Panda Antivirus Pro 2011 -your opinion?

I have a chance to get Panda 2011 for free, and since my current AV registration is running out, I have to choose between Panda and other freeware solutions.

Now, I've heard good things about Panda, especially its high detection rates, and low resource consumption. But I'm a bit suspicious about that Collective Intelligence (basically some sort of CLOUD antivirus). It seems to me like that would take up a lot of bandwidth(something I don't have that much of).

So what I'm asking is, what are your thoughts and experiences with Panda?

 

Hi,

the point is, signature based AV software has reached its limitations and can hardly cope with the bad guys' "productivity".
That's why the AV companies now experiment with extended "phone home" functions often advertised as "cloud capabilities".

Michael

 

If you are on a DSL connection, don't worry about the cloud connection.
When on dial-up, it will be noticable but then again, downloading updates for other AV's would also cripple your connection.

 

So even with only a 1 M / 256 kbit/s DSL connection, I shouldn't have any problems?

 

The idea of Panda Cloud AV is to limit the size of updates.
You won't have to d/l big incremental updates that contain signatures for as much malware as possible, only the files you use/download/watch etc. will be checked.

Why not use the free offer, test it for a week, then test MSE or Avast and decide if you prefer Panda.

 

Here's our official review of Panda:
Panda Global Protection 2011 Review
Another:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5741&review=Panda+Antivirus+Pro+2010