Panda Cloud Antivirus

AV-Test.org has just released the September & October test results of its Full Product Monthly tests. More information at http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/test-reports/. This is the second batch of test reports in which Panda participates with Panda Cloud Antivirus FREE Edition.

Of course we are happy to see that Panda Cloud Antivirus FREE Edition has achieved certification with some good scores. But I would like to focus this post on the performance part of the test, which is where Panda Cloud Antivirus FREE Edition has really shined. Of course an AV product needs to detect as much malware as possible with as little false positives as possible. But nowadays the top AV products are very aligned in both these respects. So what is it that makes the difference then when choosing an AV? Many people will say its the performance and how it behaves on your individual system. Will it slow you down? Will it consume too much memory or CPU cycles? How will it impact your system? Many times a big performance hit will make the best of AVs with the highest detection rates and lowest FPs useless if they don’t allow the user to work with his or her PC.

There are some (not many) AV performance tests out there. Unfortunately most of the are sponsored by such or such vendor, which is not ideal as the vendor pays for the test and therefore choose what the test should look at, which coincidentally will be the performance areas the sponsoring vendor is good at, instead of looking at the overall performance hit. The Passmark tests sponsored by Symantec are a good example of this. Eugene has a good criticism of these type of sponsored tests (google it). Luckly the AV-Test performance review looks at the overall performance hit and this is where the architectural design of CloudAV really shows how it improves performance over traditional AV:

AV-Test.org September/October 2011 Full Product Test Reports available at http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/test-reports/

Hot off the trails of the great debut of Panda Cloud Antivirus at AV-Comparatives with an Advanced+ rating, now Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition is also taking part of the Full Product / Real-World tests of AV-Test.org.

The results are pretty good. Both Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition and Panda Internet Security 2012 achieved some of the top scores in protection. In addition Panda Cloud Antivirus achieved very good scores for usability, with very little slowdown of the test computers and zero false positives (when the industry average for this test was 17 false positives).

The full reports can be read online for both Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition and Panda Internet Security 2012.

AV-Comparatives.org just published its latest detection test. This test takes into consideration detection of recent malware as well as false positives. This is the first time that Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition participates in AV-Comparatives.org independent tests.

We’re happy to announce that the results couldn’t be much better. Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition achieved the highest rating (Advanced+) by being one of the AVs with the highest detection and lowest false positive ratings of the 20 products tested. Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition even got higher scores both in detection and false positives than paid-for security solutions from Kasperspky, ESET, McAfee, Trend Micro and Symantec and also higher scores than other free solutions by Avast and AVG.

You can read the full report at AV-Comparatives.org testing site.

Softpedia just published a review of Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5 and has awarded its “excellent 5-star” rating. The review highlights Cloud Antivirus automatic and transparent upgrades, the improvements in system resource usage, scan speed and improved malware detection rates.

The review concludes that “Panda Cloud Antivirus is indeed easy to use, very light on system resources and manages to offer protection a

gainst all sorts of malware. Despite being a free product it manages to provide a lot more than just basic protection.”

The full review can be read here:
http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Panda-Cloud-Antivirus-Free-Edition-Review-207624.shtml

Panda Cloud Antivirus and other Panda products have been selected by popular community votes to be one of the finalist in the About.com Reader’s Choice Awards. Thanks to all that helped us get there. Now we need more help from the community to vote for Panda Cloud Antivirus one more time to become the #1 choice for “Free Antivirus”.

So what are you waiting for, point your browsers to http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/l/bl-bestantivirus2011.htm and vote for Panda Cloud Antivirus!

It’s been a while since we posted news about reviews, awards and certifications that Panda Cloud Antivirus has obtained. Lately there have been various new reviews about it, so I wanted to point them out here:

As you may remember back when Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0 was released it was awarded the Editor’s Choice for “Best Free Antivirus” from PCMag.com. Now with the release of version 1.1 a few months ago, PCMag.com reviewed it again, alongside Avast!, AVG and other free antivirus, and it again achieved the Editor’s Choice award for free antivirus. The full review can be seen over at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364844,00.asp.

Raymond.cc, the well known security expert website, reviewed cloud-based offerings from different vendors trying to answer the question of whether cloud-based antivirus products can replace traditional signature-based products. In his own words, “Currently I would only dare to say Panda Cloud Antivirus Pro is good enough to be a possible replacement for traditional signature based antivirus. The detection rate is as good as the 3 big A’s (avira, avg, avast) and also quite light on system resources. Panda Cloud Antivirus is also very easy to configure with only a few easy to understand settings.” Please read the full review over at http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2010/10/12/cloud-antivirus-review-possible-replacement-for-traditional-signature-based-antivirus/

FaraVirusi recently compared Immunet and Panda Cloud Antivirus side-by-side. According to their findings, Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition detected 89,37% of the 4200+ recent malware samples tested while Immunet Free only 51,37%. The review can see over at http://www.faravirusi.com/2010/10/12/immunet-protect-vs-panda-cloud-antivirus-test-comparativ-al-detectiei-exclusiv-faravirusi-com/

PCSecurityLabs, the independent chinese antivirus testing lab, has recently reviewed Panda Cloud Antivirus against malware from China. It has certified Panda Cloud Antivirus for “high protection” against zero-day malware and “high protection” against recent malware. The certificate and details can be seen over at http://www.pcsecuritylabs.net/certificate/.

Lastly another interesting review of Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.1 was performed by TechGeekAndMore. After installing the product and running it for some time, the editors found out that Panda Cloud Antivirus works simply and with a small footprint. Read the review over at http://www.techgeekandmore.com/2010/09/16/panda-antivirus-review-cloud-free-paid-versions-test-recommend/

The full updated list of all reviews of Panda Cloud Antivirus can be seen at our Technical Support Forum under the Announcements section. If you know of any more reviews feel free to send me a Private Message.

Panda Cloud Antivirus, the best free antivirus has received the first ever ICSA Labs certification for pure cloud-based antivirus.

To achieve the ICSA Labs Anti-Virus Certification, products must meet all criteria for detection of malware. Products must demonstrate they have the capability to detect, identify and prevent self-replicating malware while reporting no false positives.

Additionally Panda Cloud Antivirus has met all criteria for cleaning of malware on desktops and servers, which includes removal of “in-the-wild” viruses from infected files and sectors. The certified products must be able to remove all viruses without adversely affecting the data or functionality that existed before the infection.

More details can be found at the ICSA Labs certification webpage:
http://www.icsalabs.com/vendor/panda-software
 
 

   
I would like to announce that Panda Cloud Antivirus, the best free antivirus, has received the official Windows 7 certification for 32 & 64 bits from Microsoft Corporation.

More details can be found here.

   
First it was PCWorld that recognized Panda Cloud Antivirus as the best free antivirus in detecting malware.
    
Now PC Magazine has reviewed Panda Cloud Antivirus and stamped it’s renowned Editor’s Choice on CloudAV for Best Free AV.

As you can imagine we are all very happy and would like to thank all of you who have helped during the long beta testing period to improve the product. You can read the full review in the following link:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355827,00.asp

While you’re at it, make sure to “Rate this product” to show other users how you feel about Panda Cloud Antivirus.
   

    
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:

1. Panda: 99.4%
2. Avira: 98.9%
3. Avast: 98.2%
4. MSE: 97.8%
5. AVG: 95.8%
6. 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