Panda Cloud 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.

     
We have been circulating a limited Preview Release of Beta3 which supports Vista 64bit and Windows 7 (32 and 64bit). This Beta3 Preview only has additional platform support. No other functionality which is currently being developed for Beta3 is included yet in this Preview Release.

Basically we’re interested in getting as much feedback from the 64bit and Windows 7 community as possible. If you’re one of these guys or gals, we want to hear from you. Please send all feedback regarding this Preview Release to beta@pandasecurity.com or send your comments to this blog post.

Downloading
The download link is the following:
CloudAntivirus-Beta3-0.08.83-Preview.exe
EDIT: changed link to point to a more reliable server.

Installing
If you have a previous version of Panda Cloud Antivirus, you’ll need to manually uninstall that first, reboot and then install the Beta3 Preview.
Note: The Beta3 Preview can also be installed on XP/Vista 32bits, even though we’ve not tested it in these platoforms.

Workarounds
Remember that under x64 the registry entries for the different workarounds mentioned in this blog are different. They are the following:

Activating advanced logging:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodePanda SecurityPanda Service Host]
"tracePath"="C:\Logs_CloudAV"
"traceEnabled"="1"

Disabling BackgroundScan:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodePanda SecurityPanda Service Host]
"BackgroundDisabled"="-"

Enabling Exceptions:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodePanda SecurityPanda Service HostExceptions]
"CreateMiniDump"=dword:00000001
"ToMessageBox"=dword:00000001

Thanks to the millions who have downloaded and installed Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta1 (0.08.80) and sent feedback to help us improve the product before its final release. Today we’re releasing Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta2 (0.08.81).

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
1- Uninstall the Beta1 from Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. Reboot.
2- Download the Beta2 from http://www.cloudantivirus.com.
3- Install the Beta2.

BETA2 IMPROVEMENTS
We focused Beta2 on fixing the most important detection & disinfection aspects per feedback from the community. The following is a list of items that are either new or fixed in Beta2. If you have any doubts about any of them feel free to post your question as a comment.

New – “Undo” Option for Recycle Bin
Some users complained about the effect of the automated deletion of known malware. In some cases where users want these samples to not be deleted and/or in the case of false positives, there was no option to recover these files. A new option has been added with Beta2 to the Recycle Bin so users can recover deleted detections for a period of 3 days (configurable by CI). During this time period file icons will be changed to show that the file is quarantined in the Recycle Bin. NOTE: this does not apply to “disinfected” files, only to “deleted” files.

     

New – Synchronous Real-Time Cloud-Scan
Under some circumstances files being executed (directly from Internet download, from a read-only network share, etc.) were checked asynchronously against the cloud after the file was loaded into memory. This resulted in detection+disinfection actions to be taken after infection. With Beta2 we changed this behaviour to block the execution until a response has been received by Collective Intelligence. In the event that it is malware, the file will be deleted prior to allowing it to execute.

New – Latency & Response Control of the Cloud-Scanner
We deployed 10 sensors throughout America, Europe and Asia and have detected that 98.41% of the Collective Intelligence queries are responded to within 3 seconds. However, in the remaining cases there is not a control mechanism and if the response is not timely (because of connectivity issues, latency, proxy delays, etc.) then the program would be allowed to execute prior to receiving the response from Collective Intelligence. With the new response control mechanism, programs executing which take longer than 6 seconds to receive an answer from Collective Intelligence are put “on hold” for a second timeout period of 30 seconds after which the program is unblocked and allowed to execute (although it will continue being scanned asynchronously).

Fixed – Slow Scans
Right after installation Panda Cloud Antivirus launches a BackgroundScan of the entire PC to ensure it is clean. Some users reported that launching an On-Demand scan of the entire PC right after install slowed down the PC and/or caused the scan to take a long time. This bug was due to both the BackgroundScan and OnDemandScan running simultaneously. With Beta2 this is fixed by having the BackgroundScan automatically pause in case it detects an OnDemandScan being launched. Once the OnDemandScan is finished, the BackgroundScan will resumen where it left off.

Fixed – Recycle Bin Unblock Functionality
Under some circumstances and with certain types of malware, some users reported that unblocking a suspicious/potentially unwanted malware that was sent to the Recycle Bin, resulted in it being continuously detected over and over again. This has been fixed in Beta2.

Other Fixes

By the way, we’ll still release a Beta3 version prior to final release of Version 1.0. For Beta3 we’re already working on new platforms (Windows7, 64bits), improved features, a new website, a Collective Intelligence real-time encyclopedia and some additional things. Expect the Beta3 to be released around September.

Our folks from the marketing & pr department have made a cool video explaining Cloud Antivirus. Hope you like it