Panda Security 2015 solutions released

Panda Free seems to be one of the best free solutions at this time.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2463592,00.asp

 

Thanks a lot! great review. Now it'll be 2 choices I can give clients who want FREE, 360 TSE or Panda

 

Panda is really good free av, but it doesn't update automatically to newest version. My brother asked me to check his laptop and it had version 2.3.0 (it was released in october 2013) and i had to manually update it.

 

From what I've been told by the Panda mods on their own forum, eventually you should be given a choice to update Panda Free to the newest version.

 

ohh that's very bad because the people I would install it for know nothing about computers so that leaves them with an ancient AV by let's say 6 months from the time I fix their PC. I hope they get this sorted

 

I was informed an auto-update will be released soon.

 

I did not know this, thanks, I'll pass it on..

 

But before you pass anything ...



http://support.pandasecurity.com/fo...?&sid=d0f39cf26c9c687d5e607531bec0fc83#p15294

 

They keep saying that it will automatically update, but for me or anyone i know it never works.

I will keep using panda and update it manually when new versions come out.

 

Oh OK. Do you totally uninstall the old version and reinstall the new one?

 

I just start the installer of new version and it removes old version automatically. It's easier that way and if problems appear then i perform clean install.

 

OK thanks.

 

I've done some more testing with Panda Free AV and I'd say it's quite decent.

It has option to install toolbar, but with that, you will also get URL scanning done by "Panda Security URL filtering" that scans every page you visit. Adds extra layer of phishing/web malware/exploits protection.
User can uninstall toolbar stuff but keep the web scanning

Also, seems like turning off Panda News really turns off all popups and I hope it stays this way. User should have option to disable it if he/she is not interested in buying paid product.

When it comes to free AV choice, I'm recommending Panda No renewal, no nag screens. Just solid protection! + great performance.

 

For some reason Panda Cloud isn't as light as it should be (based on vendor claims). And I also hate the URL scanning component which is as dumb as technically possible. If they won't incorporate it properly in next major release it's not gonna be good. I don't get it why they have URL Monitor module and then not use i for this task. Seems very illogical.

 

What do you exactly mean about the URL monitor? Imo it's quite OK. It seems to be some sort of driver added to network adapter:
http://i.snag.gy/Wb3WG.jpg
That's why 15.1 had this in changelog

• Performance improvements in the network interceptor.

I don't like toolbars/that kind of stuff (extensions) for scanning at all. They are morally old and usually don't work.
I find it fairly light in terms of every day use. Startup seems to hammer HDD a bit (seen from W8.1 task manager) but I think it's like that with most of the AVs.

 

The URL Monitor does NOTHING except lists the accessed URL's. Pointless feature if it doesn't block malicious ones. Instead they rely on a 3rd party component that comes bundled with a toolbar. Kinda stupid...

 

You're quite not right here. Yes that URL monitor embedded to Process Monitor does nothing and both of them are useless. However, when you select the first option in installer, it will install driver that actually scans and blocks URLs (be it exploit/malware etc). The bad thing is that it comes with toolbar, but that can be removed without sacrificing protection.
You can see it in action here https://youtu.be/3mJT9GBlpWA?t=404

What I don't like about this URL/web scanner is that sometimes when it does not find the website or you wrote it wrong, it redirects to Yahoo search (with the page in search) ...

 

Any idea about the safe browsing feature in pro version compared to url filter in free version ? I like it because its integrated into the product. Panda free would be really great if it had the safe browsing feature.

 

I'm not quite sure. I think it serves the same purpose as web filter (my posted image) but it's nicely integrated into UI.

I suppose process monitor is more likely meant to track malware (where it came etc) to provide more information to cloud. I don't see it's benefits under any help file in any case (other than warning about suspicious processes which I find kinda old).

 

I have a old Dell laptop with a 1.6 MHz processor and 1.5 GB RAM an currently using Avast Free which runs fine. I previously used Avira Free but I find Avast is lighter and doesn't slow downloads or surfing.

I am interested in Panda Free, but wondering if it would be heavy on my system or if it would be even lighter than Avast.

Since it is cloud based, is it as safe as other AVs.

 

When my old laptop ran Vista (1.6 MHz, 1 GB RAM) Avast was OK but sometimes problematical. I found Panda lighter and simpler to use. Although that laptop now runs Linux I still use Panda Free on Win 7. I've never known a lighter AV than Panda. It has a very good detection rate.

 

Thank you for your experience which is helpful.

 

You're welcome.

 

I am wondering why Panda is not on the VB-100 RAP Averages Quadrant Chart for June-Dec 2014. See below:

https://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/rap-index

 

Bitdefender free is even lighter and detects just as well as Panda free.