Panda Cloud Antivirus

NOTE: if your Panda Cloud Antivirus has upgraded successfully to version 1.5.1 and you are getting constant notifications on the traybar about the upgrade, please reboot your computer to finish the upgrade and these notifications will stop.

We are happy to announce the availability of Panda Cloud Antivirus version 1.5.1. If you are reading this after seeing a “Panda Cloud Antivirus has upgraded automatically!” message on your Desktop traybar, then you already have this latest version installed and running. If you don’t have version 1.5.1 yet don’t worry. As we are releasing the automatic and transparent upgrade little by little in a few days your copy of Panda Cloud Antivirus will upgrade itself automatically.

Version 1.5.1 is a maintenance upgrade from version 1.5.0 which fixes some bugs reported by the user community. The bug fixes included are the following:

• Fixed problems disinfecting Google Chrome cookies.
• Fixed problems disinfecting certain compressed malware.
• Fixed Blue Screen of Death problem after upgrading or installing version 1.5.
• Fixed bug which prevented re-enabling autorun.
• Fixed errors when redirecting to webpages from the “I like CloudAV” window.
• Security Toolbar and URL Filter version 2.0.0.17 with Firefox 5.0 compatibility.

Remember that if you have any problems whatsoever with Panda Cloud Antivirus you can always ask for help at our Technical Support Forum.

Also if you like Panda Cloud Antivirus don’t forget to help us grow the community of  users. The more we are, the better protection we get. Make sure to click on the “I like CloudAV” button on the main window to easily protect your community of friends and family by letting them know about Panda Cloud Antivirus.

We are happy to announce the availability of Panda Cloud Antivirus version 1.5. If you are reading this after seeing a “Panda Cloud Antivirus has upgraded automatically!” message on your Desktop traybar, then you already have this latest version installed and running. If you don’t have version 1.5 installed yet don’t worry. As we are releasing the automatic and transparent upgrade little by little in a few days your copy of Panda Cloud Antivirus will upgrade itself automatically.

This keyword of this release is improved performance. In addition new features suggested by the user community have been added as well.

• Scanning speeds have been improved dramatically.
• CPU consumption has been reduced thanks to improvements in the BackgroundScan.
• New graphical installer.
• Ability to close the banner.
• New advanced configuration options for exclusions of files by extension, Potentially Unwanted Programs and more.
• Activity monitor shows scanned files and last virus detected.
• Report now includes entries for Collective Intelligence cache synchronizations.

In addition there are a lot of bug fixes, most notably:

• Fixed error when trying to open Panda Cloud Antivirus right after install.
• Fixed problems registering with Windows Security Center.
• Fixed access violation in PSUNSuspects.dll when opening console.
• Fixed protected Lost&Found directory privileges which prevented restoration of files.
• Fixed Error Code 11 when trying to undo an exclusion for a file which has been deleted from the drive.
• Fixed Error Code 11 when trying to insert into the Recycle Bin a file which was also excluded from the scan.
• Fixed error which prevented opening the GUI and showing the traybar icon.

Don’t forget to help us grow the community of Panda Cloud Antivirus users. The more we are, the better protection it provides. Now there’s a “I like CloudAV” button on the main window to easily protect your community of friends and family.

Today is a very special day for us at Panda Security for two reasons. First because today marks the two-year anniversary since we released the first beta of Panda Cloud Antivirus, the first free antivirus from the cloud. To celebrate this, we’re releasing another beta version today, Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta 1.9.

The objective of this beta version is to test the interception of networking traffic in order to build cloud-based firewall functionalities in future versions. In this beta the networking interception is applied to both HTTP and POP3 traffic. Even though the program incorporates a Process Monitor which keeps track of HTTP web traffic requests on a per process basis and allows for per-process blocking, no traditional firewall functionality is provided in the beta, only interception.

In order to promote thorough testing of this version, we are giving away 10 Amazon.com $100 gift certificates to the most active beta testers who report bugs in the Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta Support Forum. The winners of the gift certificates will be selected at the close of the promotion by the Support Forum Moderators amongst the users with the most amount of new (unknown at the time of posting) bug reports. Note that the beta may still be ongoing after be promotion ends on August 1st, 2011. In addition there will be PRO license codes given away to other active beta testers as well.

