Cloud Antivirus #1 in PC World Comparative
I was recently pointed to a comparative study of free antivirus solutions done by PC World and performed by AV-Test.org, comparing Panda Cloud Antivirus, Avira, avast!, Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG, Comodo, PC Tools, and ClamAV.
Altough the editorial did not include Panda Cloud Antivirus in the ranking chart as it could not test the retrospective detection using 2 and 4 week old signatures (as Panda Cloud Antivirus works in the cloud and therefore cannot use 2 & 4 week old signatures), it had this to say about Panda Cloud Antivirus:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/290839/review/cloud_antivirus.html
Among all of the free antivirus software we tested for our latest roundup, Panda Cloud Antivirus was the best app at blocking known malware.
The approach is intended to take advantage of the latest signatures without the need for signature-database updates–and if its excellent showing at detecting malware in AV-Test.org’s zoo of half a million samples is any indication, the approach works. Panda’s app produced an impressive 99.4 percent overall detection rate.
For now, we can’t give Panda’s app a complete score, but its impressive ability to detect malware makes it well worth keeping an eye on.
The final detection rate ranking of the full collection of malware, taking into consideration updated sigs and products, is the following:
- Panda: 99.4%
- Avira: 98.9%
- Avast: 98.2%
- MSE: 97.8%
- AVG: 95.8%
- Comodo: 74.6%
This is great news and motivates us even more to continue working hard to release a 1.0 version that offers top detection and protection for free 
Great news! It’s very rewarding for us, who developed this great AV. Spread the word you guys
Nice, I´ve wait for a test like this for a long time =)
(Not surprised that Panda Cloudantivirus was the best)
Gratz on this! Now I’m looking forward to the finalized version even more!
Oh, and will you have the same interface in the finalized version?
Nice indeed
This is the proof that the protection model based on the cloud really works. Looking forward to Beta3 
I’m a bit cynical about those numbers and that comparison,
however I’m eagerly following this blog to hear… stable release
^-^
@Kenny We’re actually working on some interface improvements… v1.0 will have some (very few) but v1.1 will have some more really nice ones
@Terence Yes I agree with you about comparative tests and looking at them with a grain of salt. It’s very difficult to perform an AV comparative that actually replicates real-life user experience. I don’t believe such a test actually exists nowadays. With that in mind AV-Test.org’s are probably the most advanced tests all-around (along with those of pcsecuritylabs.net).
Amazing guys! keep up the awesome work!
While you’re talking about the interface…
Is there a possibility of a non-skinned version?
I see no need for a virus scanner to have a fancy skin, and in fact I hate skins on applications. If I want to skin software, I’ll use software to do it for me. I think it adds nothing and costs only usability.
Too bad about every virus scanner I tested has a stupid skin. Avast is worst and NOD32 is best.
@Tom when you say “non-skinned” are you referring to a command-line scanner? If so, check out http://research.pandasecurity.com/archive/New-Panda-Antivirus-Command-Line-9.5.1.aspx
I have been having trouble with Beta3 on 64-bit Vista. When I install CloudAV, it installs as a 32-bit app. Running it anyway, I notice that PSUNMain will not remain open. It closes immediately and silently, even though the CloudAV “nano” service is still running.
@Pedro Bustamante
I think @Tom might mean a non-skinnned interface like Nod32 2.7 had as an option. And are you going to continue to use the current color scheme in the interface? I myself don’t think a black color scheme suits an AV application (or any other applications at all), and on my Windows 7 computers the AV stands out quite a bit from the rest of the applications.
In my opinion interfaces like Nod32, Kaspersky and Microsoft Security Essentials looks best and fits in almost all variants of desktops.
I have Cloud beta installed.I was installing Orbit downloader and Ad-Aware popped up and told me it had W32monitorPowerspy in it. Cloud did nothing and was unaware.Advanced SystemCare did nothing(IObit).If Cloud wants to be on top it has to learn from is competiters
@Tom Well I just wanted to make a remark Avast skins aren’t so bad but the new Avast 5 Av is looking better why don’t you check that out before you comment on it.
Also keep up the good work Panda your by far the best. It’s hard to find a good reliable Security software these days and I’m grateful for Panda Cloud Av even though I had some major issues in a few of the beta’s leading up to beta 3. I still love this product and after a fresh new format and reinstall of Vista home premium again, I wanted to mention this here, I went back to Avira thinking it was one of the best free Av’s out there,(since its promoted on many a site as the #1 Free AV) and boy was I wrong. I just finished a reformat and reinstall due to 10 virus’ that got by Avira that Panda Cloud Picked up. They hid so good I even had ESET before that I was test driving ESET Smart Security 4. I really think Panda cloud as Improved and is now at the top of the free Av’s out there and I’m glad your top Marks on AAV-Test.org’s I knew it was bound to happen… All your hard work is paying off.
