Bitdefender Free vs. Panda Free (2017)

Rolo

Level 18
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Jun 14, 2015
857
After eliminating other free products (Avast, too many false-positives and nags; AVG, poor detection and lousy performance; Avira, nags; Qihoo, way too many false-positives), I'm down to two.

Bitdefender stepped up its free product but Panda is still touting their performance from 2 years ago and fell off the testing lab reports.

How do the two compare in regards to:
  • Detection rates
  • Low-performance impact
  • Reasonable false-positives, should be rare
  • NO nags. Zero. Nada. None. Zilch.
  • NO forcing browser changes (search engines, homepages) or toolbars
  • Gaming compatibility
  • Additional attack surface coverage

This is for my (and wife's) Windows 10 machines. I'm looking for the lesser overhead/hassle product for the desktops, laptop, and Surface and the better mitigator for the sheep-dip virtual machine.

Thanks in advance for any input!
 

roger_m

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Dec 4, 2014
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For detection rates, I think Bitdefender may do slight better based on my limited testing. But, I have not done enough testing to give an accurate opition.

I have found Panda to be extremely light. Some performance tests have shown different results, but based on my usage, it it one of the lightest antivirus I have used.

In the past, I have found Bitdefender to be too heavy for liking (although other have found it to be light). When I recently breifly tested the 2017 free version, I did find it to be light. However, I did not test it for long enough to get an accurate idea. A major issue I had, was that when I launched some installers of PUPs which had been detected when I did scans, Bitdefender let them run without promting me first. Perhaps it was just an issue with my computer, but it is worrying nonetheless.

Panda has not given me any false positives as of yet, and I have a lot of installers on my computer. I think false positives are very minimal with Bitdefender too.

The free version of of Panda, by default will give a lot of popups to try and get to you to upgrade to a paid version, but it's easy to disable the popups. Sadly, you can't do the same with paid versions. I'm using a trial of Panda Internet Security, and I get plenty of prompts encouraging me to buy the full version. But, there's no way I would even consider doing until the trial expires, in case I decide to ditch Panda before them. I believe the free version of Bitdefender is nag free.
 

Pat MacKnife

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Jul 14, 2015
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Bitdefender has a small edge over panda _ Detection/protection wise , you have active threat control (behaviour blocker), better signatures etc. No popups, no nags.

●Active Threat Control for checking and detecting programs with suspicious activities.
●On-access scanning for real-time scanning of all accessed files.
●On-demand scanning for scanning files or folders at your request.
●Web Protection for detecting and blocking malicious webpages

I'm using BD free on 4 computers.
 
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Parsh

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Dec 27, 2016
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You've picked two great AVs based on your mentioned requirement of lightness and less headaches.
Yet, I would say that Panda got here only because of low FPs (and cloud), otherwise it has little weaker protection than some other free ones out there.
So you can put your bet on BD.

Protection capabilities - BD > Pa
Detection and remediation rates - BD >> Pa
False-positive rates - can't say exactly, but BD does have some FPs because of the ATC
Performance - both are good, but Panda cloud scans may take long time
Nags - Panda does have popups as mentioned above
Bloat - effectively both are good, BD being super light
 
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Andy Ful

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Dec 23, 2014
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BD free is OK. The only thing people complained about, was quarantine management.
 
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giants8058

Level 4
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Jan 26, 2016
150
Went with Bitdefender free, but there are better options out there. The GUI and options are very limited, but Panda free has completely crashed my system in the past.
 
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Rolo

Level 18
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Jun 14, 2015
857
After trying Panda for a week, I switched to Bitdefender.

I had originally put Bitdefender on my laptop and a VM and Panda on my desktop.

Panda has problems:
  • Can't complete on-demand scans when archive/compressed files option is enabled
    • Disabling it is the official "fix" (that's a workaround, not a fix)
    • I have to wonder if real-time scanning is broken the same way; it just stops scanning with no indication whatsoever
  • URL scanner slows down Internet traffic and, with a lot of connections, will bring your network and PC to its knees
    • I have 24GB RAM, Panda's URL filter committed 32GB! ( ResMon cap: https://i.imgur.com/X37mMuW.png )
    • It pegged one CPU core, so it doesn't appear to be multithreaded
    • Zemana flagged it as a PUP; it seems there may be a marketing angle to it (I don't mind that; I mind crippling performance)
  • Windows Defender didn't turn off after installation
    • Turning it off manually worked fine
    • It doesn't leave for much confidence at first impression
    • It may not be Panda's fault: I am be getting "Some settings are managed by your organization" even though no group policies are set
With the Avast 2017 1-year trial giveaway, I put that on my VM and have BD on my desktop and laptop and haven't had an issue doing what broke Panda.

