BitDefender QuickScan combines intelligent local scanning and in-the-cloud scanning to create an advanced online tool which detects e-threats in memory quickly.
Unlike other online virus scanners, with BitDefender Quickscan there is nothing to install or update. Scanning suspicious items is done remotely, at the push of a button, using the BitDefender Antivirus technologies.
BitDefender Quickscan is currently in Open Beta.
Q: Quickscan is taking more than 30 seconds! What gives?
A: In a nutshell, Quickscan makes an inventory of the programs that are running, then tells the server what it found.
If the server doesn't recognize a file, it requests the file to be uploaded. Once the server sees a file, it will recognize it by its hash (a sort of digital fingerprint) and never request it again.
Now, the first time you run Quickscan on your system no programs are 'already known' and the server might not know about many of the things Quickscan finds. The best way to make Quickscan quicker is for as many people as possible to run Quickscan as often as possible for a while.
In an ideal scenario, enough people would have already run quickscan to enrich our collection of hashes to the extent that you won't need to upload anything. As this is a BETA, that is probably not the case, yet.
Bottom line: the first time (or first few times) you run it it's normal for the scan to take longer because of hashing and uploading. Once you get a scan to take under 10 seconds, it should stay there unless something big & new pops up.
Q: Will quickscan eat my files, ship all my credit card data to parts
unknown or otherwise cause harm?
A: No. Quickscan does not modify or delete any file on your system and only uploads executables for checking. The upside to that is you're safe. The downside is - you guessed it - no virus removal either.
Q: What if Quickscan says my system is infected?
A: Please run a full system scan using BitDefender Online Scanner or one of our commercial offerings.
Q: How long will the BETA last?
A: As long as it takes.
Q: Still, do you have any timeline you're looking at?
A: The BETA test will probably end in April 2009.
Q: Is there any direct link to the developers and parties involved in
the project ?
A: We have temporarely enabled qscan@bitdefender.com for that. Feel free
to abuse it.
Q: It won't start ! It shows an error! It's not doing what it's supposed
to!!
A: Send us an e-mail . We'll gladly take a look and try to fix the
problem you reported.
Q: I have a question that's not in this FAQ!
A: Send us an e-mail and we'll try to answer and eventually add it here.