Article: Panda Cloud Antivirus installed. Ok Cloud, fix me up.

 

 

Not too long ago, Lifehacker published a post regarding a new free AV program from Panda – called ‘Panda Cloud Antivirus’.  Currently in beta, this new AV is on the fast track to revolutionizing the way we think of AV programs as intrusive, bloated, sometimes complex apps that slow down our computer and break seemingly benign programs.

 

This new idea of theirs seems like a cool concept; Rather than having to keep downloading virus and malware definitions, Skynet-er, I mean the ‘Cloud’ determines what is and isn’t dangerous to your computer, and does all of this on the fly (and in the background).

 

*Read the Panda Cloud Antivirus blog post on the mentality behind the Cloud scanning technology.

 

A snippet:

One of the main pillars of Panda Cloud Antivirus is its real-time use of Panda Collective Intelligence, which is an online from-the-cloud system that automates the entire malware protection cycle; collecting new samples, analyzing, categorizing, creating detection and disinfection routines and delivering the protection to each node.

Thanks to this approach users do not need to worry about updating signature files anymore. In fact, detection of millions and millions of different malware variants is no longer limited by the size of a signature database, as Collective Intelligence can hold literally unlimited number of detections without consuming any memory on the users’ PC.

All your base are belong to us…in the Cloud.

 

Very cool.  Great idea – and I hope it works out for them.  The idea that malicious files will be analyzed and categorized on the fly by something greater than my PC that isn’t necessarily human is intriguing…let’s see where it takes us a year from now.

 

What about your preference for Avast?

 

If you’ve been paying attention to my posts whenever I speak of AV, you’ll note that I’ve always been a fan of Avast! antivirus.  But, that doesn’t mean that I’m an AV elitist; my netbook has Avira installed and at work I have AVG corporate installed.  Also, I typically give AVG free to my home clients as they don’t know what to do when Avast! prompts for a renewal serial number.  So, I hope you can tell that I have an open mind.

 

 

 

Panda CAV: First look – where’s the beef?

 

One thing I noticed right away is that there is an obvious lack of buttons and menus when you examine the AV console.  I think this is a good thing…right?  What about all the doohickies and whatsits for us technical types?  Where’s all of our buttons?  Panda CAV is intended to be as simple as possible, so I guess for you button mashers, there’s an unfinished game of Diablo calling for you.

 

My minor gripe just as well might be the true end-user appeal of the Panda Cloud AV program.  I mean, think of it – it’s a perfect fit with parents and other tech-deficient relatives who don’t know what to do when they are prompted with a pop-up box asking if they would like to block some program that they did not install nor click on.  So, if the computer is being cleaned and protected without user interruption, then I say point goes to Panda.

 

What about the beta, any real gripes?

 

Since I’ve not run Panda CAV long enough to talk about how well it works, I guess I have just a couple minor cosmetic issues upon first glance:

 

• When selecting a full system scan, ‘Scan all my computer’ is a little unwieldy as far as a phrase goes…kinda like ‘all your base are belong to us’, right?  Maybe Panda should re-word that to ‘Scan all of my computer’, or ‘Scan entire computer’, etc.  Petty, I know.  However, think of it this way; The hallmark of malware posing as an actual AV program is bad grammar or english. 

 

• Note the upper right-hand corner.  ‘Correct’ is an odd word to pick that really means ‘Clean’ or ‘Uninfected’ or ‘No problems detected’. 

 

• The interface could be spruced up a little bit…I dunno, it still kinda reminds me of one of those fake AV programs (Internet Antivirus 2009 and it’s variants).

 

 

One cool feature of the Panda CAV (yep, I’m tired of typing Cloud Antivirus) is the ability to hit up the ‘Recycle Bin’ and recover a program that Panda may have misidentified.  You can get to it by clicking the lower right-hand corner of the console.

 

Another cool feature?  Your system doesn’t trudge along like a drunk tortoise stuck in a tar pit while an AV scan is running.

 

So – while this isn’t really a review of the program itself and how it performs, it is more of a ‘first-installed impressions’ type of blog post.  I will most likely be installing this into a virtual PC session and see how I fare while surfing with the goal of getting infected…stay tuned.

 

• Download Panda CAV
• Read the Panda CAV blog

 

Check out the highly effective video (if you can get past the nasal voice of the narrator!):