Panda quits, changes lingo, news at 11

[ceagle]

Today, when I started my computer at work, Panda Security Anti-Virus went postal :/

I've been testing it for about three years, and being that it's somewhat anthropomorphic in name, I was rooting for it. Despite a few minor issues, it's been pretty dependable... until today. Firstly, it went completely Spanish and wouldn't let me set it back to English. ;P .... Also, it refused to start or run properly.

I am wondering if this has anything to do with the main company completely updating its base verion to 2.0 within the last week or so.

In fact, the New Programs listing showed that it was listed as a new program, so it must have auto-updated to 2.0 and lost functionality. Another case of one of the modern day worst epidemics: POOR FIELD TESTING BEFORE RELEASE. I see this all the time in my business, and it's a sad testimony to the current mindset in much of technology.

Summarizing, I can no longer recommend Panda as an anti-virus option -_-

The newly updated list is:
1) MSE
2) AVG
3) TrendMicro

The following are secondary options:
4) Avira
5) Avast
6) Comodo
7) eSet

For sheer bloat and slowness, I do not recommend
8) McAfee
9) Kaspersky

One more note.... Norton had also become an unwieldy behemoth over the last decade, but the last installation I encountered on a Win7 intel-i7 machine seemed to handle it quite well, so perhaps hardware has finally caught up to match Norton on a manageable level once again, so I will half-recommend Norton if this trend continues.

Best Wishes, and compute safely :>

Comments

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

AVG has screwed up an update too. That was the reason why I switched from AVG to Avast a few years ago. Everyone will post a bad update eventually. The difference is in how they deal with the problem when it happens.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

hehhehheh... absolutely sir! (thanks for the comment, too) ... Yep... still use AVG on some of my home and work systems!

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Yessir... I encountered that one update issue also when it happened... it meant I had a few false-positives, but at least that was a pretty good outcome... heh... instead it could've let a truly bad one go right through... 8| *shudders*

Avast is almost *too* good in some cases... we can't use it at work because people complain that it's too strict! :D

[orv.livejournal.com]

I had severe problems with AVG interfering with Source engine games, a while back...in particular, it caused Half Life 2 Episode 1 to have severe audio stuttering and lockup problems. Since then I've switched to Microsoft Security Essentials and I haven't had any problems.

EDIT: I should add that for Mac folks, the free version of Sophos Antivirus for OS X is pretty good.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the input!
Yesh... it's not perfect.. heh... In fact I had a horrendous time when going from v8 to v9, but I resolved it eventually, for the most part.

Interesting about the visual stuttering... I think I've noticed that on both avg and mse systems, but not on Panda ones. Oddly enough, I went to fix one of my client's machines today... one that has one of my rare Panda installations on it, XP service pack 3 .... and it did that crazy auto-update it's been doing this week, going to Spanish interface, and flashing a message icon.... but after a few minutes, it recovered!! My own machine with Panda did not recover.

I guess it's possible they fixed the issue from a few days ago with an update by now.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

I recently had someone, who works at Norton, block me over me mentioning I didn't want to try Norton because past experiences were so painful

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

They blocked you?? eeesh... touchy touchy!... They don't sound very neutral or objective ... People should always have an open mind and at least ask why, especially considering the reputation it has gotten... They could've offered some counter-arguments as to why it may be worth trying again... but heh... sounds like maybe they had nothing good to say, so they took the easy way out :D

[aldi.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I didn't try Panda! Thanks for the update!