Panda Free Antivirus Review — What You Need to Know
If you’ve ever wondered about the logic behind a cybersecurity company offering comprehensive features of its antivirus product for free, you’re not alone. While it may appear counterproductive, providing free access to certain features can help a company build a positive reputation and increase brand visibility. Such strategies are commonly employed in the antivirus market, with Panda being a notable example. However, it’s crucial to note that Panda Free Antivirus, while handling essential tasks such as malware cleanup and fending off new threats, lacks certain key protection layers found in its paid products, especially protection against harmful and fraudulent websites.
A Visually Pleasing Interface
Unlike most antivirus tools featuring a white or dark gray main window adorned with buttons and panels for launching scans or checking updates, Panda stands out with its nature-themed background. You can choose from eight different images or have them rotate automatically to suit your aesthetic preferences. The interface is not just visually pleasing but also user-friendly, with five icons at the bottom for easy access to launching scans, managing the antivirus, and setting up VPN protection. Scrolling reveals five more icons for additional features, giving the software an unusual and attractive look.
Lab Results: A Mixed Bag
When reviewing antivirus software, one must consider results from independent antivirus testing labs. Panda’s presence in the latest results from just one of the four labs we follow signals that the lab deemed Panda worthy of attention. However, the scores ranged from satisfactory to excellent, indicating a somewhat inconsistent performance.
In one of the labs, AV-Comparatives, products don’t receive numeric scores but rather certifications — Standard, Advanced, or Advanced+ — based on their performance. Panda secured Standard certification in the malware recognition test, Advanced in the real-world test, and Advanced+ for low impact on performance. However, other products, such as Avast Free Antivirus, AVG, Bitdefender, and Kaspersky, outperformed Panda in these tests, securing Advanced+ in all three categories.
Unfortunately, Panda’s lack of scores from other labs makes it impossible to calculate an aggregate lab-result score, a common practice using a developed algorithm that maps all scores onto a 10-point scale. This situation isn’t unique to Panda, as almost a quarter of the products we follow also appear in the latest results from just one lab. Still, it’s worth mentioning that a quarter of them have results from all four labs, sometimes with stellar outcomes.
Among the products tested by all four labs, Kaspersky Security Cloud Free earned a perfect 10 points, while ESET followed closely with 9.9, and Avast and Norton scored 9.7.
Scan and Scheduling: Slower Than Average
Upon installing an antivirus protection, it’s crucial to perform a full malware scan immediately, as the previously unprotected computer could be housing malicious software. Panda took a whopping two hours to conduct a full scan on a standard clean test system. This is not only the longest scan duration among recent products but also five minutes longer than it took Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center. The current average for an initial full scan is 69 minutes.
A second scan with Panda was faster, taking 71 minutes, but it still was nowhere close to the speed improvements demonstrated by other products like Avira Free Security, which finished a second scan in five minutes, down from the first scan’s 105 minutes.
The initial full scan should ideally remove any malware that infiltrated your system while it was without antivirus protection. Real-time protection should then prevent future attacks. However, many users prefer to schedule regular scans for added protection. Panda’s scheduler allows you to set up one or more scans to run daily, weekly, or monthly. You can also choose the scan’s thoroughness, checking the whole computer, critical areas only, or a custom set of files and folders.
Average Malware Protection
While independent lab test results are valuable, it’s also important to conduct hands-on testing of an antivirus product. Even if all four labs praise a product, observing its malware-battling skills in action can be insightful.
My malware protection test begins by exposing the antivirus to a range of real-world malware samples that I have collected and analyzed myself. Some products, like Panda, spring into action the moment I open the samples folder, while others, including Avast, AVG, and McAfee AntiVirus Plus, reserve their real-time scanning for the moment just before the malware attempts to launch.
During this test, Panda eliminated 80% of the samples, including all of my ransomware samples. However, its performance was less impressive when confronted with a second set of samples. These samples were copies of the main collection, hand-modified to avoid detection by signature-based systems. Panda missed more than half of these modified samples, which included half of the real-world ransomware programs.
In the second half of the malware protection test, I launched the samples that Panda didn’t initially eliminate. While it caught most of these, it only partially prevented installation in many cases, allowing executable traces onto the test system. Panda detected 90% of the samples and scored 8.7 of 10 possible points, placing it near the bottom among products tested with this collection of samples.
Other products, such as McAfee and Malwarebytes Premium, achieved 100% detection of these samples. Malwarebytes scored a perfect 10, and McAfee managed 9.9 points.
While testing, I noticed an upsell screen warning that my PC was not protected against ransomware and advising me to upgrade to a paid edition. Considering that half of my real-world ransomware samples survived Panda’s purge in hand-modified form, I decided to launch those to see what would happen. Panda did catch one of the samples, but the others proceeded without any intervention from Panda. Clearly, upgrading to a superior version would be advisable.
