An award-winning security suite bundled with identity protection, password management, and VPN

Bitdefender Ultimate Security combines an award-winning security suite with comprehensive identity theft detection and remediation, as well as a password manager and VPN.

The days when you could plunk an antivirus utility on your single PC and be done with security are long gone. These days you want a full-on security suite, and you need to protect all manner of devices, not just PCs. Even when you’ve got protection installed on all your devices, you’re not necessarily done, because of your connection to the wild, wild web. If you’re not careful online, an identity thief could drain your accounts and get your home repossessed. That’s why we’re seeing more and more security services that combine device protection with defenses against identity theft, as well as swift remediation for any successful attacks on your identity. Bitdefender Ultimate Security is the latest in this arena, and it packs a wallop, with award-winning device security, password management, a VPN utility, and comprehensive service to defend your identity.

Many security suites offer pricing tiers for one, three, five, 10, or even 20 licenses, with the per-device price shrinking as numbers go up. With Bitdefender Ultimate Security, pricing is totally simple. For $179.99 you get 10 device protection licenses plus Bitdefender Identity Theft Protection Standard. If you want Bitdefender Identity Theft Protection Premium (I’ll discuss the difference below), you upgrade to Bitdefender Ultimate Security Plus, at $239.99 per year. As standalone products, the Standard and Premium identity protection services go for $129.99 and $209.99 respectively.

McAfee Total Protection (which includes McAfee Identity Theft Protection) goes for the same price as Bitdefender, but that subscription lets you install protection on every device in your household. Aura costs a bit less, $144 per year for 10 licenses. To get 10 Norton licenses, you must choose Norton 360 with LifeLock Advantage, at a price of $249.99 per year. You pay almost the same as Bitdefender for an IDShield subscription with protection for just three devices, and a three-device license for IDX Privacy Complete goes for a whopping $315.41.

The prices I’ve quoted all come with identity theft protection for just one individual. Some of the services offer couples or family plans at a discount. For example, you can protect yourself and your partner with Aura for $264 per year.  A couples license for Norton at the 10-device level runs $479.99. McAfee doesn’t offer multi-person licenses—if you want identity protection for two people, you buy two subscriptions. Bitdefender likewise protects just one identity at present, though a family plan (two adults and unlimited minor children) is planned for Q4. A similar partner-and-kids plan from IDShield goes for $359.40 per year; upgrading also bumps the number of protected devices from three to 15.

Here’s another view on the pricing for Bitdefender Ultimate Security. This bundle includes Bitdefender Total Security, Bitdefender Password Manager, Bitdefender Premium VPN, and Bitdefender Identity Theft Protection Standard. Purchased separately, a year’s subscription for these would cost $99.99, $29.99, $49.99, and $129.99 respectively. That sums to $309.96, making the bundle’s $179.99 price tag look like quite a deal.

As with most modern security services, you manage your Bitdefender services through an online portal, in this case, called Bitdefender Central. Once you’ve activated your license in Bitdefender Central, you can immediately install the security suite, password manager, and VPN on the current device, or send a link for installation on another device.

As for the identity theft service, it’s handled entirely through Bitdefender Central. That means you can check alerts, update settings, and connect with support from any computer. I’ll cover these services in detail below.

When you choose to install security from Bitdefender Central, it installs Bitdefender Total Security. The protection you get for your devices is precisely the same as Total Security because it is Total Security. That being the case, there’s no need for me to repeat my review of that product here. I advise you to click the link and read all about it. I’ll summarize here, briefly.

Bitdefender Total Security is an Editors’ Choice winner in the category I call security mega-suite. At the core is Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, an Editors’ Choice in its own right. The antivirus boasts a cornucopia of features that number-wise beats out many security suites. Bitdefender Internet Security builds on the already-impressive collection of features in the antivirus, and, you guessed it, this product is an Editor’s Choice for entry-level security suite.

Total Security could also qualify as a cross-platform multi-device suite, given that it includes protection for devices running Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Admittedly, Windows owns the lion’s share of features, but the macOS edition receives top marks from independent testing labs and the Android app is a comprehensive mobile protection suite. Again, you can learn more by reading my separate review of Total Protection.

