Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0 review

Panda Cloud Antivirus is a unique entry in the free antivirus race. Most free antivirus products still rely on signature updates to detect new malware, but Panda's program instead uses fresh data about malware direct from Panda's servers.
Panda Cloud Antivirus put up some excellent results in some malware detection tests, but its scan speeds were slower than we would have liked to see.
Installation and setup for Cloud Antivirus is simple and straightforward: You have to click through only one screen before it starts installing, though I found that it asked to install a browser toolbar.
Upon installation, it'll ask you whether you want to use the free or "pro" (paid) edition of Cloud Antivirus.
Panda Cloud Antivirus's main interface is really simple: The main window has only four tabs that run across the top, one for the status screen, plus tabs for the scanner, the scan report and the recycle bin (where neutralised files live, Cloud Antivirus lets you recover files in case it neutralises something you wanted to keep).
When you first open Cloud Antivirus, you are presented with a status indicator (a green checkmark if all is well, or a red X if something needs your attention) and a short description of your PC's protection status. The settings pane is equally simple, press the settings icon in the lower right corner to open it, but some of its wording could be more helpful.
Malware tests
While Panda Cloud Antivirus doesn't use signatures in the classic sense, it still aced our tests for traditional signature-based scanning and detection methods. It detected 99.8 percent of samples in this test, the highest score among the free antivirus products we looked at.
Cloud Antivirus 1.0 struggled some at blocking actual, live malware attacks from malicious websites or emails: It completely blocked 68 percent of attacks, one of the lower scores in this test, and partially blocked an additional 20 percent.
Note: Panda recently released Cloud Antivirus 1.3, which the company says should improve its blocking of such attacks. We don't yet have test results for the new version of Cloud Antivirus, but when we do we'll update this review.
When it came time to clean up infections, Panda Cloud Antivirus did a good, but not outstanding, job. It detected all test infections and was able to disinfect all active components of an infection 60 percent of the time. The free antivirus software we looked at removed 68 percent of active components, on average, and no product managed a cleanup rate of over 80 percent.
In addition, Cloud Antivirus removed all components of an infection, including Registry keys and other bits and pieces, 50 percent of the time, which was the best showing among the free products we looked at.
Scan speeds, though, lagged well behind the pack. Cloud Antivirus completed a manual (on-demand) scan of 4.5GB of files in 5 minutes and 10 seconds, the slowest time recorded in this test. It also fared poorly in on-access scan tests, which shows how well it can scan files as they're opened or saved to disk: It scanned 4.5GB of files in 5 minutes and 38 seconds, a mere three seconds ahead of the the last place finisher.
And although its impact on overall PC performance was fairly limited relative to other free antivirus products, Cloud Antivirus significantly slowed startup and shutdown times in our tests. It added over 11 seconds to startup time compared to a PC without antivirus software installed (the average free antivirus product added around 6 seconds to startup time), and over 17 seconds to shutdown time (the average antivirus product added around 13 seconds to shutdown time).

Panda Cloud Antivirus wins 2010 Best Security Software Award from PCWorld Latin America

Panda Security’s cloud-managed security solution takes top honors in the security software category, among 220 nominees and 105 finalists from 33 companies competing in 28 categories

Panda Cloud Antivirus, the first free, cloud-based antivirus has won the 2010 Best Security Software Award from the prestigious PCWorld Latin America magazine. The award jury was made up of members of the magazine staff. The award was received by Juan Santana, Panda Security CEO, in a gala held on November 12 in Miami.

This edition of the awards saw the magazine receive 220 nominations from 33 companies, and the Best Security Software category was one of the most popular. Panda Cloud Antivirus, won in its category over Kaspersky Internet Security 2011, TrustPort Antivirus USB 2010, SymantecProtection Suite Advanced Business Edition and Websense Web, Data and Messaging Security.

According to Santana, “Panda Cloud Antivirus is one of Panda’s strategic solutions. It represents a huge step forward technology-wise to keep our users protected almost in real time against the 63,000 new malware strains that appear every day, with no impact on computer performance. This is a very important award for us, as it shows we are on the right track and our solution is the best on the market”.

