BitDefender - Product History

1996: SOFTWIN launches the AVX - AntiVirus eXpert product for the Romanian market. Although addressing DOS operating systems, the product could also be used under Windows 9x.

1998, August: First antivirus in the world to provide intelligent update, without user intervention.

1998, September: AVX is the first antivirus product in the world to integrate with an Internet browser, scanning and monitoring all downloaded files.

1999, July: First security solution to use WAP technology for remote administration in network environment.

1999, August: Third company in the world to provide antivirus solution for mobile devices (Palm OS, Win CE, Epoc).

1999, November: First Behaviour Application Blocker Technology.

2000, March: First AntiVirus product that includes personal firewall features.

2000, April: SOFTWIN increases the level of free services within its solutions by adding the online live chat together with web, e-mail and phone support.

2000, September: The most robust antivirus solution in the world (VTC).

2000, October: Security Focus nominates AVX among the first 6 security solutions in the world due to the first integration between an Application Firewall and an antivirus solution.

2001, April: The AVX team launches, as an absolute world premiere, antivirus solutions for all existing Instant Messaging Applications (ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Net Meeting and mIRC), anticipating this trend in the newly emerging virus families.

2001, June: AVX launches its 6th generation and becomes the first product in its category to include Behaviour Blocking. The 6th Generation of AVX is also the first AV product to include an Application Firewall.

2001, November: SOFTWIN announces its new brand of antivirus products, the BitDefender line, and it enters the international market.

2002, March: BitDefender launches the first antivirus solution for MS SharePoint, at CeBIT 2002

February 2003: MIDAS (Malware Intrusion Detection Advanced System) enters the product development stage. This SOFTWIN proprietary technology, which was awarded the IST prize, is set to revolutionize antivirus design.

2003, August: Seventh Generation of BitDefender - First antivirus to include antidialer technology.

2003, November: World Premiere - BitDefender releases the first ever commercial antivirus for Samba 3

2004, April: BitDefender releases its own antispam technology.

2004, January: The first version of the LinuxDefender Live! CD is launched at the LinuxConf 2003. LinuxDefender is a full-featured Linux distribution, packed on a bootable CD to produce the ultimate antivirus rescue kit.

2004, July - The update pushing service is introduced. Instead of relying on scheduled updates only, customers that opt into this service have the latest updates "pushed" to their servers the second such updates become available, further reducing the threat posed by new viruses.

2004, October - Andreas Marx releases the top of antivirus products' reaction time . BitDefender is declared the most reactive product with a less than 4 hour reaction time.

2005, March: BitDefender introduces HiVE - heuristics in virtual environment, a technology aimed at reducing dependency on virus signatures through proactive detection of unknown threats.

2005, April: BitDefender launches the hourly update system.

2005, August: In August, Andreas Marx's tests show " a zero second" reaction time for BitDefender against all major threats. The HiVE Technology helps BitDefender proactively detect all new ITW viruses during August 2005.

2005, September: BitDefender launches the 9th generation. BitDefender Internet Security becomes one of the most complete solutions on the market including antivirus, antispyware, antispam, firewall, antidialer and parental control.

2006, May: BitDefender introduces B-HAVE (Behavioral Heuristic Analyzer in Virtual Environments), its new generation of heuristic detection technology.

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