For years, Bitdefender’s product line, starting with the basic antivirus, has included Bitdefender Wallet, a rather simple password manager. Sentimentalists can still access Bitdefender Wallet, but Bitdefender Password Manager has superseded that old thing. Unlike Wallet, Bitdefender Password Manager is available as a standalone product. Whether standalone or bundled in Ultimate Security, the password manager relies on Bitdefender Central for its data repository and configuration. You can use your saved passwords across all your Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices. While Bitdefender doesn’t mention the fact, the password manager is visibly a re-branded version of SaferPass. Panda Dome Complete also relies on technology from SaferPass for its password management.

From the Bitdefender Central dashboard, you can install the password manager in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari on the device you’re using. There are also links to grab the app from Google Play or Apple’s App Store. And you can send a link to install it on other devices.

The first time you launch the password manager it has you log in to your Bitdefender account online and then create a separate strong master password. As part of this process, it generates a 24-character recovery key that you can use to access your account if you forget your master password. Clearly this recovery key is sensitive information. I suggest you print it off and store the printout in a fireproof lock box or some other secure location. If you save a PDF copy for printing, use a secure deletion utility to wipe the file once you have that printed copy.

To get you started on your password journey, Bitdefender lets you import existing passwords or manually create your first saved account. It doesn’t import directly from Chrome, Edge, and Firefox the way some high-end products do, but it can import browser passwords after you export them to a file. It will also import from 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, LastPass, SaferPass, Sticky Password, and a dozen more, some of them totally unfamiliar.

When you choose to manually add an account, you’ll fill in the website URL, username, and password, along with a friendly title. There’s an option to check whether the password you entered has appeared in a breach. If this is a new account, you can invoke the password generator.

By default, Bitdefender’s password generator creates 16-character random passwords using all four character types: capital letters, small letters, digits, and punctuation. You can raise the length as high as 32 characters, and you might as well make it at least 20. After all, you don’t have to remember the generated passwords.

Some password generators include an option to create pronounceable passwords like radabuzofiko or modopuwetili, with the aim of creating something you can memorize. Bitdefender defaults to an option called Easy to type, but I couldn’t determine the difference between that choice and All characters. Just what makes !1WXfr^%7KwVUa!m easier to type than d2yxgE%Hr,0ktjQ6, I wonder? For the broadest selection of possible passwords, I suggest choosing All characters.

Bitdefender lets you manually enter login credentials, but doing so is tedious. Most users will prefer to simply log in as usual and let Bitdefender capture the credentials you’ve entered. After you submit your credentials, you can let the password manager save them, skip saving once or always, or edit the captured data to add a friendly title.

I tested the password manager with a random bunch of secure sites and it correctly captured all my logins, including two-part logins like Gmail and Yahoo. When you return to a site, the password manager fills in your credentials, so all you need to do is submit them. If you’ve saved multiple credential sets, it offers a list for you to choose from. Clicking the toolbar button brings up a list of saved accounts, and clicking one both navigates there and fills in your username and password.

It’s a short step from automatically filling passwords to automatically filling other personal data in web forms. Bitdefender lets you save details for any number of credit cards, so you don’t have to whip out the card and copy the numbers when purchasing online. Separately, you can create one or more identities, with personal data such as your physical address, email address, and phone number.

When Bitdefender recognizes that you’ve opened a web form, it puts an icon in the data fields that it can fill. You simply click that icon and choose the appropriate identity or credit card. In testing, it didn’t fill all the data fields, but every one that the password manager fills is one you don’t have to type.

You can install the password manager browser extension on all your desktop computers and add the app to all your mobile devices. That’s convenient, but there could be a security risk if one of your devices gets lost or stolen. The Secure Me feature lets you see all the devices that have an active connection to the password manager. If you don’t like what you see, you can disconnect any device or shut them all down remotely.

You open the Secure Me feature by clicking its icon at the top of the browser extension’s window, or by choosing it from the app’s menu. There will always be at least one connection listed, representing your current device. Cutting a connection is as simple as clicking the power icon next to it and clicking to confirm the action.

If a thief or hacker has gained access to your account, cutting off that access is a good start, but the Secure Me feature can do more, at least on Windows. At your command, it can log out of any sites that it logged into, delete cookies and history, and close the associated browser tabs. Let’s hope you don’t need to use this feature. But I can confirm that in testing it totally did the job.

All the services like Bitdefender Ultimate include a password manager of one kind or another, though none are as effective as the best standalone password management software. Aura’s is particularly limited. While it captured most (but not all) login credentials in testing, it doesn’t have the ability to replay those credentials. Its password generator doesn’t have any user-configurable settings. It doesn’t fill web forms, and it lacks advanced features such as secure sharing, digital legacy, and an actionable password strength report.

