Panda Cloud Antivirus - Version 1.0 Final Released

Pbust, Its great you here to answer all the questions of users. My antivirus license expires 19-12-2009 and then I will test Panda again

 

I had problems on two Vista laptops with high CPU usage for a long time after reboot ( up to 10-15 minutes).

Carried out a fresh install about 6 days ago but this time carried out a FULL scan before I rebooted. Voila, no more intensive hard-disk thrashing.

So the only difference between now and previous Panda Cloud installs was that this time I carried out a full scan before rebooting. Previously I either carried out just the quick scan or aborted the full scan before completion.

So maybe the full scan after install will solve other users problems with the high CPU usage. Worth a shot.

 

Panda has been working well for me the last few days. Pleasantly surprised.

 

I recall you saying that after the initial installation PCAV will take some time to scan and build a "clean" list. Does PCAV ever run a Full Scan behind the scenes or is it essential that you do that after each install?

 

During Beta1 and Beta2 there was a low priority thread BackgroundScan in charge of this. We minimized this for Beta3 and finally took it out of version 1.0 because of the effect of it with synchronous cloud-scanning. The building of the clean list gets done as you use it for some time, but you can force it to be done faster if you just perform the quick or full scan.

 

But presumably, the FULL scan builds up the list much faster?

 

After install, does PCAV ask the user to connect to the Internet and perform a quick/full scan? If not, add that to the next version and explain why a scan is needed.

 

Correct

This is exactly what we had in mind for version 1.0 to replace the BackgroundScan, but run out of time to do it

 

pbust, I came home to my main pc and noticed the system was was very sluggish. In addition programs were crashing as you tried to open them. I was also greeted by a PSANToManager.exe error message. After I pulled up task manager and ended the PCAV processes my system was back to normal. Any ideas?

XPP SP3 w/ 2GB DDR & 4GB pagefile, XP Firewall, Prevx 3

 

I'll PM you some instructions to find the root of the problem if you don't mind.

 

well i tried this on 2 of my clients computers that were having a bit of a problem with avg. Both did not like it.
First one was running on xp home sp3 one vista sp1
on xp home it had the same problem like my xp pro sp3. It took 11hours to do a full scan. On vista it took 15hours

On both computers it used over 85-95% cpu when scanning and they could not do anything else while it scanned.

A quick scan on xp took 2 hours and vista about 3.
AVG stopped working on both computers because it was user fault. Both of them accidently constantly shut down the computer and did not realize it was doing a scan. I had tried MSE on xp but it slowed the computer down to a crawl. On Vista it was having a problem updating but that is a problem in some computers now with MSE. I have MSE on another xp home media center computer and it does fine, go figure.

Another problem is they both reported to me they do not like the fact that it doesn't tell you when it does its updates nor tells you when you did a scan.

I cannot fault them because it was doing the same thing on my computer that i tested it on.

So until things change with the next upgrade and I can re test it I had no choice but to remove it on all 3 computers.

I downloaded and installed Avast free version and so far find it very light on resources and when doing a full scan it took 2 hours on mine and 3 hours on theirs.

robin

 

Is there anyway to force install of Panda even i had Norton / Symantec installed?

I have disabled all Symantec Component, but i am not allowed to uninstall it due to restrictions.

 

Whose restrictions?

 

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I'm curious about the hardware. Can you list the CPU, Ram, and amount of data on the hard drives of the two machines?

 

Good Evening ! Been using Cloud A/V for the last 48hrs. no problems whatsoever, a breeze to install, and configure, mind you not a lot to configure. I'm impressed with the lack of bloat everything light and nimble. Having just used G-Data I.S.2010 a massive download, the comparison isn't apples to apples. I'm using P.C.Tools Firewall Plus and Prevx 3.0 in real time. Everything about Panda Cloud is impressive, it might very well be a keeper. Sincerely...Securon

 

Nice that it is light and has no bloat, but every test that I see of Pända cloud on YouTube is devestating for the product. Panda scores terrible in real life tests, go and see for yourself. I find that more important than bloat or speed of a program. I don´t use G-data by the way...

