Bitdefender Mobile Security  products start with its Antivirus Free for Android app, which can provide basic protection for a phone or tablet. It relies primarily on cloud scanning for its malware protection and has been designed to have a minimal impact on performance and battery life.

Bitdefender’s Web Protection blocks access to phishing and other malicious sites, reducing the chance that you’ll be caught out by dangerous links in your inbox or social feeds.

It’s a very effective system. We put together a list of 1,033 brand-new phishing links, and Web Protection blocked 88% of them. Avast also has quality anti-phishing, but it couldn’t quite match Bitdefender, only blocking 83%.

AV-Comparatives’ 2022 Anti-Phishing tests found broadly similar results: Bitdefender came equal first with Avira, each blocking 96% of threats, while Avast followed just a little behind with 93%.

Connecting your device to Bitdefender’s Hotspot Shield-powered VPN (opens in new tab) is easy. Tap VPN, then Connect, and in a couple of seconds it’s up and running, protecting your web traffic from snoopers. Speeds were reasonable in our tests, and connections proved stable, with no unexpected drops.

The problem? It’s extremely basic. As we write, you can’t choose a location, switch protocols, adjust settings or reconfigure how the VPN works in any useful way. If you only need the core VPN essentials, this might be acceptable. But if you’re looking for anything even slightly more advanced, it’s likely to leave you disappointed.

Bitdefender clearly realizes the problem, and Mobile Security for Android will soon be updated to use the regular stand-alone Bitdefender VPN app. That’s good news, as it gets you many more VPN features (ad and tracker blocking, choice of protocols, split tunneling, more.) But if the VPN is your priority, it’s a reminder that you could simply ignore Mobile Security and just install the Bitdefender VPN for Android app, instead.

Bitdefender’s Account Privacy feature scans a list of data breaches for as many email addresses as you need, and raises the alarm if your details have been exposed.

We tapped ‘Account Privacy’ to try it out. The app sent a code to the email address to verify that we owned it, then displayed an alarmingly lengthy list of breaches where our address appeared.

This isn’t quite as useful as it sounds. Although our list included 19 breaches, only four were dated 2020 or later, and the most recent of those was from February 2021. If you follow the standard advice to change your passwords occasionally (and we do, of course), this isn’t going to tell you much at all.

It can also be difficult to identify which accounts have been breached. Although some breach names make this clear (LinkedIn.com, DropBox.com, livejournal), our email address also appeared in breaches with generic titles such as ‘breachCompilation’, ‘collection1’ and ‘malwaredumps.’ The app prompted us to change our account password, but with no information on which website was the source, that’s just not possible.

There is still value here. Maybe your list will be more relevant, and you can sign up to get alerts when new breaches appear. But the reality is you can do this for free anyway at haveibeenpwned.com, no need to install Bitdefender Mobile Security or anything else

Bitdefender’s App Locker enables protecting others from launching specific apps and perhaps viewing sensitive details. It’s very useful if you’d like to pass your device to a friend or family to use the phone or browser, say, but don’t want them to have full access to everything else.

It’s an effective system, and far more usable than some lockers. Although by default App Locker prompts you to manually unlock every protected app, every time you launch it, for instance, you can also have unlocking one app automatically unlock all the others until your screen turns off. Far more convenient if you’re just worried about someone picking up your device.

There are stacks of surprising bonus features, too. It can use a random numeric keyboard, reducing the chance others can read your pin by watching your finger movements. It’ll snap a photo of the user after three failed PIN entries, and can then upload the pics to your Bitdefender account so you can view them from other devices. It’s all very well put together, and adds real value to the app.