Bitdefender Box 2 - Review 2022

Only two years ago, antivirus visitor Bitdefender went in a new direction with a hardware solution for smart home security. Its Box device was the first to market, just not the final, and has since been joined by a burgeoning crowd of competitors. But Bitdefender maintains a competitive edge with a centralized arroyo to security that lets you protect PCs, mobile devices, and fifty-fifty IoT devices from within a unmarried app interface. The new Bitdefender Box 2 is meant to exist the center of your secure home, guarding against attacks on your network. While it requires a subscription and lacks the simplicity of an all-in-1 router solution, the Box 2 counterbalances this with unlimited access to the excellent Bitdefender Total Security suite, in improver to its own formidable security features.

Reading the Price Tag

At $249, the new version of the Box is pricier than its predecessor, but still south of the Norton Core'southward $279. The F-Secure Sense clocks in at a positively affordable $199, which was the original price of the Box when it debuted in 2022. Every bit of this writing, the original, smaller Bitdefender Box is too yet available for $99.

As with all such security devices, the price tag includes a subscription fee. After the first year, it costs $99 per year to continue using all the bells and whistles that come with the Box ii. That might sound similar a lot, just it'due south actually a pretty sweet bargain, considering that y'all go unlimited admission to the company'due south software, which we talk over below.

At shut to $300, the Box 2 is definitely in the upper tier of routers, but it's by no means at the height. The Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Smart Wi-Fi Router (R9000), for case, will ready you back $500.

UnBoxing

Whereas the showtime version of the Bitdefender Box was small and unobtrusive, version two is large and bold. Like its piddling brother, the whole affair is clad in sleeky white plastic, with inset blackness perforated panels for venting. The new unit is slightly triangular, with ane white panel at the front end and a black inset console at the dorsum containing its ports. The overall build quality of the Box ii is very good, although it doesn't feel very substantial in your hand.

The Box 2 ships in stylish, well-designed packaging and includes an AC power adapter and an ethernet cable. To configure the Box 2 you'll need a device running iOS or Android, as well as access to the cyberspace.

The forepart console has a LED ring underneath it to display the Box 2'south current status. The F-Secure Sense has a similar system, but it displays a set of confusing runes that you have to interpret with the help of an included glossary. We did feel one LED-related hardware issue in testing: the Box 2 began flashing its LED continuously, which is non normal behavior. A quick reboot solved this problem. The Box 2 continued performance usually while it was flashing, so it was more of badgerer than a dire trouble.

The upright, fanless design lets air travel naturally through the Box 2. Peek through the grill on the top and you see piffling more than a unmarried lath inside the casing. Somewhere on that footling board is a Dual Cadre Cortex A9 1.2GHz processor, with 1GB of DDR3 memory and 4GB of internal storage. The new Box supports concurrent dual-ring wireless ii.4GHz and 5Hhz with MU-MIMO in a 3x3 antenna configuration. It supports IEEE 802.11a/b/grand/n/air conditioning Moving ridge-2 at AC1900.

Powered by a single AC jack, there are just 2 ports: one LAN port and i WAN port of the x/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet variety. A pocket-sized reset button lets you lot wipe the device, should yous need to.

Although the Box 2 can function as a standalone router, Bitdefender says that information technology works better as a supplement, rather than a replacement, for a router. This is the same line that the company took with the showtime version of the Box. Other companies, all the same, comprehend the idea of a security box that is as well a router. The F-Secure Sense functions equally a router and a clock. The stylish Norton Cadre has surprising networking capabilities nether its geodesic hood, from its custom designed antenna configuration to its beam forming characteristic that tin can target additional ability to keep you in touch even as you lot motility effectually your home.

Still, none of the consumer security devices we've reviewed then far volition win any awards for being the best router. Their strengths tend to lie in the realm of security rather than speed or robustness of bespeak.

Getting Online

A major difference between the Box 2 and its competitors is that Bitdefender no longer has a stand-solitary app for the Box 2. Instead, the Box ii capabilities accept been broiled into the company'due south Fundamental app. That's excellent, because the Fundamental app can already provide status updates and run security scans for every device in your domicile running Bitdefender software. No other vendor has come up close with this kind of integrated approach, and it's a major point in Bitdefender'south favor.