Norton Password Manager is roughly on par with Bitdefender. Neither has advanced features like secure sharing or digital inheritance. Both will flag weak and duplicate passwords, to help improve your security. The same is true of the Trend Micro Password Manager that comes with IDShield. And while all three support filling personal data in web forms, this feature proved somewhat limited in all three.

With McAfee, you get the True Key password manager. True Key’s forte is multi-factor authentication. In fact, if you set up enough alternate forms of authentication, you can log into True Key even if you forgot your master password. It handles the basics of password management but lacks advanced features and doesn’t attempt to fill web forms.

As for IDX Privacy, at the time of my review it included a Password Detective to check for compromised passwords, but no actual password management. Since that time, this service has added what the company called “military-grade” password management. I’ll evaluate that feature when I next review the product.

Bitdefender's many layers of antivirus, web, and network protection keep you, your devices, and your data safe. However, when you connect to the internet your data in transit could be at risk. To ensure privacy for your data, you need a VPN (virtual private network). When you connect using a VPN, nobody, not even the owner of the shady Wi-Fi network you're using, can access your network traffic, and you'll be harder to track as you move across the web.

At one time, Bitdefender’s VPN wasn't available as a standalone product. That’s changed—you can now purchase Bitdefender Premium VPN just like any other product, even if you don’t use Bitdefender as your bastion of security protection. Please read our full review of the VPN for all details. I’ll summarize here.

The Bitdefender VPN appears as a simple, slender grey rectangle with a large, blue button to connect the VPN. Premium users can select the VPN server country from a pull-down menu; those at the basic level must accept whatever server the VPN chooses. Basic users also see a counter across the bottom showing how much of the current day’s 200MB of bandwidth remains. As an Ultimate Security subscriber, you won’t see that counter, of course. Once you’ve connected, a pointer on a stylized world map very roughly indicates your server location.

Bitdefender includes a Kill Switch feature, meaning that if the VPN connection drops it cuts the unprotected internet connection until the VPN comes back online. That way you don’t risk transmitting any data unprotected. Split tunneling means you can exempt certain websites from VPN protection, perhaps sites that are very sensitive to connection speed. There’s also an unusually comprehensive collection of Autoconnect options. You can have the VPN connect automatically at startup, when you log into unsecured Wi-Fi, when you use peer-to-peer sharing, or when you connect with specific apps, domains, or website categories. Finally, the VPN can filter out domains associated with ads and trackers.

Bitdefender licenses its VPN technology from Aura's Hotspot Shield VPN. It boasts 1,300 servers in 53 countries, with a good global spread. Server locations matter, partly because a bigger collection of locations means more options for spoofing your own location, but mostly because a closer server will usually yield better speed and lower latency. Desktop users (macOS and Windows) just get to choose a country, while those on mobile can fine-tune locations in Canada (three cities), the UK (two cities), and the US (15 cities).

On all platforms, Bitdefender supports Hotspot Shield’s Catapult Hydra protocol. Windows and macOS users don’t have another choice; they don’t even see protocol options. On Android, Bitdefender adds two flavors of OpenVPN, while the iOS edition adds the older IPSec protocol. Both mobile versions default to automatically choosing the protocol that should give you the best performance, though you can lock in a selected protocol if you have the need and the knowledge. We prefer OpenVPN and, when available, WireGuard, both of which have the advantage of being open-source and picked over for potential vulnerabilities.

A major concern with using a VPN is its impact on your internet connection speeds. Using the Ookla speed test tool(Opens in a new window) , we find a percent change between speed test results with the VPN and without the VPN. When last tested, Bitdefender’s impact on the all-important download speed was less than the median of current products, though its impact on upload speed and latency came in higher than the median. It’s important to remember variations in network traffic can affect speed test results. The fastest VPN today may not be the fastest tomorrow; the fastest VPN in Seattle may not be the fastest VPN in Miami. We don’t recommend choosing a VPN on speed alone.

In the realm of security products with identity protection included, VPN protection is common. Aura, IDShield, IDX Privacy, McAfee, and Norton all include some form of VPN, though the details vary quite a lot.

The company that owns Aura also owns Hotspot Shield, but Aura’s VPN gives you no server choices and next to no settings, just an on/off switch. IDShield provides a license for Trend Micro’s VPN Proxy One Pro, a Windows Store app with limited server choices and few advanced features. Safe WiFi in IDX Privacy likewise comes up short in settings and server choices.

