I have often recommended Pandas security suite, among others, to those who may ask my opinion. However, Panda seems to have been slipping down the AV rankings as of late, with Norton, McAfee, and Kaspersky heading things up. In an interesting, and perhaps enlightened move, Panda has released a cloud AV that is free to download and use. A similar tactic to AVG, hoping you will buy their full product if the AV does a good job.
What makes Pandas free antivirus different and interesting is that all the AV signatures are in the cloud, so the computer does not need to download, or indeed carry any AV signatures on the PC. Panda claim that this is beneficial for a few reasons. Firstly, there is now no limit to the number of signatures you can have, increasing the chance of possible detection, and as an added bonus, the footprint will never get any bigger. Secondly, Panda tout what they call C.I. or cloud intelligence. This means that when new threats are detected on one PC, the AV can fire off information about the malware to Panda, who can analyse, and create signatures for everyone else connected to the cloud. Panda claims this can be done in a staggering six minutes. And this brings me to the third point, the more people that are connected, the more comprehensive the protection. At least this is the theory.
Panda has also put some thought into the client that lives, and does the scanning legwork, on your PC. They have tried to keep it as small and efficient as possible, not to mention unobtrusive. One of the ways they have achieved this is by applying some intelligent scanning techniques. Panda gives files a threat priority, with files that are being executed given the highest level, files about to be executed being given a the second level of attention, and files sitting on the disk not doing anything given the least attention. This way, the AV can concentrate on the most likely source of infection, without causing to bigger hit on performance.
The whole idea seems pretty good, and having run the software on a test machine, it does seem to be quite light on resources. I had a few concerns, such as how the whole thing works if you are not connected to the cloud, also, although it detected my test virus, it left it on the desktop. I would not have minded that much had it not told me I needed to restart my machine so it could be deleted. And before you decide it will be the perfect accompaniment to your newly installed W7 RC, it won’t because it does not install on W7.
Before we can be too judgemental about Pandas new AV, remember that it is a beta software, so any little issues may well be ironed out. To me this a promising technology, but I feel that I need a little more convincing before it protects any machines dear to me. One of the acid tests, are the ever quick to catch on competitors, and if they start to offer a similar product, you know Pander are on to a good thing. So keep tabs on this, as it may just be the next thing in AV. If you want to give it a try you can get it here.
