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*The Software Corner
Review*
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| Developer:Panda Software |
| License: Shareware |
| Overall:9.75 /10 |
| Help Files: 10 |
| Features: 9 |
| Ease of Use: 10 |
| Support: 10 (online docs etc..) |
| Stability: N\A (not a beta version) |
| Download: Click Here |
| Contact: Give us your ideas about the review |
Panda Antivirus Titanium is the newest release from PandaSoftware. This new antivirus program has improved considerably over their Platinum edition. With their new interface, it makes scanning and doing what you want a whole lot simpler.
PAV Titanium is just a simple antivirus scanner that gives you simple options while protecting you full time. This program even "tests" the program that you are installing to see whether or not it is a virus, something that I haven't seen done with the antivirus program that I usually use. This may have its advantages and disadvantages. For example I was going to install KaZaA, and PAV Titanium picked it up as a potential virus, so I decided to install GetRight and guess what, it didn't detect it as a possible virus. This makes you wonder if your antivirus program is actually going to protect you from a virus, meaning if you are installing a "fake" program whether it will make you vulnerable.
One major problem with antivirus programs is that it does not "force" updates to virus definitions in which people who don't know much about computers think "Oh I have my antivirus program on it will protect me". Well a lot of people think this way because they either don't read the manual or they don'tknow how to work the program properly. This causes a lot of virus incidents in which only if they knew how to update their program they wouldn't be in this situation. I do talk to people who fix computers and they just get hit with sircam, a virus in which there is a fix for makes the person an easy target unless the updated their virus defiinitions.
Functionality:
As I have stated above with the problem of people not knowing how to update their virus definitions, PAV Titanium does this for you automatically without you having to launch the program such as Live Update for Norton
Antivirus and probably similar programs. So as long as you are on the net it does it for you automatically.
I liked the feature as I mentioned above with the KaZaA and Morpheus incident that if it suspects an .EXE file to be malicious, it will rename the extension and it will ask you to scan your computer just incase the program was a real virus. The image on the right is the warning screen that I got when installing the program.
Also something that I don't see very often in antivirus programs is that you could scan your memory if there is a virus. Who says that viruses cannot be stored in the RAM of your computer? Well PAV Titanium has exactly that, it will scan your memory just in case you feel something seems not right with your computer, you could check yourram to see if there is a virus hiding in there. Also a nifty little feature is the Operating System scan where it would scan all the important files that your Operating System depends on to see if they are infected, this is quite time saving instead of scanning your whole computer on the suspiciion of a virus. I am not saying that you should not scan you whole computer one in a while, but as I explained before if you suspect something is wrong and you didn't install any new programs then try this before spending a few hours scanning your whole system. PAV Titanium also comes with an email scanner where it scans all the email thats in your email client, I am not sure however if it works with all email clients like Eudora or not but I know it scans Outlook Express and Microsoft Outlook, which comes part of your MS Office package.
Well not all programs are perfect, I have found something rather strange that there is no scheduling system to lets say scan your computer weekly, something that might be useful. I have notified PandaSoftware about this and also integration of the scan with download managers such as Getright and Download Accelerator Plus which have options to scan the program automatically after downloading. I feel that this would also help the prevention of viruses of accidently being installed because the person forgot to scan the file.
Conclusion:
Panda Antivirus Titanium is quite an improvement from their Platinum edition. I feel that this is a step forward in their development of not only protecting the person's computer but also making the "newbies" of computers safe with their easy to use program.
Their help file is quite nice actually, it explains everything quite easily and gives enough detail that even the unknowledgeable user can understand how to do things. I think this is the best help file I have seen in quite a while.
The autoupdate is a great feature, it updates daily and when you are on the net, no other program to launch to get it to update so you don't have to remember to launch you updater to get virus definitions.
This program offers some scans such as memory and operating system in which I haven't seen any other antivirus program that I have tested offer these features. But I have to say that this program loses marks in the event that it does not integrate properly with download managers to scan the file after it has been downloaded.
Overall I did like this program, they put a lot of time and effort making this program quite simple to use, I must admit I found it easier than Norton Antivirus. Their help file as I mentioned before is great and their interface is simple, clean and easy to use.
