Panda Platinum 2006 Internet Security [Old Version]

Customer Reviews

Resource hog but good design

2006-05-08
I had to reinstall windows xp on my system and had decided Norton was too expensive and interfered too much with some of my games. There was no way to turn off certain options and there were occasional pop-up notifications that irritated me to no end. Panda was great in this respect. It installed easily, virus definition updates took very little time, the program scanned my drives quickly and efficiently, and it was great for catching trojans, cookies and spyware.

Unfortunately, it is a system hog. Start-up took over five minutes. Despite a successful boot and login, Windows would go to the desktop and it would look like everything was ready to go. But if you clicked on a program (IE, Outlook, anything) nothing would happen for about 4 minutes, and then suddenly everything you had clicked on would open up. This got progressively worse over the month I had Panda installed. Shut down time also began to increase.

I uninstalled it, and all those problems went away -- definitely Panda. I'm now using NOD32 and it seems to be working great. I liked Panda more than Norton, but it essentially rendered my system unstable. It may work better on yours, but consider this fair warning. In fairness, I did not contact customer support, so that may have helped fix whatever the problem was.

Pros: Good interface; quick updates; effective protection; good amount of customization
Cons: System hog; may lead to system stability problems.

I wish I had kept Norton

2006-04-18
I have found panda slow to load, it asks every day for my user name and password (despite the fact that I checked the box telling it to remember the username and password). It forces me to enter the username and password over and over before it finally decides to accept it. Somehow, it has changed my browser so that I am sent all over the place, just not to the web address I entered. Even as I write this, it is asking me for my user ID, AGAIN! Oh, and the user ID they give you is some bizarre combination of letters and numbers, sometimes it cares if you do all caps, sometimes it doesn't. I only have myself to blame as when I was trying to purchase it from Panda's website, it inexplicably kept switching me to Spanish language. Maybe they stay on top of new viruses, but who cares when the software causes such headaches to begin with. Oh, and I will go back to Norton (even though they seem to miss a lot of spyware)

Awesome Product

2006-01-25
I tried PCCILLIN prior to this and was very dissappointed with its performance. The computer slowed down during installation and after it was installed. I also tried Mcafee and was satisied as far as the anti-virus portion of it. Again what I did notice with the Mcafee was its performance. Just to clarify, I have a Dell XPS 3.4 GHZ, 1 GIG RAM, and two 250 Gig Hard Drive in its belly( Just to show that my computer is not the culprit for the slow performance). This software (Panda Anti-virus)proven to be the fastest and the best so far. After its first scan it detected 23 spyware (something Mcafee, Aluria Anti-Spyware software,Spybot, etc. missed)programs. Aluria was able to detect a Browser Hijacker program from my computer and safely removed it but missed over 20 spywares. I am so far happy with this product and hopefully it will remains the same in the future.

Minuses outweight the pluses...

2006-10-02
I wish I could give this product a higher rating--it seems to be an effective antivirus product, and certainly works better against spyware than Norton or Mcafee.

BUT....Panda has essentially non-existent tech support, and you'll be wishing you had some support when the program keeps telling you it can't update because your username/password are wrong (even though they aren't). Or when you keep having to chase around their incredibly circuitous website trying to find an answer to seemingly simple questions.

Overall, Panda 2006 is just too much hassle to set up and use, and while it seems to work OK once set up, one still is left with a nagging sense of doubt about whether it is really operating correctly full-time or not.

Not exactly the comforting feeling one wants from a security package.

Slow to load but otherwise great

2006-07-24
I have had both 2005 and 2006 versions of Panda and have never had a problem. I am on the web alot and send lots of emails and have never had any viruses or spyware on my computer.
Panda is slow to load. It takes my computer about one additional minute to boot up before I can use it; but hey, for the protection it gives me it is worth the wait.
I have had to contact customer service once about a download for the 06 version. I was able to find the download myself, which is good because they never got back to me.

Will not even install

2006-06-20
I am trying to install the evaluation version of the product (both Titanium and Platinum) and neither one will install. They keep saying that McAfee A/V is already installed, but that computer has never *had* McAfee installed on it.

I went into the web site's suport... their "troubleshooter" provides zero help. Their "knowledgebase" returns no results for the search terms "compatibility", "mcafee", "zonealarm", "incompatibility", "incompatible", and "incompatible program detected"... apparently they don't think there are any such issues.

I called their information line and (surprisingly) got through to tech support. They emailed me a replacement "avdetect.ini" file that would fix the problem... it didn't.

If I could install it, it might do a fine job. But the company clearly needs to work on its install routine.

Shuts down your internet connection!

2006-06-02
This product is HORRID! I loaded it, and my internet connection was shut off by it, and none of the 'trditional' way of getting it started worked. I called Panda, Microsoft (who couldnt help, as it was 3rd party software that caused my problems), Panda again, and nothing from anyone. Horrible customer service, Horrible product.
Buyer Beware!!
You are hereby warned!

DO NOT BUY THIS AWFUL PROGRAM!!!
Norton is the way to go...FOR SURE!!!

Not a Cute Panda

2006-05-17
This program mostly prevented me from connecting to the internet, so I guess you could say it is the ultimate internet security package. I ended up unintstalling it and sending it back to the seller for a refund because:
1) When I booted my computer (a Pentium 4, 2 GHz, 256 ram, Windows XP), Panda loaded itself before Windows was finished loading and hung up Windows on the "Welcome" page with a largish Panda-in-your-face icon.
2) When I clicked on the panda icon to determine what was going on, nothing happened.
3) My computer would remain this way for at least 45 minutes, at which point I would get totally frustrated and turn off the computer.
4) But,the only way I could turn off my computer was to unplug it; the power button wouldn't work. Panda has taken control!
5) It only took 4 or 5 times of going through this scenario before Windows would finally load.
6) I had this problem constantly for over 2 weeks, despite trying every feasible configuration of the program.
7) I contacted Panda Software about it via the email address they suggested on their website. I never received a reply.
8) Once I uninstalled Panda, everything worked just fine.
9) Taking into consideration the lack of customer service and poor performance of the product, I think they should have named their company "Abominable Beast."