McAfee acquired Editors’ Choice VPN TunnelBear VPN a few years ago, but McAfee SafeConnect VPN doesn’t exhibit the spread of advanced features found in TunnelBear. It does have a decent array of server location choices. With some advanced features such as ad blocking, split tunneling, and compromised network detection, Norton Secure VPN is a contender on its own, though it won’t beat the very best VPNs. Of the security suites with identity protection that I’ve reviewed, Bitdefender, McAfee, and Norton boast the best VPN components.

As you’ve seen, Bitdefender Ultimate Security offers a wide variety of security features on all popular platforms. Identity protection is independent of any platform, so it’s naturally managed through Bitdefender Central. Like any such service, Bitdefender can’t prevent identity theft, but it can notify you the moment any problems arise and help with a quick resolution. Note that this service is powered by IdentityForce, a TransUnion brand.

On first use, you’ll create your account and provide personal information so Bitdefender can check whether you’re exposed on the Dark Web. Initially, it asks for your name, email, phone number, physical address, date of birth, and social security number. Once you’ve gotten through that initial signup, you’ll see eight tabs: Hub, Identity Vault, BreachIQ, Alerts, Credit, Resources, Support, and Account.

Your identity protection online opens to the Hub, a page that summarizes important facts and events. A large panel on this page invites you to contact a resolution specialist if you ever experience identity theft. Another panel prompts you to prepare for the possibility of a lost or stolen wallet.

At first, you’ll also see a panel titled Let’s Get Started, with five big prompts and a percentage complete score. You’re already at 20%, having created your profile. Clicking Add your Additional Information takes you to the Identity Vault page, where you can record more personal data for monitoring. This is also where you link Bitdefender to your social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram), so it can watch for “posts that could be perceived as violent, are using profanity, or could be categorized as cyberbullying or discriminatory." Each of those actions takes you closer to 100% completion.

Setting up Lost Wallet Assistance gets you another 20%. This step involves going through your wallet and recording details about everything found therein. You can record one or more of these item types:

This step is separate from recording your personal items for Dark Web tracking. In this case, you fill in every little detail including things like the card issuer’s website and the customer service phone number.

The final item in the Let’s Get Started list is titled Discover Additional Resources. Clicking this takes you to a page with identity protection resources that I’ll discuss below.

Now that you’ve reached 100%, the prompt to take startup actions vanishes, leaving the Hub as a quick overview of your identity protection. The five most recent alerts appear at the top, with an option to view more. A handy panel shows you when Bitdefender last checked your Identity, Credit, and Social media, with quick links for more details. Summaries of your credit score and what Bitdefender calls your BreachIQ score round out the Hub’s overview.

You’ve already worked with the Identity Vault page while setting up your account. You can return here at any time to edit or expand your recorded identity data. On the Monitored Info page, you can record one apiece of:

Mother’s Maiden Name

Those are typical one-off items, though McAfee lets you track two driver’s licenses and Norton will monitor up to five physical addresses. You probably already took care of these during setup. Do look over the page and consider recording additional entries for these categories:

You can enter five passports and 10 of each other type. Note that on the Secure Storage tab you can upload scanned images of important documents such as passports, up to 100MB of data.

As soon as you record your personal data, Bitdefender starts scanning Dark Web sources and known breaches, notifying you of any problem on the Alerts page. As with other identity monitoring products, I found that many of these alerts referenced breaches from years ago, breaches I had already dealt with. Also as with others, quite a few did not provide any specific website where I could change my password, referring instead to opaque names like “Sanixer Collections 2019 ANTIPUBLIC #1” and “mesvak”.

The detail page for each alert comes with advice on what to do, along with a button to Archive the alert when you’ve handled the problem. Some alerts come with an Open Case button that connects you to a resolution specialist. And when a known breach is involved, you may see a Breach Risk Rating such as “2 Low Risk (2 of 10)”.

It may seem tedious, but you really need to go through these one by one. Take any necessary action and then archive the item. That way any new alerts will stand out.

In addition to recording personal info, you can use the Identity Vault page to link Bitdefender with your social media accounts. Social media monitoring, managed by Bitdefender partner Sontiq, warns if you post what seems to be personal information. For example, a post I made stating that my SSN is not 111-11-1111 triggered an alert. Like most similar services, Sontiq triggered on a wide variety of innocuous posts.

