Panda Cloud Antivirus

We are extremely happy to announce that after many years we have started participating again in the VB100 tests. We have not done so before mainly because their testing methodology did not consider cloud-scanning. But they have recently implemented cloud-scanning in their test methodologies and we started participating again.

VB100 certification is granted to products that prove a 100% detection rate for malware samples listed as “In the Wild” by the WildList Organization. To display a VB100 logo, a product must generate no false positives when scanning an extensive set of goodware samples. The comparative review was conducted on a system running Windows 7 Professional. Testing was made up of three main parts: on-demand tests, on-access tests, and false positive tests. Panda Cloud Antivirus Pro obtained a 100% perfect result in the on-demand and on-access tests, as well as zero false positives.

Additionally, Panda Cloud Antivirus Pro recorded an installation time of 30 seconds, the fastest of all tested products. Virus Bulletin also praised the product’s interface and ease of use.

More information at http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/test?recent=1

Being the first free cloud-based antivirus, we sometimes read people’s comments and posts about Panda Cloud Antivirus requiring an active Internet connection to be effective. While we’ve always said that this is not the case due to the way we’ve architectured the cloud-based protection, these comments are sometimes still posted by people who are not familiar with the product.

AV-Comparatives.org just released the results of their “Retrospective Test” which basically freezes AV products without allowing them to update their signatures nor connect to cloud-based scanning services, and tests them against new viruses.

While the concept of testing against Internet-enabled viruses without Internet connectivity is somewhat unrealistic, we are happy to announce that even without Internet connectivity Panda Cloud Antivirus achieved the highest rating “Advanced+” given by AV-Comparatives.org. Even without Internet connectivity Panda Cloud Antivirus provided better offline detection than non-cloud free products from Avira, AVG and Microsoft.

Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 is finally here!!!

After a really long beta with over 165.000 active beta testers from over 176 countries we are happy to announce that Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0, the first free cloud antivirus, is finally available for download.

The main new features which Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 incorporates over the existing 1.5.2 version are the following:

• Community-based firewall (pro edition only).
• New cloud-based disinfection engine.
• New behavioral analysis engine in the free edition.
• Improved offline protection.
• Process monitor allows seeing Internet connections on a per process basis.
• Improved performance and 50% faster scans.
• New advanced configuration options such as asking for confirmation before neutralizing.
• Compatibility with Windows 8.
• New interface.
• Ability to manage different licenses.

Finally Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 incorporates dozens of bug fixes and minor improvements suggested by all of you and by our strong community of testers and bug reporters at the Panda Cloud Antivirus Support Forum.

How to get a free Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 PRO Edition license key

We are so excited with this new Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 that we are giving away free licenses!!!

First off if you have the beta 1.9.2 installed you will be automatically upgraded to Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 Free Edition. As our thanks to you for helping us during the beta testing period we will be sending out PRO license keys to active beta-testers.

If you don’t have the beta installed that’s OK too. We have partnered with the great guys and gals over at www.download.com and they are giving away 5.000 Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 PRO Edition license keys. Hurry up and get yours before they run out of them!

How to install Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0

If you already have an existing version of Panda Cloud Antivirus you don’t need to do anything. The new Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 will automatically upgrade your existing version.

All existing Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2 and beta versions (1.9.2) both in Free and Pro Editions will upgrade automatically and transparently to the new Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0. This might take a few days as we are deploying the upgrade progressively.

If you don’t want to wait for the automatic and transparent upgrade you can head over to www.cloudantivirus.com right now and download the new 2.0 version and install it on top of your existing Panda Cloud Antivirus.

If you are reading this because you saw a “Panda Cloud Antivirus has automatically upgraded” message from your traybar, then you already have the latest 2.0 version.

Again our most sincere thanks to all the users worldwide who have helped us develop this great cloud antivirus. As always you can find us at the Support Forum in case you have any questions, problems or simply want to talk to us.

With over 140.000 active beta testers of version 1.9.1 (!!!) and after a long wait Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta 1.9.2 is finally here. This new beta release incorporates not only a lot of bug fixes as reported by the large beta community but also new features such as a new firewall platform and intrusion detection system. This new beta version includes better malware disinfection capabilities and even lower impact on system performance. Last but not least Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta 1.9.2 is compatible with the recently released Windows 8 Release Preview.

If you have the previous Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta 1.9.1 installed this new beta version 1.9.2 will be upgraded automatically for you. We will release the automatic upgrade in a controlled manner over the period of approximately one week. So there is nothing for you to do, simply sit back and let Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta upgrade itself. If you have a Home or Started Edition Operating System you might see a prompt to reboot. Other than that the upgrade is completely transparent.

Some of the most notable changes implemented for 1.9.2 are the following:

• New firewall platform for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
• Intrusion Detection System protection against network attacks.
• Ability to adapt firewall behaviour by zones.
• Registration of the firewall component in the Windows Security Center.
• Deactivation/activation of the built-in Windows Firewall when the Panda Cloud Antivirus firewall is activated/deactivated.
• New technologies for improved malware disinfection.
• Improved detection of in-memory malware.
• Improved disinfection of packed/compressed malware.
• Improved quarantine management.
• Process monitor without the URL monitoring.
• Activity monitor in the main interface window.
• Last detection show in the main interface window.
• Added advanced configuration to enable/disable detection of potentially unwanted programs.
• Added advanced configuration to enable/disable background scan after cache synchronization.
• Added advanced configuration to enable/disable on-demand scan within compressed archives.
• Added advanced configuration to exclude elements by extension.
• Improved scanning architecture and integration with Quarantine and memory scanning module.
• Integrated new toolbar with Google search instead of Yahoo.
• Button to hide the promotional banners shown in the main interface.
• Improved integration with the Windows Security Center for the antivirus component.
• Improved integration with Collective Intelligence of unknown and new malware samples.
• Performance improvement to lower system impact when treating files within Explorer and Recycle Bin.

