Comments on: Panda Cloud Antivirus – slim compact solution

By: Michele

Michele — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:09:14 +0000

I’ve used this on some client’s PC’s. It runs much leaner then other AV’s. Indeed it is a good choice for a very basic home pc setup. I wouldn’t use it on a Company PC.

By: Rarst

Rarst — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 19:07:34 +0000

@walter

As I described in post, cloud is more of marketing speak – it still downloads a lot of data to hard drive. And only difference from generic database updates in other AV is that it isn’t called that.

No idea on ranking (and it’s mostly meaningless anyway), but I vaguely remember reading some very unhappy reviews about CA AV.

By: walter

walter — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:53:31 +0000

I have CA AntiVirus and it has cloud technology built in. Im wondering if this will cause any rick as my laptop is not always connected to the internet. And how does panra rank in comparison to CA anti-virus cause im thinking about switching later down the road

By: Geek Squeaks’ of the Week (#69) « What's On My PC

Geek Squeaks’ of the Week (#69) « What's On My PC — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:57:07 +0000

[...] Rarst.net Panda Cloud Antivirus – slim compact solution [...]

By: Saurabh

Saurabh — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 22:53:22 +0000

Hmm..I uninstalled it so I didn’t know the exact size of the cache. Here’s how their representative described the cache:
“The local cache of Panda Cloud Antivirus is a ‘moving target’ of what the community ‘sees’ out there circulating in the wild. However, it’s not quite the same as the traditional signature updates which are always incremental (always adding signatures, not taking them out)”.
from http://hothardware.com/News/Pandas-Cloud-Antivirus-Exits-Beta/
So this was what I hadn’t understood. When a computer is offline for quite a few days then the moving target can change and meanwhile the computer can get infected via old viruses back in circulation.
I do agree however that it is more marketing speak than anything else.

By: Rarst

Rarst — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:50:42 +0000

@Saurabh

Me neither… By the way it isn’t that “small” subset, cache folder on my computer is currently ~48MB in size. This is totally comparable to databases of generic AV engines.

As I wrote in post distinction seems in marketing rather than in practical functionality.

By: Saurabh

Saurabh — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:01:18 +0000

“When connection is not available it relies on some amount of cached data.”
I don’t see the point here. The Panda site describes this cache as a small but well chosen subset of the total detection capability. In essence when you become disconnected, unlike other antiviruses you also lose protection from viruses you had been protected from earlier.
Whats the point of not caching everything for offline use, when the only disadvantage I see is a little more disk space being taken up by the cache?