While Bitdefender alerts you on all types of Dark Web data detections, the BreachIQ page focuses on known data breaches that included your personal information. This page has four tabs: My Breach Exposures, Risk Rating Summary, Action Plan, and Search Breaches.

The My Breach Exposures list proved to be quite a bit smaller and more manageable than the full list of alerts. For each breach, it lists the date, Breach Risk Rating, and up to two exposed data types—you can click a link to view any additional data types that were exposed.

Clicking the Risk Rating Summary reveals your risk score, from 1 (no risk) to 100 (maximum risk), along with some factors that went into the rating. As for what to do about a bad score, proceed to the Action Plan page.

Your marching orders on the Action Plan page include 18 specific actions that you must take yourself. Congratulations! You’ve already accomplished one by setting up Dark Web scanning. Next up, marked as Top Priority, is enabling two-factor authentication for your online banking. Clearly, the details will vary by bank or credit union, but you really should do this right away.

Many of the remaining items are similar actions, things like setting up USPS informed delivery, installing an antivirus that includes phishing detection, and requesting a PIN from the IRS. Check these off as you accomplish them. There are also more nebulous items such as advice to beware of social engineering and watch out for spam.

Finally, there’s a page where you can search for any data breaches related to a specific company. I don’t see the value here. The identity service should be telling you what breaches were found.

The Hub page shows your five latest alerts, but for a broader view, you can check the Alerts page. Opening any listed item gets you the same detailed view that you can see in the Hub. I did find it annoying that opening a detail and closing again always scrolled back to the top of the list. If you’ve responded to any of your alerts by opening a case with a Resolution Specialist, a separate page helps you track those open cases. As I mentioned earlier, you really should work through the initial flood of alerts, if only to suppress ones that you’ve already dealt with.

Social media alerts show up here as well. If you’re prone to oversharing, Bitdefender’s warnings may be useful, though, of course, they come after you’ve already revealed too much. I’m less impressed with warnings about posts considered inappropriate in some way. Better not mention anyone named Mary Jane, or talk about Law & Order creator Dick Wolf.

IDShield separates monitoring Social Media for data exposure from its Reputation Management system. That’s a good thing, because Reputation Management proved wildly unreliable in testing, for example, identifying photos of garden plants as weapons. IDX Privacy handles things more like Bitdefender, with a similar flood of alerts.

The setup processes I mentioned above don’t include configuring Bitdefender to track and manage your credit score. From the main dashboard click Credit. The resulting page has four tabs, Credit Score, Credit Report, Credit Simulator, and Freeze My Credit. To get started, click Authenticate on the first tab.

I expected to see the typical questionnaire to prove my identity, asking things like, which of these has been your address? Which company did you take a loan from? I was surprised that authentication simply meant entering my SSN and receiving a confirmation code via text. After authentication, the app pulls your full credit report from TransUnion. You can view it within the identity dashboard or print it out for reference.

Bitdefender checks your credit report just once a year. You can get your annual reports from all three credit agencies for free, with no involvement by Bitdefender. Like Aura, Bitdefender checks your credit score once a month, though Bitdefender gets the data from TransUnion and Aura from Experian. Aura also includes the ability to freeze your Experian credit with a click, providing links to freeze the other two bureaus. With Bitdefender, freezing credit is a DIY operation, though the service does provide links.

If your credit score is low, you surely want to improve it. If you have a high score, you want to avoid driving it lower. With Bitdefender’s unusual Credit Simulator, you can get an idea of how almost 20 financial events could affect your score. These include, among other things, adding a new credit card, paying off all your cards, taking out an auto loan, and declaring bankruptcy. Of course, the estimated new score isn’t guaranteed, but you can learn a lot by experimenting in the simulator.

To complete the startup configuration tasks from the Hub page, you had to at least look at the Resources page. Take another look, as this page is loaded with useful tools and information, divided into Calculators, Forms, and handling of Junk Mail & Calls.

On the Calculators tab, you’ll find a variety of financial calculators. You can get a quick comparison of two loans, for example, or compare credit card deals. If you’re considering refinancing your mortgage, a simple calculator lets you see how much you’d benefit. And all these calculators are hosted within the main Bitdefender site; they don’t link out to other websites.

The Forms page includes a collection of letters, from a general complaint letter to one for resolving a credit dispute. It also offers resources such as consumer action handbooks, consumer contacts for major corporations, and contacts for federal, state, and local consumer protection offices.

