Any Practical Nerd is going to be a fan of free stuff on the internet, especially when it comes to software. There are so many groups and companies producing high-quality programs that lack the bloat of your usual PC fare like the increasingly-confusing Microsoft Office. A new one that was brought to my attention by this Lifehacker article was Panda Cloud Antivirus.
The concept behind it is simple and intriguing: antivirus software that’s free (bye-bye Norton!) and is updated constantly through the “cloud”. For those of you new to being a Nerd, “cloud computing” means doing something completely through the internet without necessarily storing it on your hard drive. That way, it’s accessible anywhere. By doing antivirus through the cloud, Panda is banking on virus definitions and updates being instantaneous, with little downloading needing to be done.
It’s a fantastic concept and I latched onto it immediately. I’ve been using it all day and I thought I would share my thoughts on what it claims to do, and a couple of gripes I have about it as well.
Claim #1: Light
I have to say, I think the footprint that this program makes on your computer is amazingly small. Taking all the nerdy statistics out of it, let me put it to you this way: I used to use AVG Antivirus, which is a nice, free program for PCs. Panda Cloud Antivirus (PCA) takes about a third of the resources – when it’s doing a full scan. As long as AVG runs, it takes 3 times as much resources as PCA does.
In layman’s terms: it won’t slow your computer down. Even while running a full scan, I was surfing the Web and compressing a DVD file with no loss in performance. The theory behind cloud computing is that your resources are available to you, and this did not disappoint.
Claim #2: Secure
This is (obviously) the most important factor in deciding what antivirus program to use. It needs to work, period. It doesn’t matter that it’s free if it doesn’t do its job. The Tech Herald put together a nice review with lots of statistics, but here’s what you need to know:
While we stand behind our first score of 85 percent, it’s easy to see how the score can be changed depending on how our testing methods are viewed. The point for this disclosure is that Panda’s Cloud Antivirus delivers excellent protection and, for a free product, it certainly deserves user attention.
Depending on how you analyze the results, PCA scored anywhere between an 85% and a 99.44%. That’s huge. It updates virus definitions in real-time based on input from everybody using it. For example: if someone stumbles on a virus or a piece of malware that will harm your computer, and it has not been discovered yet, PCA updates its database and protects everyone from it within six minutes (their claim). As long as it holds up to be true there, it will do just fine for you.
Claim #3: Easy
After I installed it, I ran PCA’s full system scan. While it did take a while, it then scans files in the background as you go about your daily life. Take a look at the picture below and compare it to other antivirus software:
Isn’t that all you need? There are people out there who will demand more configuration options, but it really comes down to whether or not it is scanning and letting you know if there are problems. If there are, a little pop-up shows up in the corner. It’s clean, sharp-looking, and easy to read and analyze by just about anybody. Plus, if there’s a virus or trojan detected on your computer, you can click on it and it will instantly surf the Web and bring up a comprehensive definition of the virus for you. Easy as pie (is pie easy?).
The Negatives:
Well, the program does take a fairly long time to scan. I would ballpark my scan at about 45 minutes, but I was also doing different things. If you want to do a manual scan for your own peace of mind, click the scan button before you go to bed and you can wake up in the morning with the results.
Also, you do need an active internet connection to keep it updated. That’s been a complaint from many people, but I don’t see it as that big of a negative. After all, don’t you need an internet connection to update other antivirus software? And when you are disconnected, PCA has a small definitions file that it keeps updated on your hard drive to keep scanning.
Conclusion:
I think it’s a brilliant idea, and a stellar product. Offloading the hard work of the antivirus software to the cloud should free up some of your own resources for you, and it’s free. While no antivirus program can guarantee 100% protection, Panda Cloud Antivirus can promise a simple, easy-to-use program that is just as effective as any other antivirus program. Definitely worth a try – I’m keeping mine.
Have you tried Panda Cloud Antivirus? What’s your favorite antivirus program? Share with us all!
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