Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I am very fussy about my internet security solution. I have had good experiences and I have had bad experiences with different packages. Having used Norton, Trend and ZoneLabs in the past (and having been subjected to McAfee by previous employers as a corporate standard), I have several points on which to make my comparisons. Panda has been my solution of choice for several months now, and the new 2008 edition improves on the success of the 2007 edition.
I installed Panda Internet Security 2008 (PIS2008 hereafter) as an upgrade from the 2007 edition, which made me a little uncomfortable due to the difficulties I have had in the past with other products when simply upgrading as opposed to a brand new installation. To my relief, the upgrade was smooth, painless and relatively fast. After the requisite reboot, the system was stable, functional and ready for use - there were no issues with the upgrade. All of my old settings were left untouched and all of the new settings were defaulted. It even remembered that I had turned off certain features and it left them turned off, instead of resetting everything. This is appreciated.
The first thing that I noticed is that the interface has been improved. I am running it on a Windows XP platform, and though PIS2008 is Vista-ready it received a facelift for XP as well. The interface is smoother, more appealing and even more responsive, particularly when closing the main screen. Some items have been rearranged and more thoughtfully grouped, which makes finding options more convenient. Though the interface never bothered me under the 2007 edition, I can readily see improvement in PIS2008. Any time the interface for an application improves usability, it is a good thing.
Another improvement made is in the antivirus component. PIS2007 has a fast antivirus, but PIS2008 is even faster. It still can be thrown into the background too, which is a nice benefit when other work needs to be done while performing a scan. The speed of the antivirus should not disappoint anyone (be aware that other applications can seriously interfere with the scan though - SpySweeper seems to clash with it, bringing scan times to a crawl). As a test, I told it to scan my entire system, and it screamed through 1.9 million files in under 2.5 hours. It did find some malware in an archive, and it offered to dispose of it for me.
A common complaint about internet security suites is that they tend to hog huge amounts of memory and resources. I looked through the task list, and I was startled to find that my email client takes up more memory than all of PIS2008's processes combined. PIS2008 does take more CPU when scanning and updating, of course, but that is to be expected. This suite is gentle on memory.
One of the most important aspects of an internet security solution is a firewall that works. It is not enough to block incoming traffic or lock down outgoing requests from unauthorized applications. A good firewall makes the computer absolutely invisible on the net. With PIS2008 loaded and running at full security I went to the internet and searched for firewall test sites. I ran all of the tests I found out there and Panda's firewall passed all of them without a single failure. For ports scan, my system did not even return "Connection Refused" messages - it simply dropped them on the floor. Ping tests returned the same result - no computer out there. This is the way a firewall should work - it not only keeps out riffraff, but it completely hides the computer's presence in the first place.
One area that still could use a little more attention is the parental control/web filtering component. My complaint with PIS2007 is that to use parental controls/web filtering requires an individual name and password every time a new connection to the internet is made. This is still the case with PIS2008 - there is no mechanism to configure a default filter set that does not require a password, an irritation that will ensure I will not use this feature until absolutely necessary. When I have experimented with this feature, it has worked well and it has prevented access to known bad sites, blocking entire categories of web sites such as pornography, intolerance, etc. As an experiment I told it to block news and sports sites and when I tried to access ESPN it intercepted the request and suggested I talk to the administrator to get access. I really like this feature and I wish it didn't require accounts and passwords to use - a simple default with no password (no password to access the net, that is) required would be sufficient.
PIS2008 provides statistics, and lots of them. You can see everything that the firewall has done, a breakdown of the types of attacks that have come in, a pie chart of the types of emails received, and more. The information is available, presentable and understandable for almost anyone wanting to know what's happening. This gives peace of mind to someone who just doesn't know why they need a security suite. Check the reports and statistics and the reason becomes very obvious.
The antispam feature flags messages upon arrival that it deems to be junk - SPAM and PHISHING being the two biggest offenders - which can then be sorted with subject filters in the email client. It is certainly not foolproof, but it does a nice job on the large majority and it reduces the waterfall to a very slow drip. When a spam message does get through, Panda does provide a mechanism for reclassifying it for better results the next time.
New to PIS2008 is a backup feature. This allows the user to select categories for files or specify file extensions and then PIS2008 backs them up to a specified location. There is a restore function as well, of course. Even better, the newly created archive can then be burned to a CD or DVD on demand. While this is certainly welcome and it will be used frequently, it is not something I would expect in an internet security suite.
Also new to PIS2008 is a clean-up/tune-up suite. It amounts to the equivalent of the built-in tools available in Windows - defrag and disk check - but having these things in a MUCH more accessible place is very much welcome. I ran each of these and they did not seem to improve on the Windows built-in tools, but it's nice that they are there and readily available.
This is the first internet security suite that I have used that I feel deserves 5 stars. PIS2008 is not a perfect solution - no one has a perfect solution - but it is fast, unobtrusive, and secure and it is as close to perfect as you can find. It has a pleasant interface, decent feature set and a reasonable price tag. Though the parental control feature could be better configured, it works well and protects you from the ugly side of the net. If you want to really protect your system and keep it clean and secure, Panda Internet Security 2008 is a rock-solid performer.
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