Interface: Nice, except Minimize, Close and Help buttons. I think that it is ‘Install and forgot’ antivirus (and i like it!!!) and interface not very imoprtant.
I would have to say I love the dark colours, since I keep my desktop faily dark its pretty perfect colour wise.
But maybe in future versions when the AV is running as planned, it could be beneficial to make so we can make our own skins for the AV. So basicly if you dont like the look make your own.
Another thing I have been thinking about, I am a bit of a stats junkie from my Distributed Computing days. So what about making it so that you could actually register for a account (this would be a optional feuture). And then you could have stats like, how many viruses have you cought, have you discovered any new malware by running CAV? How many other people have you ‘saved’ because of your CAV discovery so on
). It would make people actively hunt down new malware, making it even better.
I don’t care about the interface
As long a stable release candidate comes out ^-^
For me the design is something they can worry on afterwards
I like this fast superpanda, it’s like a panda in a race car.
It’s like coming from the Stone Age into the middle of the Iron Age.
@Aleksei Tereshkova Can you send me the file in a password-protected ZIP file to beta@pandasecurity.com? We’ll analyze it to see if it’s truly malicious and if so why it wasn’t detected.
@Tom, @Kenny, @Dave, @jsn, @Flemming D. Joergensen, @Terence The GUI is something very personal, like colours, some people love some, some people hate some. We are trying to get some independent user focus group studies on the interface. Regardless, for v1.0 we will introduce a slightly more modern interface based on the current one, and for v1.1 we’ll introduce a new type of interface altogether. Regarding the comment from Flemming, we are introducing a Myaccount-based website with v1.0 to do precisely this, provide some statistics, more services of Collective Intelligence, etc.
This is great news for Panda Cloud. And I’m glad this program is recognized as one that is this reliable in its beta stage.
Has anyone noticed a new “cloud” program called Immunet Protect? The developers are former execs of Symantec and McAfee, that have teamed up. It looks like others are waking up to the reality of the need for the cloud based antivirus solution. My guess is that even other software reputables will throw their hats in the ring. What do ya think?
Immunet Protect dose not detect many things at all! I tested it agienst malware and it didn’t detect anything
Why
“Panda Cloud Antivirus works in the cloud and therefore cannot use 2 & 4 week old signatures”
I dont really understand it.It mean old virus cant be detected?
@Francisco
My friend who uses Immunet Protect prefers it to Panda Cloud AV. I myself have wanted to tried it out but I can’t as the AV doesn’t support x64 OS yet.
Hi,
I’m an old user of Panda(Platinum, Titanium AV) but after some virus infection I left Panda for good… Now it seems this Cloud AV is doing very good!
Keep the good work Panda, I’m watching your Cloud AV closely and hope it make me back to Panda…
Regards
@4T
It just means that Panda Cloud Antivirus is always upto data. And yes it can detect old viruses as well
Its because other antivirus solutions are not nessesarily upto data at all times, you could run other vendors anti virus without updating it forinstance. The test your referring too, I believe is the test for new unknown malware, eg. virus that are not yet discovered and there fore not yet included in the updates. a simple way to test anti virus solutions for how well they can detect unknown viruses is to not update them for lets say 2-4 weeks, and then test them against new viruses that have appeared in that time frame
@Flemming D. Joergensen
Thank you so much
Am running XP Pro SP3. After last night’s updates from Microsoft, Cloud Antivirus will not run. Have tried to start CA several times. Each time it automatically shuts down. Anyone else having this problem?
BTW, CA is a great product. My deep thanks to Panda for bringing CA to the world.
During two days (8 and 9 September) can’t view information about viruses in encyclopedia.
@Bill Can you please email us to beta@pandasecurity.com so we can help you identify the problem and fix it?
@jsn Yes we had some server downtime due to upgrades in the service that provides the virus naming and descriptions these last couple of days. Sorry for the troubles.
@Pedro
Last night I re-installed Cloud Antivirus and it is working perfectly now. Maybe the problem was just a corrupted file and had nothing to do with Microsoft’s updates.
@Bill Thanks for the feedback!
I have been wondering about something, and my appologies if it has already been ask or answered elsewere. I have noticed that of the “suspicies files” in the recycle bin in the AV does not appear to disapear again, still seems to be the same files there and more are added over time it seems. Are they not suppose to go away when the matter of if it is a virus/malware or not is resolved?
@Flemming D. Joergensen
I would think that a lot of files are sent in, not just by cloud AV users but by paid users, there are probably backlogs.
