Panda Cloud Antivirus Free 2.3: Review and download

Panda Cloud Antivirus Free 2.3 gets excellent marks for its detection rates. It’s a lightweight antivirus that takes care of your system without using lots of system resources or having nagging pop ups all the time. Panda Cloud Antivirus is based on cloud computing, and is only partially installed on your system and keeps core files on a dedicated server on the Internet. Thanks to this special cloud structure, Panda Cloud Antivirus doesn’t have to be manually updated. You can simply forget about complicated configurations and having to download new signature files. The cloud-based functionality doesn’t mean you remain unprotected when disconnected from the network: Panda Cloud Antivirus features a local cache that keeps the program up and running.

Cloud AV’s interface retains its gray color scheme and modularized presentation of features for a usable, uncluttered combo. It’s easy to navigate, and is blissfully distraction free. Your security status sits at the top, a blue shield indicating that your computer is safe, a horizontal green bar graph indicating real-time protection, a magnifying glass to indicate scanning, and indicators for viruses detected and files in Panda’s recycle bin. Below that, there’s the link to the Firewall, which is grayed out in the free version, the Panda-provided process monitor that uses crowd-sourcing to determine a process’s safety, and the USB key “vaccine,” which scans USB sticks for threats.

Panda Cloud Antivirus Free can make a semi-quick scan (called Optimized Scan), a full scan (called Scan My Computer) and a custom scan for specific folder, files, and drives. Where ancillary features used to be exceptionally light, they’ve now begun to fill out – even in the free version. You can customize the scans to detect potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), toggle off behavioral detections and analysis, archive file scans, and how the scan reacts to detected threats. There’s an exclusion list, and quarantine management, which is the “recycle bin”.

Cloud Antivirus Free also comes with a browser toolbar for simplified secure searches, browsing data removal, and toolbar cleaning. Another nice feature in Panda Cloud Antivirus is the USB vaccine tool, which protects your computer from potentially dangerous files in USB portable memory devices.

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