Is HitmanPro alert compatible with Bitdefender Total Internet Security? Can I run both?

Hello Tam Man,

may I ask why you want to do this? Better protection? Almost perfect protection?

HMPA is supposed to run alongside traditional AV. Nevertheless I assume (my personal opinion) that extensive compatibility tests wouldn't be performed (as Surfright has been acquired by Sophos other traditional AVs are now competitors) and there's no official compatibility list.
Furthermore as other vendors add to their products incompatibilities might arise at any time. Unfortunately none of the popular OSs provides the mean of running several security products "in parallel". OTOH there's no standard that could allow such products to peacefully co-exist.

Just my two cents

Christian

I think the hackers are very clever and will reverse engineer anti-ransomware protections so as to defeat them.  I expect they will go after the big players such as Bitdefender first (but Bitdefender is very good for most other malware). There are different types of anti-malware, such as database matching, heuristic and behavioral.  Some work in real time and others stop it after seeing what it is doing or matching it to known patterns in their database or try to clean up/remove after the fact (but the latter are not effective for anti-ransomware).  No program is 100% effective at least against zero day attacks so I do not trust just one.  And anyway many depend of definitions being kept up to date and the database is not updated until after booting to the desktop and in the case of an infrequently used laptop, may be days or weeks out of date.  I do not think Bitdefender protects a browser in a fashion similar to HMPA and while I have Sandboxie, it is clunky to use if something needs to be saved to disk outside the virtual machine.  I also think Bitdefender does not even try  to protect everything from anti-ransomware.  I read on another forum that you should not use Bitdefender TIS with HMPA but my new account has not yet been approved so I cannot yet ask why.  

Hello Tam Man,

[detection data being] not updated until after booting
(at least) Sophos updates immediately after it has downloaded new data (which is every few hours). With an infrequently used laptop it should be best practice to let it update before doing anything more or less risky. And of course arbitrary networks should always be seen as hostile territory.

As said, the case of using several products is problematic, even if they don't have overlapping features. Think of protecting your home with a burglar alarm and also entrusting a security firm (who aren't told of the alarm) with patrolling it. This can lead (and has lead) to very unfortunate situations. Can't say though if TIS and HMPA  would clash.

Christian

Hello Tam Man,

[detection data being] not updated until after booting
(at least) Sophos updates immediately after it has downloaded new data (which is every few hours). With an infrequently used laptop it should be best practice to let it update before doing anything more or less risky. And of course arbitrary networks should always be seen as hostile territory.

As said, the case of using several products is problematic, even if they don't have overlapping features. Think of protecting your home with a burglar alarm and also entrusting a security firm (who aren't told of the alarm) with patrolling it. This can lead (and has lead) to very unfortunate situations. Can't say though if TIS and HMPA  would clash.

Christian