The Cardinal app is key to the Box 2 experience, and information technology's necessary for setting upwards your Box 2. A button to get-go the setup process for a new Box appeared when we first activated the app, just we accidentally tapped away! Thankfully, yous can become through the Box activation process from the Devices tab. It'south handy, only easily overlooked.

In one case the device is powered on, you join the temporary Wi-Fi network created by the Box 2. Next, you lot plug the device into your modem via the included Ethernet cablevision. The device then updates itself with signed code, much as the F-Secure Sense does.

Afterward that, things get a lilliputian complicated, considering, equally mentioned, Bitdefender does not want you lot using the Box 2 as a standalone router. An included flowchart does an admirable job of explaining the preferred methods for setup. That said, anytime you need to include a flowchart in your instructions, you're not starting from a groovy place.

The first choice is to connect the Box 2 to your modem and clone your Isp-provided router. Alternatively, y'all can connect the Box 2 to your existing router and identify information technology in Bridge Mode. We also struggled to set upwards the BullGuard Dojo and F-Secure Sense devices, which have similarly disruptive setups. It makes the simplicity of the Norton Core's all-in-1 concept all the more appealing.

In our testing, nosotros had little problem getting our Box ii online with our router in Access Point mode. The Primal app guided united states of america through the process, and even included instructions for making changes to our existing router.

We constitute the Box 2 to be much easier to gear up than its predecessor. But we're of 2 minds about how Bitdefender quietly discourages using the Box 2 as a standalone router. On one hand, it lets Bitdefender focus on what information technology's best at: blocking attacks. Plus, users won't have to supplant the router they already have (and peradventure even love). On the other hand, the setup process is more than confusing than the Norton Core router's, and the Box ii adds nevertheless some other device to consumer'south already crowded homes.

One thing we did notice about the Box 2 is that it lacks some of the tools you might expect from a network device. You cannot, for example, use information technology to create guest networks. Other routers, fifty-fifty more affordable ones, include such features. That said, we believe that few users will miss them. The visitor has informed usa that a software update will innovate these features in the hereafter.

We have not notwithstanding tested the operation of the Box 2 as a router, and are withholding a final score until we exercise. We will update this review with that data once that testing is consummate.

UnBoxed Security On the Network

One of the major concerns that devices like the Box 2 aim to address is protecting Net of Things gadgets that can't run security software on their own. You cannot, for instance, install antivirus on your fridge. But it'due south entirely possible that hackers or automated malware could discover your smart fridge and plow it into a spam server, or worse. No thing how smart the fridge, it's only another vulnerable computer that happens to have food inside.

To this cease, the Box ii includes animal force protection that will block multiple attempts to access devices on the network from the outside. It's a straightforward approach for a straightforward assault.

The biggest challenge for security companies is protecting against attacks that accept never been seen before. The Box 2 includes a automobile-learning powered anomaly detection engine to tackle this problem. Over the class of several weeks, the device learns what normal activeness on your network looks like. Once it has learned your habits, the Box 2 blocks whatever activeness that plainly deviates from that norm, sending you an alert when it does and so. We didn't experience annihilation similar this in our testing.

Bitdefender also says that the Box 2 is able to discover and prevent vulnerability exploits on your network. It can do this in part because information technology scans your network looking for open or misconfigured ports, too as other potential bug that could exist exploited by an assaulter on the outside, trying to find a way into your network. Within seconds of adding the Box 2 our network, it identified an issue with our router.

Furthermore, the Box two scours your unencrypted net traffic for personal data similar credit carte du jour numbers, location data, and passwords. If it detects such information being relayed without the appropriate protection, it blocks the transmission and sends you an alert. This is a clever approach; Bitdefender knows the information encryption practices that developers should be using, and it warns you lot when these are ignored.

It's the Software, Stupid

Forth with the Box 2, you get a complimentary year subscription to Bitdefender Total Security. Every bit its name implies, this security suite tin can exist installed on near computers and mobile devices. Box 2 customers go an unlimited number of device licenses, then you can install Full Security on as many devices every bit you like. After the first year, you'll accept to pay $99 to keep receiving protection.

