Win32 Virus Removal

For some vendors, the distinction between antivirus and security suite is clear-cut. The antivirus product cleans up existing malware infestations and prevents future problems. The suite does the same and adds firewall protection, antispam, parental control, and more. Things aren't quite as simple at Panda Security. Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 ($49.99/year direct for 3 licenses) includes a firewall, a fully virtualized safe browser, and more.

Panda Antivirus Pro 2012's main window has a dark, high-tech appearance, but otherwise behaves much like other security products. It displays the status of its various security components with a one-click fix for any problems, and it offers access to configuration and reporting. Its statistics page breaks down detected threats by type while the advanced statistics page adds email and network threats.

Decent Lab Scores
Panda doesn't participate in Virus Bulletin's VB100 testing, but ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs both certify Panda's technology for virus detection and virus removal.

In the latest on-demand and retroactive tests by AV-Comparatives.org, Panda rated ADVANCED, the second-highest rating. AV-Comparatives very recently completed a whole-protect test that measures a product's ability to resist malware infestation. Panda came in fifth of 17 products tested, successfully blocking 97.4 percent of threats. Symantec topped this list with 99.3 percent.

AV-Test.org has an ongoing series of certification tests under Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Products receive from zero to six points for detection, remediation, and overall usability, with a total of 11 necessary for certification. Panda scored 13, 14, and 14 in the last three tests. F-Secure and Norton scored best overall, averaging 15.67 and 15.5 points respectively.

The chart below summarizes test results for the current crop of antivirus programs. For details on how I derived this summary, see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Malware Traces Remain
Pre-existing malware caused problems on five of the twelve test systems. Using Panda's unusual ability to install and scan in Safe Mode I fixed two of the systems. The other three needed help from Panda's SafeDisk bootable rescue CD.

Once I got past the installation problems, I ran a full scan of each infested test system. A full scan on my clean test system took about 25 minutes, well under the 40 minutes required by G Data AntiVirus 2012 ($29.95 direct, 3.5 stars). On the other hand, G Data skips clean files in subsequent scans. A second scan with G Data took closer to 40 seconds, while a repeat scan with Panda took just as long.

Overall Panda detected 85 percent of the threats, better than G Data's 83 percent and the 81 percent detection rate for avast! Rescue Disc ($10/once direct, 3.5 stars). These are the only three products that have been tested with my latest malware collection. Other products did much better detecting the previous collection. At the top, K7 Antivirus Plus 11.0 ($39.96 direct, 4 stars) detected 97 percent. Double Anti-Spy Professional v2 ($29 direct, 4 stars) came in second with 94 percent.

Like avast! and G Data, Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 didn't thoroughly clean up the threats it detected. It left a number of allegedly-removed threats actually running, left behind executable files for others, and failed to remove almost all non-executable traces for most of the remainder. Its malware removal score of 5.8 is not impressive.

Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 did detect 100 percent of the threats that use rootkit technology, but left over half of them running, with their rootkit tech still chugging along. Its rootkit removal score of 4.7 reflects this poor cleanup.

Like G Data, Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 did best in the breakout score for removal of scareware (rogue security software). Both products detected all of the scareware threats. Panda's very good scareware removal earned it 9.5 points, beating G Data's 8.4. Ad-Aware Pro Internet Security 9.0 ($29.95 direct, 4.5 stars) scored 8.4 against the previous collection's scareware samples, but Panda's score is the top for both collections. For full details on how I derive these scores, see How We Test Malware Removal.

The previous edition of Panda's antivirus also displayed good detection with so-so removal. Panda Antivirus Pro 2011 ($50.95 direct for three licenses, 3.5 stars) scored 6.8 for overall removal and 6.1 for rootkit removal, despite detecting 100 percent of rootkits.

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