Panda Titanium AV review

[Thomas A. Horsley]

Just tried the latest and greatest Panda Software Titanium 2004 antivirus
trial version, and wow was I unimpressed .

Install seemed to go OK, but when I restarted the system it hard hung as
soon as I tried to login, the "Loading your personal settings..." screen
froze up and only a power cycle could get the system back. Eventually I
discovered this is just the way restart always works once I had Panda
installed. I always had to shut down the system and cold boot to be able to
get through the login screen. (Hardware specs in case it matters: Asus
P4C800-E, Sata Raid-0 boot disk, 1 gig memory, 2.8GHZ hyperthreaded
Pentium).

I tried emailing Panda via their "submit suggestions" interface in the
control center. Seemed to go OK, but as soon as I shutdown the control
center after sending mail, the good old "Application had an error and has to
close" dialog from XP pops up (so I sent them more mail to tell them about
that, and got the application error again - seems pretty consistent .

After finally getting logged in, I ran the update to get the latest database
and started a manual scan of the system. A few seconds into that their
helpful reminder box pops up from the taskbar app telling me I ought to do a
manual scan. Apparently they don't talk to each other and the taskbar app
isn't aware that I'm already doing a manual scan.

One thing did work: Once I determined that I could never restart my system
without a hard hang, I used Add/Remove programs to remove it, and that
seemed to go OK. System back to normal after panda is gone.

However, it had one more joke up its sleeve - while doing the uninstall, it
asked if I wanted to fill out a feedback form. I said yes, and despite the
fact that I'm running the English language copy, it took me to a Spanish
language feedback form .

I'm now running the NOD32 trial version .
--email: (e-mail address removed) icbm: Delray Beach, FL |
<URL:http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley> Free Software and Politics <<==+

 

[Rosie]

Just tried the latest and greatest Panda Software Titanium 2004 antivirus
trial version, and wow was I unimpressed .

Install seemed to go OK, but when I restarted the system it hard hung as
soon as I tried to login, the "Loading your personal settings..." screen
froze up and only a power cycle could get the system back. Eventually I
discovered this is just the way restart always works once I had Panda
installed. I always had to shut down the system and cold boot to be able to
get through the login screen. (Hardware specs in case it matters: Asus
P4C800-E, Sata Raid-0 boot disk, 1 gig memory, 2.8GHZ hyperthreaded
Pentium).

I tried emailing Panda via their "submit suggestions" interface in the
control center. Seemed to go OK, but as soon as I shutdown the control
center after sending mail, the good old "Application had an error and has to
close" dialog from XP pops up (so I sent them more mail to tell them about
that, and got the application error again - seems pretty consistent .

After finally getting logged in, I ran the update to get the latest database
and started a manual scan of the system. A few seconds into that their
helpful reminder box pops up from the taskbar app telling me I ought to do a
manual scan. Apparently they don't talk to each other and the taskbar app
isn't aware that I'm already doing a manual scan.

One thing did work: Once I determined that I could never restart my system
without a hard hang, I used Add/Remove programs to remove it, and that
seemed to go OK. System back to normal after panda is gone.

However, it had one more joke up its sleeve - while doing the uninstall, it
asked if I wanted to fill out a feedback form. I said yes, and despite the
fact that I'm running the English language copy, it took me to a Spanish
language feedback form .

I'm now running the NOD32 trial version .
--

Well, I've been running Panda Internet Security for about 6 months now I
haven't had those problems. I had it on an Athlon XP 1700+ KT7a mobo
with XPHome, and I've now got it on a Pentium P4 3.2gb with XPHome. In
fact, I've just taken out another 6 months subscription. I don't know
why you're having those problems though. It all works very well, it
finds the odd virus and blocked unwanted intrusions. And it updates
pretty well every day.
Good luck.

 

[Thomas A. Horsley]

Well, I've been running Panda Internet Security for about 6 months now I

haven't had those problems.

