Panda Cloud Antivirus

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.

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!

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/

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.