New Features
- Process Monitor functionality and traffic history reporting.
- Ability to block a process by sending it to Recycle Bin.
- Blocked processes can be restored from the Recycle Bin.
- Ability to disable/enable BackgroundScan after signature cache synchronization.
- Ability to exclude file extensions from the on-access scanner.
- Exclusion of Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUP) detections.
- New graphical installer. Logs are kept under %TEMP%\StubInstaller.log.
- New Toolbar without ID Protect & Shopping and with Toolbar Cleaner.

Read more about this beta, download and install from http://www.cloudantivirus.com/forum/forum.jspa?forumID=50202

We are happy to announce the availability of Panda Cloud Antivirus version 1.4. If you are reading this after seeing a “Panda Cloud Antivirus has upgraded automatically!” message on your traybar, then you already have this latest version installed and running. If you don’t have version 1.4 installed yet you don’t have to do anything. In a few days Panda Cloud Antivirus will upgrade itself automatically.

This release is mostly a maintenance and internal bug fix release. The complete list of changes is the following:

• New notification system.
• Toolbar and URL Filtering compatibility with Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4.
• Fixed GUI scan progress window.
• Added “Free” or “Pro” labels on the main window to clearly differentiate what is installed.
• Fixes in translation strings.

We are happy to announce that we just released Panda Cloud Antivirus version 1.3. This new version of Panda Cloud Antivirus has been made possible thanks to our large community of users and specially to our Support Forum Trusted Mods who have helped a lot of users and gathered enough feedback to incorporate major improvements as well as many different bug fixes. All new features have been included in both the Free and Pro Edition.

If you have Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.1.0, 1.1.1 or 1.1.2, you will get the upgrade automatically and transparently over the course of the next few days (see below for details). If you don’t have Panda Cloud Antivirus installed yet you can download it from www.cloudantivirus.com.

The main new features and fixes included in Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.3 are the following:

• Malicious Web & URL Filtering. This feature blocks websites that push malware, exploits and drive-by downloads. It is available both in Free and in Pro Editions and is installed by the toolbar. Unlike similar solutions, this web filtering works at a low level so it works under all browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. For those of you that didn’t install the toolbar but would like to install the Web & URL Filtering, you can download it from here and install it manually.
• Unified Recycle Bin and Quarantine. Previously the Recycle Bin handled suspicious detections and the Quarantine handled deleted malware detections. This has been unified into a new Recycle Bin for ease of management. This is included in both Free and Pro Editions.
• Automatic and transparent upgrades to new product versions, previously only available in the Pro Edition, this is now available in the Free Edition as well. All users of Free Editions versions 1.1.0, 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 will automatically and transparently upgrade to the new 1.3. See notes below for the upgrade schedule.
• No more nagging advertising. After listening to many of you we have decided to turn off the nagging advertising popups prompting to upgrade to Pro Edition. If you want to support Panda Cloud Antivirus and wish to get the Pro Edition, you can do so from here, but we won’t bug you anymore from the popups.
• Hot updating of behavioural blocking rules. In order to increase protection on the fly against new vulnerabilities and attacks and to fix false positives, hot updating of behavioural blocking rules allows faster response time in both the Free and Pro Editions.
• Immediate notifications of virus detections. Previously if Panda Cloud Antivirus encountered multiple viruses, it would delay its traybar notification and show them grouped. This behaviour has been changed so that the notifications are shown immediately.
• Suspicious detection counter. Under the statistics window there’s some new counters for the different types of heuristics and behavioural detections.
• New versioning format. Unified versioning format in GUI and other parts of the program.
• Many bugfixes as reported by users in our support forum:
  – Fixed issue with Windows 7 Start menu slow-down.
  – Fixed Panda traybar icon disappearing.
  – Fixed “you are not connected to the Internet” message when there is connection.
  – Fixed issue when Free Edition users can activate behavioural analysis.
  – Fixed slow-down and conflicts while playing Allods Online and AION.
  – Fixed cloud-response time configuration which defaults to 30 seconds.
  – Fixed constant accesses to the floppy disk drive.
  – Fixed BSOD issue after install.
  – Fixed bug while exporting an empty report to TXT/CSV.
  – Fixed Conficker detection.
  – Fixed BSOD while compressing malicious PDFs.
  – Fixed translation errors.

-

In case you still have some questions about Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.3, here are some frequently asked questions. If you don’t find an answer to your question please contact us at the support forum.