I don't know either, but I see a big collection of reviews on cnet.com
and about half of them everything works fine, and the other half
everything goes to heck in a handbasket.

I'm using nod32 now with absolutely no problems. I suspect I'll go ahead
and purchase it.
--email: (e-mail address removed) icbm: Delray Beach, FL |
<URL:http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley> Free Software and Politics <<==+

 

[Rosie]

I don't know either, but I see a big collection of reviews on cnet.com
and about half of them everything works fine, and the other half
everything goes to heck in a handbasket.

I'm using nod32 now with absolutely no problems. I suspect I'll go ahead
and purchase it.
--

Go for whatever works for you!

 

[Disco Duck]

Go for whatever works for you!

The thing I find interesting about Panda is the nature of complaints about
it. When other programs are discussed on this newsgroup they complaints are
about ease of use, product support or how effective they are at catching
different types of malware.

With Panda its "hey it crashed my system" ! I bought a brand new HP computer
at Christmas and decided to try Panda Titanium based on their ads. I have had
trouble with Norton products in the past and thought I would give the new guy
on the block a try.

It crashed my system. Would not even reboot properly. I to restore from
backup. Based on the reviews from CNET ( thanks for the link) it looks like
it was conflicting with the trial version of Norton AV even though I had
un-installed Norton before starting.


I am curious to see if they manage to stay in business.

Hud

 

[Richard S. Westmoreland]

Just tried the latest and greatest Panda Software Titanium 2004 antivirus
trial version, and wow was I unimpressed .

Install seemed to go OK, but when I restarted the system it hard hung as
soon as I tried to login, the "Loading your personal settings..." screen
froze up and only a power cycle could get the system back. Eventually I
discovered this is just the way restart always works once I had Panda
installed. I always had to shut down the system and cold boot to be able to
get through the login screen. (Hardware specs in case it matters: Asus
P4C800-E, Sata Raid-0 boot disk, 1 gig memory, 2.8GHZ hyperthreaded
Pentium).

I tried emailing Panda via their "submit suggestions" interface in the
control center. Seemed to go OK, but as soon as I shutdown the control
center after sending mail, the good old "Application had an error and has to
close" dialog from XP pops up (so I sent them more mail to tell them about
that, and got the application error again - seems pretty consistent .

After finally getting logged in, I ran the update to get the latest database
and started a manual scan of the system. A few seconds into that their
helpful reminder box pops up from the taskbar app telling me I ought to do a
manual scan. Apparently they don't talk to each other and the taskbar app
isn't aware that I'm already doing a manual scan.

One thing did work: Once I determined that I could never restart my system
without a hard hang, I used Add/Remove programs to remove it, and that
seemed to go OK. System back to normal after panda is gone.

However, it had one more joke up its sleeve - while doing the uninstall, it
asked if I wanted to fill out a feedback form. I said yes, and despite the
fact that I'm running the English language copy, it took me to a Spanish
language feedback form .

I'm now running the NOD32 trial version .

Well at least you got farther than I did.

I installed Panda's enterprise software on a freshly reformatted server
running Windows 2000 Server, with SP4. Before the install completed I got a
weird error (I don't remember exactly what is was) concerning the database,
but the install completed anyway. While trying to run it I would get C++
exception errors, and that's all the further I got before I was fed up and
uninstalled it. And this was after trying it on two other machines - one
which was too slow to run it and another which I had to reformat because it
wouldn't uninstall.

If it runs fine for some people, then great! The reviews I read about Panda
in security magazines give it good scores. But when I tried it out myself
it felt like they had hired discount programmers to slap together an
interface with some fancy graphics (not so fancy when they refresh like
they're running on a 386). There is some serious code problems with Panda
(or at least that release of it).

 

[Neil Myers]

Just tried the latest and greatest Panda Software Titanium 2004 antivirus
trial version, and wow was I unimpressed .