Ever since the launch of its beta version in April 2009 and the subsequent launch of the full release version in November 2009, Panda Cloud Antivirus, currently available in 20 languages, has won the most prestigious awards in the industry for its real-time protection with minimum impact. Besides this award, the product has recently been chosen as “Runner-up” in the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, as well as PCMag.com Editor’s Choice in the free antivirus software category, among many other distinctions.

At the heart of the Cloud Antivirus products is the powerful Collective Intelligence, Panda Security’s proprietary technology that automatically detects, analyzes, classifies and disinfects 99.4 percent of all the malware that appears every day.
http://companies.mybroadband.co.za/pandasecurity/2010/11/19/panda-cloud-antivirus-wins-2010-best-security-software-award-from-pcworld-latin-america/

McAfee 2011 Releases Total Protection with $20 Discount

McAfee, Inc. announces the new McAfee® Total Protection 2011 at a discount of $20.
With thousands of new virus threats created every day, depends on traditional security updates isn't good anymore. McAfee Active Protection™ technology instantly analyzes and blocks new virus threats in no time so there's virtually no gap in your protection.
McAfee® Total Protection 2011work with minimal interruptions with fast and effective virus, malware, and spyware scanning. Provides schedule security scans when you're not using your PC, automatic scans and updates occur when your system is idle. McAfee® Total Protection won't slow you system performance.
The Home Screen gives you all the information you need at a instant. And you're never more than one click away from it, which removes popup windows and makes for easy navigation. Simplified alerts and scan results make it easier than ever to protect your PC.

ParetoLogic Launches the Latest in Anti-Virus Technology

According to a recent report from SecureList, viruses and other malware attempted to execute over 540 million infections globally in the second quarter of 2010. To protect their users from these malcious threats, ParetoLogic has launched latest defence against viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious software. ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS version 7 offers enhanced threat detection and removal and adds new features to improve the user’s experience. As well as redesigning the interface, developers also dramatically improved scan times and system resource footprint.
Version 7 of ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS has two significant technological advances. The first one delivers enhanced rootkit removal. Rootkits act as “burrowing” malware, and entrench themselves so deep in a users system that they are some of the most difficult to remove.
“ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS now gives users state-of-the-art protection against these dangerous potential threats,” said Elton Pereira, Cofounder, President and CEO of ParetoLogic. “We know that infections are on the rise, and paired with heuristic detection, our software will keep people safer than ever.”
So-called heuristic detection is the most recent development in security software, and the second of ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS 7’s advances. Rather than relying on a database of found and catalogued malware samples, heuristic detection is behavioral based.
There are a large number of different types of malware, but their actual goals and methods of operation all follow a similar pattern,” explained Jean Taggart, Security Analyst at ParetoLogic. “Heuristic detection is able to recognize a suspicious file or process, even if that specific piece of malware was never programmatically analyzed, or examined by a malware researcher. This is achieved by looking at behaviour, or common traits.”
The ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS update also adds Windows 7 support and a sleek interface to match the popular new operating system. Additional software improvements resulted in shorter scan times, and a lighter system footprint. These upgrades allow users to scan their system without slowing down their other applications or tasks.

Norton and Trend Micro Simplify Security with New Releases

One of the biggest burdens of protecting yourself against viruses, spyware, and other threats has been the degree to which security software can be problematic itself. Norton and Trend Micro are both announcing new versions of their software today with a focus on providing security that you can welcome onto your computer–and better yet, largely ignore once it’s there–rather than stress over.
Symantec’s products once had particularly bad reputations for being a resource-sapping, in-your-face hogs. The company has spent the past couple of years paying penance by reducing the load that new versions put on your system and the demands they place on your attention. It says that its 2011 editions are faster than both their predecessors and its competition, and that it’s reduced the number of alerts they’ll bother you with. They also snitch on other programs, via System Insight, a feature that monitors running applications and identifies ones which may be bogging you down.
Norton uses community-based reputation–judging files in part by whether other Norton users have downloaded them without problems. Other new features include protection against dangerous downloads that works in a comprehensive range of browsers, IM clients, and e-mail programs; and the ability to manage other browser-based Norton services from within the Norton dashboard. And the Norton Bootable Recovery Tool now lets you easily prepare a CD-ROM, DVD, or USB drive to undo damage to computers so crippled by an attack that they can’t even start up.
Norton 2011 is available in two versions. Plain-jane AntiVirus 2011 costs $39.99 for a version that covers up to three PCs for one year. Norton Internet Security, which adds a firewall, antispam, parental controls, identity protection, and other features, is $69.99 for up to three PCs.
Symantec is also touting several free security downloads it offers, including Power Eraser, which is designed to remove “scareware” that’s often maddeningly difficult to shake, such as malware which poses as real antivirus software.

