Dr. Dobb's is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.


Channels ▼
RSS

Security

Review: Panda Internet Security 2007


I've had a love-hate relationship with essential security suites for years. I reached Nirvana when I took a close look at Panda Software 's products about a year ago after a love affair with McAfee and ZoneAlarm products. Panda offered a better integration of tools and a more intuitive user interface than I'd ever seen. It made the right decisions for me out of the box while letting me set advanced options. And it didn't get too much in my way during productive work -- a big plus.

So I was excited recently to test Panda Internet Security 2007 ($79.95 with one year of service; $135.95 with two years of service). It provides all of the above plus lightning-fast updates, a small footprint on my hard disk, and it hasn't gotten in the way of productivity. So it's right for me, but it may or may not be right for you, because you may need to be a computer guru or get help from a consultant to deal with various initial-release warts. The product feels rushed and just shy of prime time.

The suite protects against all kinds of gremlins. It's got antivirus, anti-spyware and anti-adware components, a firewall, and more. It's one-stop shopping for the time and cost needs of small businesses. It caught more than a half-dozen instances of malware installed on my testbed computer that escaped several other solutions.

The bad news is that 20 or so years of working with computers didn't help much while installing the product. After the initial install, neither of my Internet connections worked. As a self-employed writer, I quickly could have been out of business. Microsoft Windows got in the way. An hour and a lousy connection to its customer support in India fixed that, but Panda's security suite still refused Internet access. Hours later, uninstalling Panda, rebooting, and reinstalling Panda several times finally brought joy.

Among several post-installation warts were a couple of features that failed to run because, according to error messages, requisite files weren't installed. No chance to register the product to receive related services was offered. Why?

One of my biggest frustrations was that clicking various buttons seemed to do nothing. So I clicked again. And again. Panda's software just wasn't telling me what was happening. Only after I later peeked at the Windows task bar did I see up to three instances of a process happening concurrently. Fortunately, I could figure out which instance was the most current and closed the others, speeding the process.

Still, I've bet on Panda Internet Security Suite 2007 for my own needs. I've yet to find competitors that provide updates so fast and reliably, crucial for fighting against gremlins during a busy work schedule. Also, a complete Panda scan of my system found more nasties than its competitors did. As jaded as I am after all these years, I was impressed! These are the bottom lines for a security suite. If it gets in the way or isn't thorough, you, like I, may let essential protection slide until it's too late. Nasties crop up faster than we can blink.

My advice? Panda Internet Security 2007 does all the important stuff right, but the vendor may need a few weeks to polish the rough edges into a jewel. Check Panda's Website and bug them about their product's latest "build date" before reaching for your checkbook. By November, I suspect that the rough edges will be fixed. Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye out for an update.


J.W. Olsen has been a full-time IT author, columnist, editor, and freelance book project manager since 1990, and has provided computer, Website, and editorial services to clients since 1985.


Related Reading


More Insights






Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

Dr. Dobb's encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, Dr. Dobb's moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing or spam. Dr. Dobb's further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

 
Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.