Cloud Antivirus #1 in PC World Comparative

    
I was recently pointed to a comparative study of free antivirus solutions done by PC World and performed by AV-Test.org, comparing Panda Cloud Antivirus, Avira, avast!, Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG, Comodo, PC Tools, and ClamAV.

Altough the editorial did not include Panda Cloud Antivirus in the ranking chart as it could not test the retrospective detection using 2 and 4 week old signatures (as Panda Cloud Antivirus works in the cloud and therefore cannot use 2 & 4 week old signatures), it had this to say about Panda Cloud Antivirus:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/290839/review/cloud_antivirus.html

Among all of the free antivirus software we tested for our latest roundup, Panda Cloud Antivirus was the best app at blocking known malware.

The approach is intended to take advantage of the latest signatures without the need for signature-database updates–and if its excellent showing at detecting malware in AV-Test.org’s zoo of half a million samples is any indication, the approach works. Panda’s app produced an impressive 99.4 percent overall detection rate.

For now, we can’t give Panda’s app a complete score, but its impressive ability to detect malware makes it well worth keeping an eye on.

The final detection rate ranking of the full collection of malware, taking into consideration updated sigs and products, is the following:

1. Panda: 99.4%
2. Avira: 98.9%
3. Avast: 98.2%
4. MSE: 97.8%
5. AVG: 95.8%
6. Comodo: 74.6%

This is great news and motivates us even more to continue working hard to release a 1.0 version that offers top detection and protection for free 🙂

Beta3 Preview – Windows 7 & 64bit Support

     
We have been circulating a limited Preview Release of Beta3 which supports Vista 64bit and Windows 7 (32 and 64bit). This Beta3 Preview only has additional platform support. No other functionality which is currently being developed for Beta3 is included yet in this Preview Release.

Basically we’re interested in getting as much feedback from the 64bit and Windows 7 community as possible. If you’re one of these guys or gals, we want to hear from you. Please send all feedback regarding this Preview Release to beta@pandasecurity.com or send your comments to this blog post.

Downloading
The download link is the following:
CloudAntivirus-Beta3-0.08.83-Preview.exe
EDIT: changed link to point to a more reliable server.

Installing
If you have a previous version of Panda Cloud Antivirus, you’ll need to manually uninstall that first, reboot and then install the Beta3 Preview.
Note: The Beta3 Preview can also be installed on XP/Vista 32bits, even though we’ve not tested it in these platoforms.

Workarounds
Remember that under x64 the registry entries for the different workarounds mentioned in this blog are different. They are the following:

Activating advanced logging:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Panda Security\Panda Service Host]
"tracePath"="C:\\Logs_CloudAV"
"traceEnabled"="1"

Disabling BackgroundScan:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Panda Security\Panda Service Host]
"BackgroundDisabled"="-"

Enabling Exceptions:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Panda Security\Panda Service Host\Exceptions]
"CreateMiniDump"=dword:00000001
"ToMessageBox"=dword:00000001

Off Topic

   
I’m taking a week off for vacation. Please be patient if you don’t see your comments moderated in a timely manner.

For anything urgent contact beta@pandasecurity.com.

Cheers 🙂

Known Issue: On-Demand Scan Stuck at x%

    
We have been getting some reports from users that after running a manual on-demand scan it seems to be stuck or stopped at x%. The error code that is returned is different than “1”.

In order to help us troubleshoot this problem please follow these steps:

1.- Download and extract the Scan-Dump.zip file into a new folder, for example C:\Test.
2.- Browse to the C:Test directory and execute the file called “Start.bat“.
3.- Run a manual on-demand scan from Panda Cloud Antivirus to try to reproduce the problem.
4.- If the problem is successfully reproduced, execute the file “Stop.bat“.
5.- There will be a file called “Session01.etl” in the C:\Test directory.

If you can reproduce this problem please post the Session01.etl file to http://www.cloudantivirus.com/forum.

Many thanks for all your help & support !! 🙂