Our intrepid antivirus reviewer Neil Rubenking thinks very highly of Bitdefender Total Security—so much and then that he awarded it iv.v out of 5 stars and a coveted Editors' Selection Accolade. In hands-on tests Bitdefender earned 91 points out of a possible 100, slightly backside competitor Norton. However, Rubenking notes that Bitdefender has the highest recorded phishing protection score among the latest crop of security software.

On its ain, Total Security costs $79.99 a year for 3 devices. An unlimited number of Total Security licenses costs $119.99. With that in heed, the $99 per year price tag for the Box ii (in years after the commencement) seems downright reasonable.

Equally mentioned before, the Central app coordinates all the data coming from the Box 2 most network threats, forth with additional data from your devices running Bitdefender Total Security. From here, you can actuate malware scans remotely, and even accept action on some issues, no matter where yous are. Bitdefender intends the Central app to be a cardinal control for all your security issues, and the Box 2 equally the bridge beyond the devices that cannot run Bitdefender software.

Every bit we said, no other company offers this kind of integrated approach, and on paper it should be a major point in Bitdefender'southward favor. Just again, Bitdefender's smart concept is hampered past problematic execution. The Primal app is frequently confusing precisely considering it's doing a little chip of everything. It doesn't help that the web version of the Central app is slightly dissimilar than the 1 on our iPad. We couldn't notice a dedicated department to manage device users as there is in the Key app. Instead, y'all accept to dive into sub-menus.

Although competitors' apps aren't equally comprehensive, they are more focused and easier to empathise. Bitdefender'due south doesn't e'er make information technology clear where to notice particular information, or take certain tasks. For case: A pause button appears above each device on our Box network, except for the one nosotros assigned to an imaginary child. To break that device, you have to go over to the User tab and break the user, not the device. That'southward confusing.

In its core part every bit a network protector, the Key app does an excellent chore keeping y'all informed of what's happening on your network. During our phishing testing, the app shot up an alarm every time it blocked a site, for example. That's great, because it keeps users involved in what's happening in their home.

But the app isn't always able to manipulate actionable information. As mentioned, our router was flagged by the Central app as having a security vulnerability shortly after we powered on the Box 2. It took only a few taps to discover the problem: the router was configured to accept plain-text passwords. Unfortunately, the Box didn't offer a solution. Nosotros're concerned that unsolved problems similar this will sit on the Central dashboard, and customers will simply learn to ignore them, like the enigmatic warning lights on a car dashboard. We'd like to see Bitdefender include the pick to suppress some warnings, or provide more comprehensive solutions to detected issues.

Easily On With Phishing and Malware Protection

Phishing sites are insidious because they masquerade as faux sites in order to play a trick on you lot into voluntarily handing over your login data. These sites don't last long, but new ones pop up all the time. While most browsers offer some built-in phishing protection, the Bitdefender Box should step in and block threats before yous fifty-fifty come across them.

In our tests, we visited ten fresh phishing sites equally submitted to Phishtank.com. We found that the Box ii blocked all but two of the dangerous sites, for an 80 percent success rate. That'south fabricated all the more impressive when we revisited those sites without protection. The protection congenital into the browser we used only blocked four of the sites, letting threescore pct of the threats through. For comparing, the Norton Core stopped a shocking zero out of 10 phishing pages.

Nosotros don't ordinarily utilize live malware in our testing, out of a healthy sense of caution. Instead, we utilize a series of tests from the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. These tests employ beneficial files that antivirus companies accept agreed to detect as malicious in guild to safely determine that the software is functioning correctly. Nonetheless, the Box ii merely detected one of these tests—although the files were immediately detected past the local Bitdefender antivirus software.

When we ran these same tests with the Norton Core, it blocked every single 1.

A representative for Bitdefender explained that this is normal behavior because the URLs and traffic from the AMTSO site are not inherently dangerous. After some word, nosotros decided to use live, malicious urls as supplied by the security company MRG-Effitas. Dissimilar the phishing tests, these sites had malicious payloads and would have acquired impairment to our system. As we did in the the phishing test, we disabled the automatic browser protection in order to examination but the Box 2's performance. Thankfully, nosotros constitute that the Box ii blocked each of the eleven malicious URLs we visited. A follow-up scan from Malwarebytes confirmed that there was nothing untoward on the machine. Box 2 had blocked them all.