Trend Micro, meanwhile, has given its security products a new name: Titanium. More important, it’s given them a new approach: Instead of making you download signatures to your PC to detect viruses and other dangers it’s put most of the detecting in the cloud and aimed to prevent dangerous files from ever reaching computers in the first place. The company says that this dramatically reduces required resources.
As with Norton 2011, the goal may be to be unremarkable, but there’s a lot of information and settings if you want them:
This cloud-based strategy, Trend says, is particularly effective against zero-day attacks–ones so new that security companies haven’t created and distributed fixes for them.
Trend’s basic package, Titanium Antivirus+, is $39.95 for one PC or $59.95 for three. Titanium Internet Security adds antispam, parental controls, and other features for $49.95 for one PC or $69.95 for three machines. And Titanium Maximum Security tops that off with 10GB of online backup, system optimization, a secure erase utility, and other features for $59.95 for one PC or $79.95 for three. Unlike Norton, Trend doesn’t include a firewall with any of its versions, choosing instead to integrate with the one built into Windows.

McAfee announces Internet Security, Family Protection for Mac

While malware threats for the Mac may still be limited, there are plethora of other nasty to watch out for online. That’s why McAfee has released a pair of its popular protection products for the Mac: McAfee Internet Security and McAfee Family Protection. These products permit Mac users to surf the Internet safely.
If you’re just looking to keep your own surfing habits from getting you into trouble, McAfee Internet Security can protect you from dangerous Web sites telling you if a particular online shopping site has been checked over by McAfee. It can also scan e-mail and IM attachments from Mail and iChat to make sure nobody tries to slip you a mickey while online, and can repair many files without damaging the contents.
In addition, a dedicated Secure Search tool allows you to make sure that phishing sites don’t find their way into your results; a two-way firewall keeps an eye on all the traffic entering or leaving your PC as well as locking down outside access to protect from hackers; and all the while McAfee Internet Security can scan for both Windows and Mac malware.
McAfee Internet Security runs $80 and covers one Mac for one year—after that, you’ll need to buy a new copy as there's currently no upgrade pricing available.
That’s good for your own personal Web surfing, but if you’re more worried about what your kids might be getting up to, there’s McAfee Family Protection (also available for the iPhone and iPod touch).
McAfee Family Protection covers up to three Macs for a year for $40. As with Internet Security, you’ll need to shell out for a new copy after that due to any lack of upgrade pricing at present.
These products available now and require Mac OS X 10.5 or later. They also come with a 30-day money-back guarantee and 30 days of free tech support.

Kaspersky Lab offers Threatpost app for iPhone

Threatpost, billed as Kaspersky Lab's independent, online news destination for the IT Security community, is now available to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users.
Threatpost assures the latest security news editorials, stories, podcasts and video conversations. "Business people are always on the go and may not have the opportunity to sit down and read the latest security news via traditional web sites," said Dennis Fisher, co-editor Threatpost.
Available from the Apple iTunes App Store, Threatpost is free and requires the iPhone OS 3.1.3 Software Update or later.
"This is why the Threatpost iPhone application was developed. It is a single source for all of the news and information that security professionals need to stay ahead of what’s happening in the industry. It’s our hope that with this application, we're providing a valuable service to professionals in our industry."
Available from the Apple iTunes App Store, Threatpost is free and requires the iPhone OS 3.1.3 Software Update or later.
Kaspersky Lab is the largest antivirus company, offering protection against potential threats including viruses, spyware, crimeware, hackers, phishing and spam.