Win32 Virus Removal

The swamp of malicious code bogging down the Internet would be greatly reduced if everybody—absolutely everybody—ran antivirus software. "But it's expensive," some may complain, or "It will slow down my computer." Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5 Free Edition (free, direct) doesn't cost a penny, and it's designed for minimal impact on performance. Though not as effective as the very best products, it did a decent job in testing. It's vastly better than no protection at all.

Panda's minimalist emphasis extends to the product's user interface. Three big buttons let the user launch a scan, view protection statistics, or dig into the Recycle Bin (a holding area for suspicious files). Clicking one corner of the main window visibly flips it over to reveal a few configuration settings on the "back." Simple!

Lab Results
The independent labs run their tests on Panda Antivirus Pro 2012 ($49.99/year direct for three licenses, 3 stars), not specifically on Panda Cloud Antivirus, but the underlying technology is the same. ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs both certify Panda's technology for virus detection and virus removal.

In a recent whole-product test by AV-Comparatives.org Panda came in fifth of 17 products, with a 97.4 percent success rate. Symantec, in first place, was 99.3 percent successful. Panda rated ADVANCED, the second-highest rating, in on-demand and retroactive tests by AV-Comparatives.

AV-Test.org certifies antivirus products for use under Windows, XP, and Vista. A product needs 11 of 18 possible points to achieve certification. Panda made the grade in all of the last three tests.

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.

Easy Install
Panda Cloud Antivirus installed quickly and easily on all but one of my malware-infested test systems. The one exception involved a rogue security threat that blocked the installer, identifying it as a virus. Panda's SafeCD rescue disc solved that problem. In a single afternoon I completed all twelve installations and ran a full scan on half of them. That's phenomenal. Getting some products fully installed has taken two full days or more, if the malware fights back.

The product's default optimized scan specifically examines file and Registry locations known to harbor malware. For testing purposes, I chose to scan the whole computer. A full scan of my standard clean test system took about 30 minutes, while the optimized scan completed in less than one minute.

At the end of a scan the product simply reports the number of threats neutralized and not neutralized. The latter may include items that require a reboot for full cleanup. Panda Cloud Antivirus's results tracked very closely with those of Panda Antivirus Pro 2012, tested in May. In fact, for over 80 percent of the threats the cleanup results for the two products were identical. For all but two of the rest, the cloud-based product did a better cleanup job than the standard antivirus.

Panda Cloud Antivirus's 91 percent detection rate is the best yet among products tested with my current malware collection. It scored 5.9 points for overall malware removal; had it cleaned up the threats it detected more thoroughly it could have scored much higher. ZoneAlarm Antivirus + Firewall 2012 ($59.95 direct for three licenses, 3 stars) only detected 79 percent of the threats, but due to better cleanup it scored 6.0 points, the best score with the current malware collection.

Other products turned in much better scores and detection rates with my previous sample collection. K7 Antivirus Plus 11.0 ($39.96 direct, 4 stars) topped out with 97 percent, and Double Anti-Spy Professional v2 ($29 direct, 4 stars) detected 94 percent of those. Next up was Ad-Aware FREE Internet Security 9.0 (Free, 4.5 stars), with 91 percent. Norton AntiVirus 2011 ($39.99 direct, 4.5 stars) held the top malware removal score, with 7.9 points; Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 2011 ($39.95 direct for three licenses, 4 stars) was right behind with 7.8.

Like Panda Antivirus Pro and ZoneAlarm, Panda Cloud Antivirus detected 100 percent of the rootkit samples. Its score of 4.1 points reflects the fact that more than half the rootkits were still running after their supposed removal. ZoneAlarm scored 6.7 points against these same threats.

Panda Cloud Antivirus detected 100 percent of scareware samples as well. It scored 9.5 points for scareware removal, tying for first place with Norman Malware Cleaner 2.1 (Free, 3.5 stars) and Panda Antivirus Pro. For full details on how I derive these scores, see How We Test Malware Removal.

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