Panda Quick Stats:

Pricing:	1 Year:  $49.95 protection for 3 computers
Free Trial	Yes – you can Try it NOW for 30 Days Try NOW for 30 Days Free!
Virus Definition Updates:	Hourly
Proactive Detection Effectiveness:	Very Good
On Demand Detection Effectiveness:	Good
Over-all System Performance:	Good
Customer Service:	Free e-mail. Free phone support for multiple license owners.
More Info:	Make Sure to Compare Anti-Virus Software Providers for Additional Plan Statistics

Detailed Panda Review:

Founded in 1990, Panda Security is the world’s leading provider of cloud-based security solutions and was the first IT security company to harness the power of cloud computing with its Collective Intelligence technology. This innovative security model can automatically analyze and classify thousands of new malware samples per day, guaranteeing corporate customers and home users the most effective protection against Internet threats with minimum impact on PC performance.

Panda Likes:

Panda’s Collective Intelligence:One of the breakthroughs that Panda has introduced is their Collective Intelligence approach that was piloted in 2007. They have established a network of one hundred and fifty servers to carry off the load of malware identification allowing Panda to collect ten times as much malware as traditional antivirus vendors. The new Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 relies on this cloud-based “collective intelligence” to help identify malware and spam with maximum protection and minimum impact on your PC.

With Collective Intelligence your local PC no longer needs to be concerned with checking for, and downloading virus definition updates, thus reducing it’s bandwidth consumption and providing faster and more comprehensive up-to-date protection. It also dramatically reduces memory consumption and minimizes the impact on your PC. In fact, the local copy of Panda just sends a tiny checksum of the file to the servers. But the downside of collective intelligence is that it works only if you’ve got an open connection to the Internet during scanning.

TruPrevent Technology:TruPrevent technology, introduced in 2004, detects zero-day threats and blocks those that try to damage your PC, by silently analyzing the behavior of programs. With the advent of Collective Intelligence, TruPrevent now communicates with the collective intelligence servers when it runs across a suspicious file. With Panda Anti-virus Pro 2010, the new and improved TruPrevent 2.0 is now integrated with Panda’s Collective Intelligence platform, increasing the detection rate substantially while decreasing the amount of false positives. This last line of defence blocks zero-day targeted attacks and terminates any malicious activity that has evaded traditional protection systems.

Advanced Proactive Protection: This features new detection technologies that include generic signatures and remote heuristic scanning from the cloud. It also has a new and improved Genetic Heuristic Engine that combines advanced algorithms to detect new variants of the most dangerous malware families.

Anti-Banking Trojan Engine: This new feature from Panda’s 2010 version detects the most dangerous identity theft malware used by cyber-criminals to steal banking credentials. Specialized heuristics and generic detection techniques ensure maximum protection for online transactions.

Decent performance: One of the best things about the new Panda AntiVirus is its effects on your computer’s performance. Panda barely slowed down the process of zipping and unzipping a large collection of files. Even installing and uninstalling applications, Panda’s effects are barely noticeable. When it comes to boot duration, Panda only added about 35 seconds to the average boot time.

Panda USB Vaccine: This is a new feature that has been added to the newest version of Panda products that protects your USB drives from infection and automatically detects and eliminates viruses, spyware, Trojans, rootkits, bots and other malware before they infect your computer.

New Internet Scanning Support: With the previous version, Panda’s email scanning only supported Outlook and Outlook Express. With Panda Antivirus Pro 2010, it can scan Instant Messaging traffic in MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and AOL.

Panda DisLikes:

Slowed computers during scans: Although Panda performs decently during some functions, Panda AntiVirus tends to slow down your computer during an actual scan. Panda has a lot of features running to keep your PC safe, but we’ve found other antivirus applications that can do just as well with less system usage. Panda can eat up system resources when in scan mode! If you opt to scan your pc regularly or you chose to engage TruPrevent, Panda becomes a bit of a resource hog slowing down your computer considerably.

Limited phone support: Even though Panda offers FAQ pages, knowledge base, and email support, their phone support is limited only to those who purchased multiple licenses. They failed to consider the demands of the single license users.

Limited internet scanning support: Panda’s email scanning only supports Outlook and Outlook Express. This leaves other email services like Hotmail, Yahoo, and Thunderbird users unprotected. If you are not using Outlook, Panda isn’t going to do you any good.

Minimal development in the user interface: The look and feel of the main window may have been changed into a serene pastel appearance but once you get past that main window, some features of the new Panda are the same and most of the rest are very similar.

Limited certification from independent testing labs: It is a big plus for an AntiVirus if it has been certified by different independent testing labs. In Panda’s case, ICSA Labs hasn’t finished evaluating its new 2009 edition. Panda also doesn’t take part in Virus Bulletin’s VB100% testing and AV-Comparatives.org hasn’t tested Panda’s antivirus for a couple of years.

Unreliable malware protection: Even though Panda was able to spot malwares in our initial scan, physical variations in the malwares like renaming them allowed these malwares to slip through because collective intelligence had never seen them before. Furthermore, some of these malwares which installed onto our computer were not blocked by Panda and they managed to launch their malware processes. Regarding antiphising capabilities of Panda, it is better to leave its phishing protection turned off and use what’s already in the browser.

No parental control: It is unfortunate that Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 does not offer a parental control that can safeguard children’s internet usage.

Panda Bottom Line:

The new Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 has definitely improved its overall features with innovative and new detection technologies. The much improved Collective Intelligence is a proven solution; providing maximum effectiveness while being minimally invasive. The company estimates that the software will offer 80 percent faster overall performance, 60 percent faster Web-browsing speeds, and 40 percent faster downloading speeds compared to it’s previous versions. We would like to see Panda improve its malware protection and processes though.

Buy Panda Antivirus for only $49.95 and get up to 3 computers protected for that price!