@Sam Smoker
ah yeah okay.
these tests using old zoo sample is useless zoo = not wild
they need to use wild samples only
@Andy sorry for the late reply. I just fished your post out of the spam filter. Your problem is already a known issue. Please contact us at beta@pandasecurity.com with the details of your machine and to get a workaround.
@Flemming D. Joergensen In addition to a bug which we have found in the process of taking out suspicious files, we are processing about 86% of the suspicious files in less than 24 hours. The remaining take quite some time. It could be either or. We’re improving this metric a lot more for the time we release v1.0.
@jon absolutely agree with you. However AV-Test.org’s filter for zoo testbed is actually pretty strict. Last I looked it was samples in circulation in the last 3 months. That’s much better than the old ZOO collections, even though as you mention much of that is already dead samples.
off topic … hey Cloud team, their should be screenshots of Cloud Antivirus via the main website or a link to it … thank you for listening
What kind of network load does this application have? If I have multiple computers running on a network with this AV on all the computers, will it saturate my network? Do you have any basic numbers in this area? It would be a shame to implement this into an environment that can’t handle the bandwidth usage the application requires.
First of all, great product
Will there be a unattended install feature ?
@Lawrence yep you’re right. I’ll pass it off to the web team. Thanks for the suggestion.
@Hang right after install is when the network usage is the highest as the backgroundscan goes through the entire PC. After that, the network usage is really minimal. Keep in mind that we don’t send the files to the cloud, just small revrse signatures of them. Comparing side by side CloudAV and simply having a Gmail webpage open, Gmail probably uses more network bandwidth than CloudAV.
@H.Vos Yes we have something planned in this respect, but no release date yet.
Thanks for the quick response. How small is small when referring to the reverse signatures? I’m curious to know how well this solution would work in a corporate environment with limited internet bandwidth.
@Hang Approximately less than 5kb per file, keeping in mind that after an initial install and cache of the system, the amount of new files checked against the cloud is really small (think how many new PE files you save to your PC every day).
@Hang
It also saves bandwidth by not downloading updates all the time.
@Sam Smoker That’s right, thanks Sam
I was wondering about the way Panda works and how it could be used by ISPs. Instead of sending “reverse signatures” of the files you download back to Panda, it would be great if every ISP could utilize it in such a way to scan all their users’ traffic before it reached their computers.
Will Panda ever be open source and would this be a good idea to have ISP’s running it? I could imagine a day when no one will ever need any antivirus installed on their computer because their internet service provider would provide complete security for them. Now I’m not talking about just email scans, but every file in transit.
Just a thought…
@alan you are truly “one step ahead”
Very good thought, it’s something we talked about internally a few times already.
How often does the client send a reverse signature?
@alan
This is the type of thing: http://www.pandasecurity.com/usa/enterprise/solutions/gatedefender-integra/
On open source, I support open source on everything but antivirus (so far). PC world tested Clamwin and didn’t even say what the detection rate was (that bad). It would be interesting to have an open source app backed by a big company like Panda, but like any software company, the decision to open source would have to be carefully considered. Going open source would mean licensing the program under something like GPL, a very permissive license.
On the other hand, it does more good than harm, since malicious hackers decompile security products to find weaknesses anyway. Going open source would appeal to an admittedly small, but very loyal market of FOSS freaks.
I could think of a million more reasons to and not to open source security products, but maybe that will be a future blog post.
@Hang
I believe that would be each time you save a portable executable (.cpl, .exe, .dll, .ocx, .sys, .scr, .drv) to your computer.
@Hang, @Sam Smoker, as Sam says, everytime a new PE file is saved to your computer. There’s also other checks after a cache timeout and some re-checks for certain files (suspicious and files in Recycle Bin).
I have been thinking about another practical use of the CAV. What about making a boot-cd image for download possible with a small linux distro on it capable of running CAV under for-instance “Wine”. That would be a powerful tool for helping with cleaning already infected pc’s, and since its “in the cloud” it will always be up to date. And with the power of the linux kernel it will have great chance of jumping right on the internet, because of all the hardware that is supported by default.
I know I could use such a cd in my work as a computer tech. To help clean malware of systems.
@Flemming D. Joergensen
Panda already has a bootable antivirus CD: http://research.pandasecurity.com/archive/Panda-SafeCD-3.4.3.5-Released.aspx
It would be very useful for it to be more cloud AV-like, to increase detection with no need for updated signature files from a panda product already installed (it’s unlikely that someone using panda or any other antivirus would have their computer in an unbootable state).
Using Linux to better support hardware and an internet connection sounds like a good idea, but I’m not sure how well wine would run cloud AV. I might try it out next time I’m running Ubuntu, but I’m a bit short on HDD space for a dualboot at the moment.