Seeking info re: Bitdefender and Bitdefender VPN

Thank you for your reply to my question. In another place on the forum, I read some discussions related to Bitdefender VPN that suggested that the company's VPN was associated with a product that was considered by some to be of questionable or perhaps even malicious use.
It's so often hard to judge the quality and accuracy of many of the claims passed back and forth on discussion forums. I do appreciate you taking the time to reply to my inquiry with a response that was very reassuring and didn't just add to my confusion.

Thanks so much for the very detailed, but very understandable, response you wrote. I pretty much follow the procedures that you outlined in your answer. When I bought my MacBook Pro the Bitdefender application came installed on it, so I've just kept it current through the years. Recently the company included the Bitdefender VPN at no additional charge to me, and I uploaded and installed it because the concept sounded like it would offer more security in browsing on the internet. I recently received an alert from the Bitdefender program that it had detected an occurrence of an unknown device signing in on my email account. I received an additional alert from Google and Microsoft Outlook of the same activity.
I have no idea how my password was captured. I don't open emails from addresses that I don't recognize and I'm careful about where I go on the internet. So it took me by surprise and I changed all my passwords. Everything seems to be fine now, but in the process of trying to research what may have occurred to allow this to happen, I came across a variety of reviews of Bitdefender--some good, some ominous, and it made me question whether I actually needed this application.
So bottom line, would you advise that I uninstall this application? And if so, is it likely to have "hurt" my Macbook Pro from having been installed and running all these years?