Bitdefender Box Questions

A few questions on this, I have been curious about these new boxes for a while now and I just wanted to check and see what everyone else thinks about these before buying one.

Q1. Do they work, or are the a scam?

Q2. If they do work, how do they work, and how well do they work?

Q3. Do they do more than a regular antivirus subscription?

Q4. Do they replace my router/modem and it's built-in firewall? A

Q5. Are they rated for data speed like a router/modem is? And will it throttle the speed of all incoming and outgoing data passing through causing data to bottleneck at the box while it processes/scans everything.

Q6. Are they monitored over the internet like most things using cloud computing, and if so how secure is that? I am a writer and the information on my computer is valuable if stolen. More importantly, the information on my drive is my income.

Q7. Do they include family filters, and can it log any type of data sent across it with machine id's (aka pics from kids computer, skype conversations (we have a child who is runaway risk due to loss of life in the family), discord, innapropriate sites, etc)

 

The best thing is to read the reviews of Bitdefender Box:
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2477677,00.asp
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/bitdefender-box,review-3766.html
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/lanwan-reviews/33129-bitdefender-box-reviewed
https://www.digitaltrends.com/pc-accessory-reviews/bitdefender-box-review/
https://malwaretips.com/threads/bitdefender-box-vs-norton-core.72093/
Unless anyone here actually uses it, it's hard to answer specific questions.

 

The official Bitdefender Box FAQs also answer most questions.
https://www.bitdefender.com/box/faq/

 

The question, for me, is, "do I need this?" I say, "no."

If you don't keep your operating systems, security systems, and devices updated, you may need this.
If you are "click-happy" on unsolicited downloads, attachments, links and popups, you may need this.
If you have users connect to your network who don't keep their systems current, or who are click-happy, you may need this.

 

I keep a clean pc, and a clean network. However my step-son has friends come over all the time and they always want the wifi pw for spotify, youtube, and social media (typical teenagers). I'm concerned with what can be brought in by them than I am by what can get in through our modem.

 

So long as you do not allow any of those visitors to log on to your system with an Administrator account and you keep your existing security software fully up to date, then you should be fine.

 

Check your router admin menu. It likely will have a guest network option that you can let them log into. The router will keep them isolated from your connected devices.

FTR, whenever anybody comes to my house and wants to connect, I enter the passphrase.