 

Are you talking about Panda products(PAV,PIS,PGP) because they have good detection and much better against unknown malwares.

 

I really thought I wrote about how Panda CLOUD behaved in the test at YouTube. But go see for yourself. I agree with the fact that Panda overall has good detection rates. But CLOUD seems to be a bridge too far. It doesn't help a PC owner in keeping the nasties out of the door. That's what the YouTube test show from...let me stress it out: CLOUD. I don't know about their other products.

 

Hopefully, most knowledgeable users would not use YouTube to decide their choice of security programs.

Okay, it seems to score low in these "tests" but it appears to do well in others carried out at both PC Magazine and by AV-Test.org for PC World.

So, we now have conflicting reports but I would prefer to believe the test by AV-Test.org which used over half a million samples compared to the very small malware sample size over on YouTube.

But as it still has not been tested regularly at renowned AV testing sites, its true detection capabilities are as yet unknown.

Overall, being only at version 1.0, PCAV is not yet a mature product, and it still has some bugs and other improvements to be made. However, IMHO, it is a promising product and is worth trying, particularly as part of a layered defense.

 

Nice. But the Panda Cloud software is tested by many YouTube tester who are very reliable. They used all different nasties against it. And although smal in amount: that is what people encounter whil ebeing on the PC at not-so-good websites.

The tests from PC Magazine and the other PC magazine can be bought, don't forget that. It's very strange that real-online tests show that Panda Cloud is not good in detection and removal. And then on the other hand the company with it's budget for advertising in magazine tests.

I think it's much better if people stop believing magazine tests. They have something to lose, the online testers not.

 

100% agree

 

The problem with youtube tests, is that although it's a small sample, you have to weigh up whether the 10 samples (using 10 as an example) are circulating and will affect users.

For example, you could find 10 viruses that get through program 'X' defences, and another program that catches all the malicious files. But program X might be better at protecting users against what is actually circulating and available for download.

It's difficult to determine how effective a program is unless tested with a large number of samples. I used to think, if you knew the number of people who used a certain program, and analysed how many were affected by viruses (eg. Norton - 20 per cent), and weigh up the proportion of users from another program who were affected by viruses (eg. McAfee - 30 per cent). You could say the former program provided better protection, but then again, how do you determine the proportion of 'risky users'. The latter program might have more high-risk users who download games, adult material, used in high risk environments where people share files (corporate) workplaces, visit country websites that host more malicious files etc.

It's tough, that's why I think AV-comparatives testing is important, it's thorough and uses circulating/available samples. But I respect panda, if they are using new technology, and this isn't being tested at the moment, then as a user, you'd have to assess the number of people on forums who have the installed product and have been affected or experienced problems (best you can do to form your own opinion - or assess the PC Magazine tests etc). From my experience, I haven't seen any more complaints from users with panda, no more or less than any other leading program. In my opinion, I think it is doing well.

 

I agree with Saraceno here.
Just because AV X misses 10 malware it doesn't mean its bad. It might probably catch the 100 next malware you throw at it. While a competing product may catch 10 urls and miss the next 100.
Also many of the Youtube reviewers choice of malware is bordering greyware. Such software may be detected as dangerous by some and not by others. PUAs can't be the basis, you need to have a large sample set of true malware to pass judgment.

My advice, do your own test. The software and the URLs are available quiet easily. Test for your own hearts contention to see if the AV X or Y does what it claims.

 

Just to be clear, we have not paid for any PC Magazine or PC World or any other magazine tests... ever!

Tests from AV-Test, AV-Comparatives, PCSL and others similar are, IMHO, the best ones out there as they test more amount of technologies in the product with large enough testbed to make results statistically valid. Also these tests take samples from a variety of sources and take into consideration prevalence.

Tests with very few testbed samples are not statistically valid for anything other than wasting bandwidth. Conclusions based on tests of 10 samples, when there are literally over 60.000 new variants being pumped out every day, are useless.

 

Totally agree with pbust these tests are entertaining but of little real world use.