Win32 Virus Removal

Every security suite must include a personal firewall along with protection against viruses and all types of malware. Without those essential ingredients it just isn't a security suite. Panda Security offers a full-blown firewall in their standalone antivirus Panda Antivirus Pro 2011 (starting at $40.95, ) making that product a very good deal. Trading up to the full Panda Internet Security 2011 ($81.95 for three licenses, direct) gets you phishing protection, spam filtering, parental control, and backup. In Panda's case, the suite is decent, but the AV is a better deal—the suite hasn't improved enough since last year.

Like the antivirus, this year's Panda suite looks rather different from last year's. Taking a visual cue from Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.1 (Free, ), it has an unusual dark background with white text and rounded-rectangle windows. A closer look shows that, apart from the new paintjob, not much has changed.

Shared Antivirus Protection
As noted, the suite's virus protection and cleanup features are the same as those of the standalone antivirus; firewall protection is also the same. For full details on these features, refer to my review of Panda Antivirus Pro 2011 (starting at $40.95, ).

In summary, Panda's antivirus protection scored very well in independent tests performed by AV-Test, AV-Comparatives, ICSA Labs, and West Coast Labs. The only downside in any of these tests was a finding by AV-Comparatives of many false positives (good files identified as malicious). But my quick-and-dirty false-positive test using PCMag utilities didn't reveal any problems.

In my own hands-on testing, Panda achieved a good score for overall malware removal. It detected most of the samples but didn't remove them as thoroughly as Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 2010 ($39.95, ) and others. And Panda's scores against rootkits and scareware weren't impressive.

Panda was much more effective preventing malware from gaining a foothold on a clean system. It didn't quite come up to the performance of Panda Cloud Antivirus, due to some minor problems with "autofix" technology, problems the company says should be fixed in September. Here too it made a poorer showing against scareware and rootkits. For details on how I test for malware cleanup and prevention, see How We Test Anti-malware.

Basic Firewall
The suite's firewall protection also parallels that offered in Panda's standalone antivirus. It successfully stealthed all ports and fended off port scans and other Web-based attacks. Its program control avoids peppering the user with popups by pre-configuring access for known programs and simply allowing all outbound access for unknowns. Products like Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 ($79.95, ) and Norton Internet Security 2010 ($69.99, ) apply more intelligence to the handling of unknown programs.

Even with automatic handling of unknown programs turned off, the firewall allowed all but one leak test utility to access the Internet; Kaspersky blocked them all. When I attacked Panda with exploits like those found on malicious websites, it only identified a handful of the attacks, though none succeeded in breaking security. Other products including Norton, Kaspersky, and BitDefender Total Security 2011 ($29.95, ) identified and blocked most exploits.

I was surprised that I was able to disable the firewall's essential services using an attack that could easily be performed by a malicious program. This firewall does more than the firewall built into Windows and it's a nice bonus for Panda's antivirus, but it doesn't come up to the protection level of the top security suites.

Network Management and More
When you have multiple computers on a network protected by Panda's antivirus or suite, you can use the network management component to view protection status for the other systems. The network map shows which systems are protected, whether they're up to date, and whether security is fully enabled.

A similar feature found in BitDefender Total Security and BitDefender Antivirus Pro 2011 ($39.95, ) requires that you configure one system as "server" and the rest as "clients." However, having done so, you can use the server to actively manage security on the clients, fixing configuration problems, launching scans, and more. Panda's network management lets you view status remotely but doesn't permit actual management at a distance, which is a shame.

The suite does come with a kind of remote management by way of a partner deal. You get a license to use BeAnywhere Personal Edition on the systems protected by Panda Internet Security, which means you can access those systems not only across your network but across the Internet as well. Once you've managed to get BeAnywhere configured you can take full remote control of your protected computer, but getting to that point takes some effort. BitDefender's built-in remote management is much simpler.

Easy Spam Protection
You won't have to jump through hoops to enable spam filtering in your Panda suite. It doesn't require training and doesn't need a ton of settings. The antispam feature filters incoming POP3 e-mail for any e-mail client and can filter any type of e-mail account when used specifically with Microsoft Outlook. It integrates into Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail but keeps its visible presence to a minimum. On my test system downloading a thousand e-mail messages took less than 30 percent longer with the spam filter engaged—you'd never notice it.

I tested Panda with over 7,000 real-world e-mail messages from an account that gets lots of spam. My biggest worry with a spam filter is that it will toss valid mail into the Spam folder. Panda only misfiled one percent of the valid personal mail and two percent of newsletters and other valid bulk mail. That's quite an improvement, considering that last year Panda flagged over half my newsletters as spam.

The spam filter did allow over 15 percent of undeniable spam into the Inbox, however; twice as much as in last year's test. That's still not too bad, but the free Cloudmark DesktopOne (free, ) didn't misfile any valid mail at all and allowed just 2.4 percent of spam into the Inbox. For a full explanation of how I evaluate the accuracy of spam filters, read How We Test Antispam.