Panda Security, a spanish security company founded in 1990, is a pretty understated company in the cyber world. It’s not the most popular but still competes with the likes of McAfee, Avira, ESET etc. The software has been designed with a culturally diverse mind-set - supporting over 23 languages. In 2012 Panda Security became the first anti-malware company to launch cloud management and remote monitoring solutions. To be the first to develop such a complex and useful tool is a huge milestone for any company, but can Panda continue to develop new and innovative ideas as well as keep up with the global antivirus market in 2016?
Features
Panda’s flagship product, Complete Protection (the most expensive suite available) comes with the standard features you’d expect from an antivirus suite but we feel Panda have pushed the boat out a little, they offer features that claim to allow you to “Shop and pay online with zero risk”, “Protect your kids from dangerous sites” and even chuck in a device optimizer! Bonus features like these are definitely something you should be looking into when comparing suites as being able to prevent malware attacks can be much more useful than stopping them once they’re on your PC.
Security
Panda Security currently boast over 47 awards, admittedly they aren’t all to do with the quality or performance of the software but they all help towards the company's reputation. Their most recent, awarded in 2015, show’s off their free software, being the best of 2015 according to PCMAG. If the company can produce a fantastic free solution, you would have a lot confidence in them creating a better, more feature filled paid version!
The user interface is sleek, simple and controls the amount of features very well. Awesome work Panda!
Support
As soon as you hit Panda’s support page you are presented with standard and premium support phone numbers, this is something that a lot of security companies won’t do, so thumbs up to Panda here! However these numbers are only applicable to certain users, depending on the subscription you own. If you’re running the Gold Protection then you’ll have access to premium support features which allows for 24x7x365 remote and chat support. We were really impressed with the remote support capability, it allows for a support agent to gain access to your machine (with your permission of course) to perform any tweaks to your system.
Not having live chat is a bit of a bummer but then again social media support is a thing of the present and they are utilising this nicely!
Affordability
Panda offer 3 protection levels ⅓ (Basic), ⅔ (Advanced) and 3/3 (Complete) which all come at a different rate and feature set. If you opt for the most expensive ‘Complete’ package you’ll have the option of kick starting your protection for free when choosing to run with the monthly plan. This can be cancelled at any time, so you could technically use Panda for absolutely nothing for a month and not have to pay anymore, providing you remember to cancel before the bill date. If you decide you like the product and don’t cancel, you will be charged the full monthly fee of $5.99 indefinitely (providing terms don’t change). For a full package that supports windows,mac and android bursting full of features we think it’s priced well.