Install seemed to go OK, but when I restarted the system it hard hung as
soon as I tried to login, the "Loading your personal settings..." screen
froze up and only a power cycle could get the system back. Eventually I
discovered this is just the way restart always works once I had Panda
installed. I always had to shut down the system and cold boot to be able
to
get through the login screen. (Hardware specs in case it matters: Asus
P4C800-E, Sata Raid-0 boot disk, 1 gig memory, 2.8GHZ hyperthreaded
Pentium).

I tried emailing Panda via their "submit suggestions" interface in the
control center. Seemed to go OK, but as soon as I shutdown the control
center after sending mail, the good old "Application had an error and has
to
close" dialog from XP pops up (so I sent them more mail to tell them about
that, and got the application error again - seems pretty consistent .

After finally getting logged in, I ran the update to get the latest
database
and started a manual scan of the system. A few seconds into that their
helpful reminder box pops up from the taskbar app telling me I ought to do
a
manual scan. Apparently they don't talk to each other and the taskbar app
isn't aware that I'm already doing a manual scan.

One thing did work: Once I determined that I could never restart my system
without a hard hang, I used Add/Remove programs to remove it, and that
seemed to go OK. System back to normal after panda is gone.

However, it had one more joke up its sleeve - while doing the uninstall,
it
asked if I wanted to fill out a feedback form. I said yes, and despite the
fact that I'm running the English language copy, it took me to a Spanish
language feedback form .

I'm now running the NOD32 trial version .

I'm currently in 'communication' with Panda UK tech-support over a number of
I'm having issues with Titanium 2004, ever since I upgraded from Titanium
2.04.04 back in April.

Titanium 2004 Version 3.01.00 (April 2004):

- Blocked cookies - I could no longer shop online
- Timeouts when checking muliple POP3 email accounts.
- Newsgroup header download blocked (infact PAV would lock up and I
would have to restart my PC).

The advice given by tech support was to download the latest version!
Er...excuse me, it was the latest version.
They also asked me to run Panda's PSINFO util and send them the
results (does some sort of hardware and software analysis).

Titanium 2004 Version 3.01.02.(May 2004):

- Cookie issue seems to have gone...
- Timeouts checking POP3 accounts hasn't!!
- Newsgroup header download problem seems to have gone...

No suggestions from tech support - in fact I never received a reply
to my email!

Titanium 2004 Version 3.02.00 (August 2004) - installed post-XP SP2:

- still getting timeouts on POP3 accounts.

I emailed tech support again, mentioning that I hadn't yet received
a reply to my previous enquiry 3 months earlier! Anyway they asked me them
some log files (that didn't exist!) and the results of the PSINFO util
(which failed to run!).

At this point I have all but given up. I have now removed PAV from my system
and I am now using NOD32. I am pursuing a claim to get my renewal fee
refunded, but so far I haven't had a repsonse.

I can post the full tech support email transcript if anyone's interested - I
think it does highlight just how appalling the Panda technical help is.


Neil

 

[Thomas A. Horsley]

I am now using NOD32

Yep. I switched to nod32 after trying the trial version of titanium (with
the results documented at the start of this thread . The trial nod32
worked perfectly for several days, so I went ahead and bought the commercial
(single user) version, and lo and behold, all sorts of login problems came
back (though not the same ones I had with panda).

My suspicion (on some limited experimental evidence) is that the NOD32
automatic updates collide somehow with Zone Alarm. I can reboot the system
just fine almost anytime I want to, but if I turn it off and leave it off
long enough for the automatic update scheduler to want to check for updates
again, then it gets pretty badly hosed the next time I boot. (Wich means
once every day since I turn it off overnight .

One of two things happens - either it freezes up right after playing the
login sound but before bring up any of my desktop (sit at "loading settings
screen forever), or, if I login really quick as soon as the icons show up, I
get my desktop up, but very shortly afterward everything gets hosed, and
most things stop responding.