When will my Panda Cloud Antivirus upgrade itself?
The automatic and transparent upgrade to the new Panda Cloud Antivirus version 1.3 will happen progressively over the next week or two. Initially users of version 1.1.0 will be upgraded automatically and some days later users of 1.1.2. Finally users of version 1.1.1 will be upgraded automatically.

What if I don’t want to wait for the automatic upgrade?
Simply go to www.cloudantivirus.com, download the new 1.3 version and install it on top of you current one. As you run the installer, it will prompt you to unsintall your current version and, after a reboot, will install the new one. If you have any problems please contact us at the tech support forum.

My Panda Cloud Antivirus has been upgraded but I cannot see the Web & URL Filtering Toolbar
The Web & URL Filtering component is installed by the toolbar. If you don’t already have the toolbar installed (or you uninstalled it) then the automatic upgrade will not install the new toolbar (the automatic ugprade keeps the same config as you currently have). If that is the case, you can manually download and install the new Web & URL Filtering Toolbar from here.

I know I’ve installed the Web & URL Filtering Toolbar but want to “see” it in action
There is nothing visible in the toolbar like a button to “see” the Web & URL Filter. Simply make sure there is a process running on your computer called panda2_0dn.exe and you’re good to go. If you don’t see the panda2_0dn.exe process running, install the Panda Security Toolbar manually from here. You can test that the filter is working by trying to visit http://www.cloudantivirus.com/testurlfilter

How do I disable the Web & URL Filtering?
– Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs and uninstall “Panda Security Toolbar URL Filtering”.
– If you only want to disable the filtering for a short time, simply kill the “panda2_0dn.exe” process.
– For those of you wanting to visit malicious pages and/or to manage potential false positives, very soon we will add an exclusion button in the blocked pages so that you can bypass the Web & URL filter.

I have and older Panda Cloud Antivirus, version 1.0.x. What should I do?
You can do one of two things:
– Wait for an automatic upgrade. We are developing an automatic upgrade for users of 1.0. It should be released in a few weeks.
– Manually upgrade to the new version 1.3. Simply download the new version from www.cloudantivirus.com and run it. It will prompt you to uninstall the previous version and, after a reboot, install the new one. If you have any problems please contact us at the tech support forum.

So what’s the difference between Free and Pro now?
You can see the feature-to-feature comparison in the following table. As you can see we have added many new things to the Free Edition to make Panda Cloud Antivirus the best free antivirus available anywhere!

We just published version 1.1.2 of Panda Cloud Antivirus. You can get it from http://www.cloudantivirus.com.

This minor release includes some basic fixes:

* Fix for error 1603 during install or upgrade from previous versions.
* Fix for behaviour blocker FPs of WMP, VLC, OpenOffice, fubar2000, etc.
* Corrections of certain string translations (italian, japanese, etc.).
* Search reset fix during installation.
* Fix for problems with outdated Silverlight installations.
* Updated traybar notifications to show that they come from PCAV.

Users of the Free Edition can upgrade to this new version by simply downloading the new installer and executing it. The installer will uninstall the previous version and install the new one after a reboot.

Users of the Pro Edition do not need to upgrade to this new version as their installation will be upgraded automatically and transparently as needed.

Finally the new Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition and the new Panda Cloud Antivirus Pro are here!

After only 7 months since the release of PCAV 1.0 in November 2009, which has been download by almost 10 million users, the next major release of PCAV is finally available in two flavours: Free Edition and Pro.

Download your copy from http://www.cloudantivirus.com. NOTE: there’s no need to uninstall the previous version. The new version will automatically upgrade the one you have installed.

New features and changelog:

• Behavioural blocking. Proactive, signature-less, protection against malicious actions typically used by malware. Generic blocking of malicious PDF/DOC/XLS/PPT/WMV/etc. droppers. Compatible with both 32 and 64bit Operating Systems.
• Behavioural analysis (PRO only). Runtime analysis and blocking of running processes. Compatible with 32bits Operating Systems as well as for 32bit processes under 64bit systems.
• Advanced configuration. Ability to turn on/off and tweak the behaviour of the different engines, cloud responses, advanced logging, recycle bin settings, exclusions, etc.
• Self-protection of the AV processes and configurations.
• Re-do detections that were previously un-done so that they are detected again.
• Automatic upgrades (PRO only) to new engine versions and new features automatically and transparently.
• Improved offline protection. Default deactivation of Windows Autorun.
• USB vaccination (PRO only) Automatic vaccination of USB memory keys and hard drives.
• Ability to run alongside other AVs and Anti-Spyware. Can now be run alongside other security tools and scanners.
• Full scan option. Added option to run a full PC scan easily.
• More languages. Added 9 new languages. PCAV is now available in a total of 20 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Greek, Polish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish, Hungarian, Japanese, Slovak, Norwegian and Finnish.
• Quicker download & install experience thanks to new stub-installer which is 300kb in size.
• More options for restoring neutralized files. More flexibility when recovering neutralized files, allowing for automatic and manual recovery, exclusions, configuration of the Recycle Bin automatic emptying, path to recover, etc.
• Improved handling of known good files to reduce false positive rates by the new behavioural engine and automated classification from the Collective Intelligence servers.
• Optimized installation background scan by using adaptive low-priority scans.
• Improved scanning progress information by showing when a large compressed file is being scanned to avoid the perception that the stuck is stuck.
• Fixed certain situations when the PandaCloudTestFile.exe was not being detected even though the PC was correctly connected to the Internet.

Today we are releasing a new version of Panda Cloud Antivirus, version 1.0.1. This version is basically a cumulative-fix release which incorporates Hotfix-1, Hotfix-2 and some small additional improvements.

The most notable improvement is that we have gotten rid of the initial account registration which used to be mandatory for first-time installs. Panda Cloud Antivirus will not ask for account during install anymore. Only if you want to participate in the Cloud Antivirus Support Forums will you need to create an account.

I have Cloud Antivirus 1.0 already installed. Do I need to download & install this version?
Not really. This new version incorporates hotfixes which you probably already have installed anyway. To check if you have them installed, simply browse to “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users” (XP) and you should see a subdirectory called “HF_PCA_somenumber”.

I have the hotfixes installed but I still have some problems with Panda Cloud Antivirus. Should I install this version?
Yes you might want to give it a try. Below you can find some more detail of what this version fixes which is not included in the existing hotfixes. In order to install this version on top of the one you already have, first uninstall your current version, then reboot and finally download & install the new version from http://acs.pandasoftware.com/cloud/CloudAntivirus.exe.

What’s the changelog of this version 1.0.1?

1. Preactivated version does not require account creation during install
2. Fix for certain conditions of stuck quick & full scan
3. Improved cloud-heuristic detection for unknown malware – From HF_2
4. Improved prevalence algorithms for priorization of new malware – From HF_2
5. Fix of problems scanning certain files in system directories – From HF_1
6. Fix for loss of connectivity after malware disinfection involving LSP – From HF_1
7. Improved cloud-heuristic detection – From HF_1

Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta is finished. Version 1.0 is finally here!

First of many thanks to the millions of beta testers and specifically to those who have given us feedback and helped improve the product. We think we have fixed all the issues you have reported.

If you have any of the previous versions installed (Beta1, Beta2 or Beta3) do the following:
1- Uninstall your current version.
2- Reboot your computer.
3- Download version 1.0 from http://www.cloudantivirus.com and install.
4- If you already have an account from Beta3, you can use the same one. Otherwise the installer will prompt you to create a Cloud Antivirus account.

As a reminder, don’t forget to use the Panda Cloud Antivirus Technical Support Forum for posting any issues you might experience.

Thanks again for helping us create this great free antivirus !!!

   
Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta3 is finally available for download. Please visit Panda Cloud Antivirus’s new website at http://www.cloudantivirus.com to download this latest version.

Some of the most important and notable changes over the previous version are the following:

• New improved interface.
• New website design and services.
• New Collective Intelligence Real-time Activity Monitor.
• New Technical Support Forums.
• Fixed slowness of PC after install.
• Fixed most cases of scan stuck at X% and errors during scan.
• Fixed “Problems with Internet connectivity” popup message.
• Fixed BackgroundScan by deactivating many unnecessary operations.
• Improved performance based on cache optimization (much less CPU utilization).
• Improved performance based on memory management (less memory consumption).
• Improved management of Recycle Bin and restoration of disinfected objects.
• Improved quick scan option.

Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta3 introduces a new website at http://www.cloudantivirus.com where people are able to create accounts and use those credentials to login to their Panda Cloud Antivirus product instead of using license keys which need to be renewed every year. This allows users to access the online Support Forums and other Panda Cloud Antivirus services which we’re still building.