‘Tap to reveal unresolved issues’ (if any) and address anything Bitdefender has flagged up as problematic. You’re now good to go with all the basics of Bitdefender downloaded and set up, and the most important elements of protection in place.

Note that there’s also a little tour of the interface you can take (or skip) to familiarize yourself with a few things. It’s worthwhile clicking ‘Enable’ to activate this feature. The most important one is to turn on ransomware remediation, which offers additional protection from this particularly nasty strain of malware (and can help to stop an attack, and indeed restore any files which might be maliciously encrypted if the ransomware successfully manages to hit a few files before the antivirus kicks in and halts its progress).

On the main menu, you will be given a couple of initial recommendations. Shortly after you start using the program, Bitdefender will automatically check for updates, and will install any necessary files to keep you fully up-to-date, informing you of this with a pop-up notification. Click the ‘Start Using Bitdefender’ button to do just that, and the program’s main menu will pop up. (Note that it might take a few minutes for these emails to arrive, but they should turn up pretty much instantly in most cases). Actually, you’ll get two messages – one is a receipt, and the other an activation email open the latter. Check your email (the email account you gave under billing details), where you should find an email from Bitdefender. You’ll then see a confirmation screen which offers a tailored installation and setup service – of course, you can safely ignore that, as you’ve got this guide to hand. Click ‘Confirm Order’ to finalize the transaction. Click on the orange ‘Billing and Payment Details’ button, and fill in the requested personal info and your payment details. Click on the ‘Buy Now’ link of the product, and you’ll be taken to the shopping cart. (In this case, we are buying Bitdefender Total Security - if you need help deciding which plan might be best for you, we’ve got an in-depth feature on which Bitdefender antivirus plan to choose.)

If you haven't already done so, head over to the firm’s website (opens in new tab).

Bitdefender total security mobile