Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0 released!

[RejZoR]

LINK: http://www.cloudantivirus.com

What's so special about it? I'll break it down into few points:

- it's free (requires one time simple registration though)
- excellent detection
- excellent response time (see below why exactly)
- very low footprint
- very easy to use (doesn't really offer any settings)
- fully automatic cleaning

So, bottom line, it's a powerful poison in a very small bottle. More advanced users will probably miss the config stuff, but as an advanced user, i haven't missed them all that much.

Now to the detection. Why is it so special? We all know the famous "in-the-cloud" words that ppl use for nearly everything. But in reality, this is the first real commercially available software that actually works based on this method.

When it scans a file, inquiry about the file is sent to central server. Server responds back if file is clean or infected. If clean, it's ignored, if infected, it's automatically cleaned.
This means there isn't any delay between signature release and the time when user actually "harvests" them. They are available the very same moment Panda virus analysts analyze the file and create definition for it. This gives great response time. Overall detection rate has been tested by few independent testers and it was really high.
Downside is that you have to be connected to internet for full protection. But that's not really a problem today. They also maintain local database for certain malware even when offline.

If you're looking for high performance, simple to use antivirus for low end systems (old systems or netbooks), this is the right thing for you. I'm using it on 3 systems in my home (beta versions) and i really like it. I'll update all of them to 1.0 now

 

[MilkyWay]

there was a panda antivirus i used and it was terrible but this doesnt even seem to be the same company

anyone else tried it?
im using avira antivir

 

[Mussels]

on the downside, this antivirus wont work well if you have no internet connection, or a slow internet connection.


if a file has been infected (as in, an office document) this program would need to send it in to these guys to be analysed - that may not work well with larger files, for example (choking your internet)

 

[MilkyWay]

on the downside, this antivirus wont work well if you have no internet connection, or a slow internet connection.


if a file has been infected (as in, an office document) this program would need to send it in to these guys to be analysed - that may not work well with larger files, for example (choking your internet)

thats a really good point, what if you wanted to scan a large file because that could be a problem

cloud as in that cloud computing idea that everything is online

i dont want to try it but im interested to see how it performs

 

[RejZoR]

there was a panda antivirus i used and it was terrible but this doesnt even seem to be the same company

anyone else tried it?
im using avira antivir

Yeah, i never liked anything from Panda, but this one is really neat. Working with their senior security advisor (Pedro Bustamante) side by side on Wilders Security really helped me to polish this one properly. At least for issues and bugs found on my systems.

@Mussels
Since most of us are on VDSL/DSL/Cable/FTTH, that isn't a big problem anymore. Files are scanned with delay unless you or anything else tries to execute the files directly. Then they are verified instantly.

EDIT:
Just a note, this one doesn't scan entire files back to server. That would be somehow inefficient way to do this.
It works pretty much like inverted local file scanner.

Local scanner
Checks the file against local database of stored signatures and spits out the result.

Cloud scanner
Creates a fingerprint of the file and sends that fingerprint to server. Server checks the fingerprint against the database and sends back short response whether the file is clean or not. The rest is then done (cleaned) by the client side.

 

[Mussels]

if its doing what you say and sending the "fingerprint" (aka, MD5 hash or similar) then it can only work against true viruses and not infected files.

 

[RejZoR]

It's not MD5 or any other type of "simple" hashing. That wouldn't work too well against polymorphic malware. It's far more sophisticated than that.

The client side does have a nearly full fledged local engine which heavily relies on cloud data.
So it can also have heuristics (local and remote ones), disinfection capabilities etc.
Though i can't go into details because its a closed source program and such in depth details just aren't available. But as i said, it's not a simple hash for sure, because doing that these days just isn't feasible anymore.

 

[Solaris17]

going to give it a go thanks bro it has alot to be though im an avast user.

 

[RejZoR]

Yeah, it's a tough decision. But i'll keep Panda on netbook and avast! on my main system.

 

[RejZoR]

After talking with Pedro from Panda, on average, traffic done by Panda Cloud is 5-127KB (yes, only kilobytes!) per day for On-Access scanning needs. So that's acceptable even for 56k users.

 

[AsRock]

Sounds good but then i had this thought, what if there servers got hacked or your AV gets hacked and links it too a nasty site.

 

[RejZoR]

Sounds good but then i had this thought, what if there servers got hacked or your AV gets hacked and links it too a nasty site.

That can happen with any antivirus out there. You can't exactly hack the servers and feed malware into them, but you can prevent antivirus from running or block it from accessing their servers. But this isn't anything new. This is probably the oldest trick in the anti-antivirus war.

I mean, they most probably have backup servers online in case something happens to their main one. Same applies to update download servers that are used for other antiviruses.
But i don't remember anyone ever tried to hack them. It's either not that simple or just not worth it. However i've seen many cases where clientss were trashed. Self-defense works to some degree, but not against everything. Bu still, if your Panda Cloud client is working right, if server for it's operation is properly working, it's just as effective as any fully updated antivirus (if not even more because there is no update gap like with traditional antiviruses, because it doesn't update like traditional antiviruses do). Preventing malware from accessing your system in the first place is always the best method. When you have to clean it after actual infection event, it's always problematic and doesn't really matter what kind of scanning method you're using.