Junk mail and unwanted phone calls don’t in themselves threaten your privacy and identity, but they’re annoying and might cause you to miss important communications. The Junk Mail & Calls page contains a collection of links to external sites where you can do things like remove yourself from direct marketing lists, opt out of preapproved credit offers, and reject specific direct mailings.

What if Dark Web monitoring reveals that your details are for sale? What can you do if someone else uses your Social Security Number? Bitdefender makes getting help easy. Some alerts come with a built-in button to open a case. You can click the Support tab and fill out a report. Or you can just pick up the phone and talk directly to a dedicated identity theft resolution specialist.

Like almost every service in this field, Bitdefender promises to spend up to $1 million to remediate an identity theft event. As always, this comes with some restrictions. For example, if you lose your job due to identity theft it will cover lost wages, but at no more than $1,500 per week, for up to eight weeks. The insurance allots a maximum of $1,000 to elder care and childcare. And so on.

As always, I can’t test this service’s ability to help with recovery from identity theft. I can report that it’s very easy to open a case.

This review has described Bitdefender Ultimate Security and its included service Bitdefender Identity Theft Protection Standard. For another $60 per year, you can upgrade to Bitdefender Ultimate Security Plus, with Bitdefender Identity Theft Protection Premium included. What does that get you?

For starters, the upgrade raises the insurance cap from $1 million to $2 million. My impression is that the average case would never come close to even a single million, but if your net worth is huge, you might benefit from this upgrade. Upgrading also adds a separate ransomware resolution fund of up to $25,000.

The basic service gets monthly credit checks and yearly credit reports from TransUnion. When you upgrade, you get those checks and reports from all three bureaus. For comparison, Norton doesn’t offer monthly credit checks at the basic Select level—you get that at the Advantage level, which costs an additional $100 per year. And if you want credit checks from all three bureaus, you need the top tier, Ultimate, costing another $100 per year.

Aura and IDShield both monitor bank accounts and credit cards for anomalous transactions. With Bitdefender, you get transaction monitoring at the Plus level, along with alerts on your investment accounts. At the Plus level, it also watches for spurious change of address requests, tracks court records for signs your identity is being abused and monitors the sex offender registry.

The Bitdefender Ultimate Security bundle starts with device protection by Bitdefender Total Security, our Editors’ Choice for security mega-suites. To that, it adds the new Bitdefender Identity Theft Protection Standard, as well as Bitdefender Password Manager and Bitdefender Premium VPN.

Feature-wise, Bitdefender’s identity monitoring, and recovery are roughly on par with what you get from Norton or McAfee, though Norton is more comprehensive, especially at the higher tiers. Viewed just as a security suite, Bitdefender Total Security has earned our Editors’ Choice honor. We’ve allowed this bundle to retain the 4.5-star rating earned by its security suite component, though it’s not our identity theft Editors’ Choice.

In the arena of identity theft monitoring and recovery, we've identified Norton 360 With LifeLock as our Editors' Choice. Yes, it can be expensive, but  its identity theft monitoring is more comprehensive than most, and its human-powered recovery and remediation system is time-tested.

Bitdefender Ultimate Security combines an award-winning security suite with comprehensive identity theft detection and remediation, as well as a password manager and VPN.

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When the IBM PC was new, I served as the president of the San Francisco PC User Group for three years. That’s how I met PCMag’s editorial team, who brought me on board in 1986. In the years since that fateful meeting, I’ve become PCMag’s expert on security, privacy, and identity protection, putting antivirus tools, security suites, and all kinds of security software through their paces.

Before my current security gig, I supplied PCMag readers with tips and solutions on using popular applications, operating systems, and programming languages in my "User to User" and "Ask Neil" columns, which began in 1990 and ran for almost 20 years. Along the way I wrote more than 40 utility articles, as well as Delphi Programming for Dummies and six other books covering DOS, Windows, and programming. I also reviewed thousands of products of all kinds, ranging from early Sierra Online adventure games to AOL’s precursor Q-Link.

In the early 2000s I turned my focus to security and the growing antivirus industry. After years working with antivirus, I’m known throughout the security industry as an expert on evaluating antivirus tools. I serve as an advisory board member for the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO), an international nonprofit group dedicated to coordinating and improving testing of anti-malware solutions.

Read Neil J.'s full bio

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