Next, I challenged Panda with a collection of the newest malware-hosting URLs, as discovered by MRG-Effitas. Panda’s performance improved noticeably compared to previous tests, eliminating 79% of the malware downloads without crashing the browser. However, this score still places Panda in the bottom quarter of current products. In contrast, McAfee defended against 100% of the malware-hosting URLs, with Bitdefender, G Data, and Sophos Home Free reaching 99%.
Since Panda’s free edition does not include Safe Browsing, it doesn’t assist with identifying phishing scams. Users will have to rely on their browser’s built-in phishing protection and stay vigilant for any that might slip through.
Limited VPN Features
While an antivirus protects your device’s data, it can’t safeguard your data as it travels across the internet. For that kind of protection, you need a Virtual Private Network, or VPN. All of Panda’s security products, even the free antivirus, include a VPN component. However, with the exception of Panda Dome Premium, all products place restrictions on VPN usage, limiting you to 150MB of VPN bandwidth per day.
Panda licenses VPN technology and server network from Hotspot Shield’s publisher, a common practice among several security companies. At first glance, it seems you can choose a server from any of about two dozen countries, but attempting to do so reveals that country selection is a premium feature. All you can do with the free edition is allow the VPN to automatically connect to the server it deems best.
The VPN’s display page keeps you apprised of your bandwidth usage, which is essential given the 150MB daily limit. For some hands-on experience, I tried watching a YouTube video. Within just a few minutes of watching an old non-HD video, I used up 30MB. If you get close to the limit on a given day, be prepared for the VPN to cut your secure connection at any time.
Panda doesn’t offer the advanced configuration options found in Hotspot Shield itself. For example, with Hotspot Shield, you can set up automatic VPN connections on unsafe Wi-Fi networks. Hotspot Shield also includes a feature that warns users away from dangerous websites, a Kill Switch to disconnect from the internet if the VPN connection fails, and a split-tunneling feature to let some apps bypass the VPN. With Panda, you can configure the VPN to kick in when the PC reboots, but that’s the extent of the settings.
Additional Features
Despite being a free product, Panda Free Antivirus includes a few bonus features. These include USB Protection, Process Monitor, and Rescue Kit. There’s also a link to view your installed Panda products and another to upgrade to paid protection.
USB Protection offers to scan a USB drive for malware as soon as you insert it. It also guards against malware that tries to infect your computer using USB autoplay. Panda refers to this proactive feature as vaccination, as it preemptively monopolizes the resources that USB malware would need for autoplay and locks them down. This feature is beneficial and harmless, and I recommend enabling the setting that automatically vaccinates every USB drive.
For dealing with particularly troublesome Trojans that prevent Windows from booting or interfere with antivirus software installation, the Rescue Kit can be used to create a bootable rescue USB drive on a clean computer. Rebooting the infected computer using the Rescue Kit provides a fully capable antivirus running in an alternate operating system. This effectively neutralizes Windows-based malware as it can’t interfere with the cleanup process.
The Process Monitor tool isn’t meant for the average user. It lists all processes seen running on your PC and allows you to filter those accessing the internet, those with a medium to high threat level, or those blocked by Panda. While this tool can be useful to a tech support agent diagnosing a problem remotely, it can overwhelm the average user with information.
Verdict: Average Free Antivirus
While Panda Free Antivirus has a visually appealing user interface and a unique USB vaccination feature, its free edition lacks the valuable Safe Browsing protection against dangerous and fraudulent websites. Consequently, it scored poorly in our malicious URL test and couldn’t warn about phishing sites. With mixed scores from independent labs and a failure against modified ransomware samples, as well as a slower than average full scan, Panda Free Antivirus is far from the best free antivirus available.
Both Avast Free Antivirus and Kaspersky Security Cloud Free, which received excellent scores from all four labs we follow, offer protection against dangerous and fraudulent URLs missing in Panda. Avast also provides a range of bonus features unusual for a free product. Both these Editors’ Choice-winning free antivirus tools are better options than Panda Free Antivirus.
Pros
- Attractive user interface with nature-themed backgrounds
- USB drive vaccination feature
- Limited VPN feature
- Free
Cons
- Mixed scores in independent lab tests
- Mediocre scores in our hands-on tests
- No protection against harmful or fraudulent URLs
- Poor performance against modified ransomware samples
- Slow full scan
While Panda Free Antivirus features an appealing user interface and an innovative USB vaccination feature, it lacks protection against harmful and fraudulent websites and earns mixed scores in our tests and lab tests.