If you don’t want to wait for the automatic upgrade you can manually install Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.9.2 by downloading it directly from http://acs.pandasoftware.com/cloudantivirus/beta19/PandaCloudAntivirus.exe. As always you can provide feedback, send us suggestions and discuss with our QA Department about this beta version in our Beta Support Forum.

It is impressive that over 140.000 beta testers have helped us improve the product so much over the last year. Again our most sincere “THANK YOU” to all our beta users and hope you enjoy this new 1.9.2. We promise this new beta won’t be as long as the 1.9.1 beta and very soon we will all be able to enjoy the final Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 release

AV-Test.org has released their March/April Full Product Tests results. They can be seen online at http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/marapr-2012/.

We are happy to announce that Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2 has achieved the highest score in  usability.

“Panda Cloud Antivirus is one of the fastest (lightest) products we’ve ever tested. Even then, the product offered a stellar protection against all kinds of malware and it performed very well in our 0day testing. Panda Cloud Antivirus offers a stellar protection against malware attacks, and it ranked higher than some paid Internet Security offerings from other vendors. We congratulate Panda for their high ranks in our comprehensive tests!” Andreas Marx, CEO AV-Test.org.

The usability section of the test looks at, among other things, an antivirus product’s ability to not slow down the computer during daily, normal use. In this section of the test Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2 achieved a score of 7 while the average of all antivirus products tested was a 10 (the lower the better). The “slowest” product achieved a score of 15.

Another section of the usability testing looks at false positives or false detections of legitimate software as malware during a system scan. Over half a million known good files were tested and Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2 only reported 3 as malware. That’s a 0.0006% false positive rate. The average of all products tested was 10 false positives (0.002%) and the product with the most false positives had 43 (0.01%).

Finally AV-Test.org also looks at false warnings or false blockings of certain actions during download, installation and use of legitimate software. In this test Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2 performed flawlessly with 0 false warnings, while the worse offender had 5 false warnings.

We are very happy with these results as they validate the main benefit of lightness and ease of use of Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2, which were the main objective we had in mind when developing this product.

Of course protection and repair are also very important parts of the tests. In this respect Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2 performed very well also, achieving a 5.0 protection score as compared to other free antivirus such as Avast (4.5) and Microsoft Security Essentials (3.0). In repair we did not do as good a job as we should have. Even though Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2 still achieved a respectable 4.0 which is ahead of Avast’s 3.0, we are not happy with these results and are working very hard to improve this metric with the new Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 which will be released this year.

AV-Comparatives has released their On-Demand antivirus test and we are happy to report that Panda Cloud Antivirus has achieved the top ranking of ADVANCED+.

The test compared Panda Cloud Antivirus to 19 other antivirus programs. Panda Cloud Antivirus successfully detected 98.6 percent of the more than 300,000 samples used by AV-Comparatives.org, performing better than free solutions from Avast, AVG and Microsoft and paid programs from Eset or Trend Micro, and reinforcing the product’s powerful protection capabilities.

The AV-Comparatives.org tests also examined false positives, which the lab recommends people consider when evaluating products as they can sometimes cause as much trouble as real infections. Panda only reported 10 whereas other antivirus solutions reported 54 false positives on average. The full report is available at http://www.av-comparatives.org/en/comparativesreviews/detection-test

We are happy to announce that AV-Test.org recently released their independent testing results of their latest January/February 2012 test runs. These tests put antivirus and security products through a thorough real-world testing scenario which is broken down in three big areas: Protection, Repair and Usability.

The results couldn’t be much better for Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.1 as we outscored all other free antivirus products tested (and many of the paid and full suites!). Thanks to all our users who are providing feedback in our Support Forum to help us make The Best Free Antivirus!

We are happy to announce the availability of Panda Cloud Antivirus version 1.5.2. 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 and you don’t have to do anything else. In case you are interested you can read about the fixes introduced in this version in this blog post. If your version of Panda Cloud Antivirus hasn’t upgraded yet to version 1.5.2 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 1.5.2 is a maintenance upgrade from version 1.5.1 which fixes some bugs reported by the user community. The bug fixes included are the following:

• Improved on-demand scanning speeds, specially under Windows 7.
• Improved integration with Collective Intelligence backend to obtain new malware variants even faster.
• New toolbar version 3.0 with Google search instead of Yahoo search.
• Fixed slowdowns while deleting files from the computer.
• Fixed BSOD under certain conditions when unloading one of the Panda drivers.
• Fixed synchronization erros (same as already released hotfix).
• Fixed issues scanning certain type of folders (as reported by AV-Comparatives)
• Fixed upgrade notification popup showing up every 20 minutes.
• Fixed problem of certain auxiliary files being written to the root of the drive when ProgramData directory could not be found.
• Fixed disinfection problem under certain conditions on malware running in memory.
• Fixed problem under certain situations when a malware detected without Internet connectivity was not recorded in the event report.
• Fixed problems disinfecting certain malware with specific format and characteristics.

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.

WinDefend, our newest Junior Moderator has posted a giveaway of 2-year PRO License Keys for 5 lucky users after we hit our 20.000 fan mark at our facebook page over at www.facebook.com/cloudantivirus.

Check it out:
http://www.cloudantivirus.com/forum/thread.jspa?threadID=62106&tstart=0

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/