I have another computer I almost always leave up 24/7, and it was gonna need
antivirus as well, so I moved nod32 over there (I suppose I could have just
turned off automatic updates instead). I have no idea why this didn't show
up in the trial version (maybe the trial doesn't have automatic updates).
--email: (e-mail address removed) icbm: Delray Beach, FL |
<URL:http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley> Free Software and Politics <<==+

 

[Tim McDaniel]

My suspicion (on some limited experimental evidence) is that the
NOD32 automatic updates collide somehow with Zone Alarm.

I have no problem with NOD32 and Zone Alarm on the same system, but
I set both of them to manual update. Two reasons: (1) only one modem
for two systems; (2) I like control about when things happen.
I'm religious about updating NOD32 before doing anything Windowy with
new outside files.

Sorry that that's probably not a lot of help.

 

[Thomas A. Horsley]

My suspicion (on some limited experimental evidence) is that the

I have no problem with NOD32 and Zone Alarm on the same system, but
I set both of them to manual update. Two reasons: (1) only one modem
for two systems; (2) I like control about when things happen.
I'm religious about updating NOD32 before doing anything Windowy with
new outside files.

Sorry that that's probably not a lot of help.

I think I mostly solved my problem by moving NOD32 to my other machine
(which is up 24/7, so I'll never have a login problem .

Now I've got the trial version of PC-cillin on my system - hopefully if the
problem was Zone Alarm, the fact that PC-cillin has its own firewall (so I
uninstalled ZA) will help - surely the suite of tools won't confilct with
themselves? (Programmers could never make mistakes like that, could they?
.
--email: (e-mail address removed) icbm: Delray Beach, FL |
<URL:http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley> Free Software and Politics <<==+

 

[NonDisputandum.com]

In the old days what I used Panda with ZoneAlarm,... I also had
instability problems after the installation of Panda. I contacted the
helpdesk of Panda and they explained that it would be resolved by
removing and reinstalling Zonelabs.
Perhaps a solution?
Consider contacting the helpdesk of you aVir.

 

[Alex Makoque]

Now I've got the trial version of PC-cillin on my system - hopefully if the
problem was Zone Alarm, the fact that PC-cillin has its own firewall (so I
uninstalled ZA) will help - surely the suite of tools won't confilct with
themselves? (Programmers could never make mistakes like that, could they?
.

I used to run PC-cillin 2002 here, and my experiences are that it's
rubbish. I put Kaspersky on after runing PC-cillin for about 10 months
and it found about 15 different viruses on my system, even though I
regularly made sure PC-cillin was up to date at least twice a day
manually.

Also, the firewall on PC-cillin sucked in a big way, and didn;t seem
to make any noticible difference at all whether it was switched on, or
off, when tested with the ShieldsUp website.

hth, Alex.

 

[Chris Jones]

hmmm.

I got the old version of Panda Antivirus free with my laptop last year.
Worked perfectly far better than other antivirus apps. Just renewed it and
got told to download the latest version (Panda Antivirus Titanium 2004) -
lots of problems...

Firstly if I hibernate my machine when I awake it the antivirus service is
using 95% + of the CPU. And hence I can't do anything unless I'm prepared to
wait for ages.

Generally the machine seems slower to boot and login as well. It's also
causing problems with Outlook and POP3 accounts. Rather than timing out the
username and passwords get rejected.

I'm using version 3.02.00 on Windows XP SP 2.
Centrino 1.6, 512 MB.

As far as I can work out it's Titanium 2004 that's causing all the problems
but I'm still checking other variables.

And ideas?

Cheer

Chris

 

[Edwin Davidson]

I tried Panda at home and had simular issues. It would lockup my
system. Asus Mobo, but I think the issue was viruses in my Netscape
inbox. Once I removed those the lockups quit occuring.

Panda was the only product at the time to detect and clean viruses in
my Netscape inbox, however it locked up the system in doing so.

Sad, because had it not been for this issue I would have went with it.

Might check out eTrust, www.ca.com. If you are running server, you
can get a license for around $20 US or so, which beats McAfee's
$10,000 pricetag (Direct price from McAfee sales person.) and beats
most other vendors price tag for Server.