Kid's Box

With the Box 2 parents can create accounts for each member of the household and assign devices to each business relationship. Once assigned, parents tin limit the range of hours and days of the week that devices can be used. A pause button for each user account lets parents easily block cyberspace access to all of a child's devices. A parent could even enforce a distraction gratis dinner by using the Box 2 and Central app to disable internet admission to Wi-Fi access points.

If parents want additional command over children'south devices, they have to install Bitdefender'southward Parental Advisor app. Once that has been installed on the child's phone, parents tin can use the Central app to check up on their child's online action, set additional limits that can be enforced when the child is abroad from the Box 2 network, track their kid's location, and so on. It's an impressive spread of tools, but we are surprised that more than parental control features are not integrated with the Box ii.

We didn't install Bitdefender'south Counselor app in our testing. However, we did find that the Box 2 did enforce the screen time limits we set, besides as pausing and unpausing connections. Annotation that some devices will automatically fail over to cellular or other Wi-Fi networks. Additionally, we noticed that it takes a few seconds for the interruption and unpause commands to exist acknowledged.

Bitdefender tells united states of america that the visitor plans on rolling out more tools that will enable the Box two to protect against cyberbullying and online predators. These tools are said to be still in development.

One Large Happy Network

Keeping a watchful eye on your network is i thing, merely the Box two lets you be proactive, too. Using the Central app, you'll be informed of every device on your network. You'll see the name and some disquisitional information about the device—whether it's a brand new Apple laptop or a Nest thermostat.

When we reviewed the starting time version of the Box, we noticed that it struggled to identify devices in a useful fashion. Other consumer security hardware also has a tendency to assign confusing, lengthy names to devices on networks. Figuring out what these actually are and who they belong to tin be a real chore. The Box 2 does an admirable job of identifying devices. We had no trouble picking out the iMac, iPhone, iPad, and the router that were on our network. For these, the Central app displayed their device names, with IP and MAC addresses available if those weren't clear enough. It also shows the manufacturer, and it automatically assigns an explanatory icon for each device.

Things get a piffling more complicated with IoT devices, yet. When we added a Lifx smartbulb to our network, the Central app quickly identified it as "LIFX-A19-26CAEE" and gave it a little bulb icon. Nosotros constitute the icon very helpful, but the name is long and confusing. We'd much rather that IoT devices, likewise as computers and mobile devices, be given understandable names. You shouldn't need a background in IT direction, or intimate knowledge of the technical names for your devices, to use them.

What remains a mystery is a device Key identified as ESP_9E41FA. Nosotros have no thought what information technology is, and likewise adding a diode icon and a vendor name, the app hasn't washed much to help. The proficient news is that we could block it from using our network, thank you to the Box two.

The Box two is upward against some potent competition—particular from the Norton Core—in the area of device management. For ane thing, the Cadre monitors local traffic for anomalies. If the Core detected your printer communicating with your smart light seedling, it could shut downwards that advice. It'due south a unique feature, and one that addresses advanced attacks or scenarios where an infected device is introduced to your network.

The Core also has a smart way of dealing with problematic devices. Instead of simply shutting off their internet connection, the Core quarantines them on a sequestered network. This mode, yous can install updates from the cyberspace or take other action to solve the problem, without putting the residual of your network at gamble. The Box 2 doesn't have this feature.

Information technology'southward All in the Box

With two years already in the consumer hardware security market, Bitdefender now faces stiff competition—mainly from the Norton Core, which is uncomplicated to use and prepare up, and looks fantastic. Although the Bitdefender tin can't compete on looks, and does struggle confronting the Core's fix-and-forget arroyo, the Box 2 is still a powerful choice. We are impressed that it blocked all the phishing pages and live malware nosotros threw at it. The fact that information technology provides unlimited licenses to its excellent software, and a single interface for every device in your home, is extremely compelling, and arguable worth the toll of admission on its own.

Although we have tested all of the Box's security features, we're witholding a final score until its wireless networking abilities can exist evaluated. This is the same process we've used for all such devices. We will update the story with a concluding score in the coming weeks.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/antivirus/18345/bitdefender-box-2

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