid out simply in a grid for new users to easily navigate through. However, other useful actions, such as scanning, are left out of the main page, meaning that you’ll have to sort through the app to find exactly what you need.
Not a fan of deceptive progress bars during scanning? You may not like BullGuard’s, then. When performing manual scans using the software, you’ll probably run into the problem of antiviruses freezing at a certain point in the progress bar. BullGuard not only is guilty of this habit but also takes it to the extreme, with some people even claiming that it takes 30 minutes to get from 99% to 100%.
Customer Support
There’s nothing too special about customer support, although they do have a few flaws. For example, if you run into a particular problem that doesn’t fall under any of the support articles on their site, you may find that customer support won’t be able to answer your question, either.
Don’t just call customer support the moment something happens, though - be sure to check out their guides and tips on their support page, as they go over all the common problems that users typically run into.
Conclusion
In summary, BullGuard Antivirus has all the features you need to keep your computer safe from malware and harmful viruses, and then some. Its bonus features are what make it really shine, as it can solve just about any problem with its many perks. We’re giving it a 8.6, as there are only a few things that BullGuard could work on to make it one of the best antiviruses available today.
