Panda Free vs others

[Anti Vir]

I'm trying out Panda Free 2015, and it seems pretty good so far. I've been using Avast for years, but noticed that it seems to slow down my boot up. Also, the nagging popups are a bit annoying. Anyway, I see that the latest version of Panda has done very well in most reviews and independent tests. How do you think it compares to the other free products, particularly Bitdefender Free?

I would just buy an AV product, but they all seem to be yearly subscriptions. I'm not into that at all. Especially when there are good options for free.

 

[ifacedown]

BitDefender Free is not configurable, and not being updated. Panda Free 2015 is faster and has higher detection rates. If you want a solid Free AV, go for 360 Internet Security, but sometimes it has false positives. If you want a better one and a lighter one, which offers very good detection and very good web blocking, then ESET NOD32 or ESET Smart Security will do.

I dont know however if ESET offers a lifetime license or just a yearly subscription. Among all that I have tested, Emsisoft and ESET offer the best protection, but ESET is lighter and faster and has very small signature updates. But Emsisoft gets lighter the longer u use it (same with almost any AV).

If you like another tight free AV, another choice is Comodo. But, you have to configure it properly and it has lots of pop-ups.

 

[Jaspion]

Panda is a fine choice of antivirus, but only if you never need security while offline. Because if you have an unstable connection or if you are used to opening new files while offline, then Panda cannot be trusted as it is almost entirely cloud-based.

Bitdefender free is very easy to use, unless you need to manually scan files. BD free is extremely slow to perform manual scans, but on the bright side it can scan your computer when it is idle for your convenience.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware is a good replacement for Bitdefender. It has the same databases, they are up-to-date unlike most other BD clones, and the program works well.

About Baidu and 360. 360 has a big reputation among security enthusiasts, but I personally have seen far too many bugs (crashing when extracting viruses, real-time protection not working properly, etc) to consider it a solid choice. Baidu has been making strides in this respect and is working more smoothly than 360, which is shocking but that's that.

About data collection: Baidu, 360, Ad-Aware, etc have a choice to opt-out of data gathering. Some other antiviruses offer no such option. Then, it is a matter of choice and trust. For those who don't trust Chinese software, isn't it ironic that most hardware is made in China?

 

[Anti Vir]

Thanks for the replies. The online-only aspect of Panda does make me a little nervous, but then again, I'm pretty much always connected (unless there's an outage or something).

 

[Jaspion]

Thanks for the replies. The online-only aspect of Panda does make me a little nervous, but then again, I'm pretty much always connected (unless there's an outage or something).

You could install Ad-Aware alongside Panda. Or just Ad-Aware instead of Panda. But if you choose both, then Ad-Aware can be installed in compatibility mode, and you will then have always up-to-date Bitdefender databases to do scans whenever you need.

 

[jamescv7]

Panda Cloud AV Free is fine and been develop through many years where the cloud abilities before suffer lots of problem.

But its better for having a combination both offlne and online protection matters.

 

[Anti Vir]

Panda Cloud AV Free is fine and been develop through many years where the cloud abilities before suffer lots of problem.

But its better for having a combination both offlne and online protection matters.

So far, so good. My boot times are better and my system seems to be running smoothly. I like that Panda has some options, but it's not overdone with a lot of useless stuff, like some of the other programs. I also run the free version of MalwareBytes, so I think between these two programs, I'm fairly well covered. I'm usually pretty careful about opening attachments, downloading suspicious things, etc.

 

[Paul B.]

Panda Free is no longer cloud-based, it's cloud-enhanced. It uses the same engine as the paid version, and involves a full download of signatures so it can run independent of the internet.

I switched from MSE to Panda several months ago, when I concluded that MSE was getting more and more obtrusive. Since I work on a lot of netbooks and entry-level laptops, I needed something more lightweight. I've been very happy with Panda. It seems to be effective and light. It does spyware, and URL and phishing protection if installed correctly, and its nags can be turned off.

 

[Jaspion]

Panda Free is no longer cloud-based, it's cloud-enhanced. It uses the same engine as the paid version, and involves a full download of signatures so it can run independent of the internet.

I switched from MSE to Panda several months ago, when I concluded that MSE was getting more and more obtrusive. Since I work on a lot of netbooks and entry-level laptops, I needed something more lightweight. I've been very happy with Panda. It seems to be effective and light. It does spyware, and URL and phishing protection if installed correctly, and its nags can be turned off.

My latest test with Panda Free scanning (not running) a 1-year-old malware pack showed a drop from approximately 99% detection rate online to 35% offline. Hardly just cloud-enhanced. @Paul B. do you think Panda would have detected those missed offline if they had been run while still offline?

 

[Paul B.]

I can't explain that. They say the same engine is being used. I have some 37MB of sigs downloaded in Program Data. This would be a good question to take up with them.