Thanks, everyone, for your input.
 

giants8058

Level 4
Verified
Jan 26, 2016
150
After trying Panda for a week, I switched to Bitdefender.

I had originally put Bitdefender on my laptop and a VM and Panda on my desktop.

Panda has problems:
  • Can't complete on-demand scans when archive/compressed files option is enabled
    • Disabling it is the official "fix" (that's a workaround, not a fix)
    • I have to wonder if real-time scanning is broken the same way; it just stops scanning with no indication whatsoever
  • URL scanner slows down Internet traffic and, with a lot of connections, will bring your network and PC to its knees
    • I have 24GB RAM, Panda's URL filter committed 32GB! ( ResMon cap: https://i.imgur.com/X37mMuW.png )
    • It pegged one CPU core, so it doesn't appear to be multithreaded
    • Zemana flagged it as a PUP; it seems there may be a marketing angle to it (I don't mind that; I mind crippling performance)
  • Windows Defender didn't turn off after installation
    • Turning it off manually worked fine
    • It doesn't leave for much confidence at first impression
    • It may not be Panda's fault: I am be getting "Some settings are managed by your organization" even though no group policies are set
With the Avast 2017 1-year trial giveaway, I put that on my VM and have BD on my desktop and laptop and haven't had an issue doing what broke Panda.

Thanks, everyone, for your input.
Craziest thing happened the other day. I figured I would try to give Panda a shot again and see if they got the bugs worked out. So I went with the portable version to be on the safe side, and once I started it, my system immediately froze. Nothing worked. I couldn't get to task manager, couldn't click on anything..the mouse wouldn't even move, so I did a hard reset. When it came back on, after the splash screen it was saying preparing desktop. So I'm like wth. When the desktop finally appeared everything was gone. All my files including documents, pictures, videos, and desktop layout was all gone. It was as if I just did a fresh install. I couldn't believe it. Luckily I was able to revert back to a restore point and everything came back, which is strange since restore points don't include files. But after that, I will never touch another Panda product again. I have had issues on two separate systems with them, but never like this. It's usually a system lock up. Very strange.
 

Cortex

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Aug 4, 2016
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Despite have licenses for ESET SS & Trend, i gave Panda Free a try a few months back & was so pleased I bought a multiple licence for the 'Anti-Virus Pro' so run it daily for several months 15+ hours a day - Very pleased with it with bells on. I'm not sure how the speed of your internet connection has on the performance of Panda but I'm on a reasonably fast fibre connection & had zero issues with it. Frankly IMHO I'm getting a bit fed up of the endless additions to some of the Internet Security programs where better detection against the likes of Ransomware should be addressed more fully. I also run with it Zamana AM & HMP.Alert with AppGuard & this PC flies along with never any lag.
 

monkeylove

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Mar 9, 2014
491
I've been using BF for all machines until one using Win 7 experienced problems, i.e., BF wouldn't turn on, and the whole system slowed down. The same thing happened even after I did a uninstall and clean uninstall, and reinstalled the antivirus. I had to install another AV, so I used Panda.
 
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TairikuOkami

Level 35
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Content Creator
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May 13, 2017
2,452
Based on your demands, Panda only, since it has no nags, they can be turned off, unlike in Bitdefender, which displays huge ADs.
As for everything else, they are comparable, though Panda has got a slightly better performance and detection, since it is cloud only.

Uncheck Install Panda Safe Web
Settings - General - Disable Panda news
Settings - Antivirus - Block files for 10 seconds (so it would not hang them for too long)/Disable show warning (for no notifications)/Process Monitor - Disable both

EDIT: P.S.: You might consider using AV, which uses Bitdefender signatures, but has got none of its flaws, like Tencent PC Manager_for_Global-home page
 
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