Panda Global Protection 2011

Security suites are designed as a comprehensive approach to the security of home users and Panda Global Protection fits right into this category. It sports no less than six protection modules and a bunch of maintenance tools to keep your system in good shape.

Anti-malware protection, firewall, identity protection, vulnerabilities check, anti-spam filter and parental controls are all listed in the main application window. This list of protection layers can be trimmed down when installing the suite, allowing you to also add remote access option, which is made available separately because the service relies on BeAnywhwere application.

Also during the installation procedure, you will be asked to choose the firewall you want stay on guard: the one provided by Windows or the one Panda GP 2011 packs. The recommendation goes to the one offered by the suite.

In order to reduce the amount of pop ups as much as possible, Panda GP’s firewall relies on a list of preset rules for the most popular programs. This way, when trusted software tries to communicate over the network it will do it according to an automatic rule and no alert will be displayed.

Contrary to what users might expect for a security suite, the interface of Panda PG 2011 is simple and looks very much like a control panel with sections showing you the current status of all components, scan options, reports and quarantined items..

Antivirus

The layers of protection against malware include scanning with Collective Intelligence which increases the detection rate in GP 2011 and goes easy on system resources. Behavioral analysis and heuristic scans help increase the detection rate even more, by blocking threats for which there isn’t a signature and have not been classified yet.

Setting up the way these function is not a difficult task. The entire suite has been designed with the average Joe in mind, thus configuration is a simple matter of enabling or disabling the protection layers, choosing the types of files that should be scanned as well as defining the action to be taken when a threat is encountered (automatic disinfection, block access to file, delete the infected item).

If a file cannot be cleaned Panda Global Protection puts it in quarantine. Suspicious files that could represent a threat are treated the same way. The options available for the isolated items allow their restauration to the original storage location (they get added to the exclusion list automatically) or submit them to analysis at Panda labs.

Our experimenting with the Antivirus module showed a detection rate of 95.5%, higher than what Ad-Aware scored. Out of the 360 samples we used, only 18 of them were left standing, out of which two were detected, but not eliminated from the system. This brings to the conclusion that the engine detected 344 threats. The suite required a restart in order to complete the cleaning routine for some of the encountered malware.

Among the options available for customizing the protection against known threats you will find the possibility to enable checking of emails (inbound, outbound, attachments), data exchanged via instant messaging programs or downloaded with web browsers.

During our tests, however, we were able to receive malicious files through an instant messaging program without on-access scanner to produce any alerts or notifications. Furthermore, the file would was accurately detected at on-demand scan.

As for the scan possibilities, Panda Global Protection 2011 allows you to verify the entire system “head to toe” or just the parts you want, like files on the hard disk, emails (unfortunately only Microsoft Outlook’s messages are supported).

Firewall

Panda GP 2011 adapts the firewall security level according to the type of network you’re connected to. The types of networks defined in the suite are “Trusted” and “Public”. Automatic detection is imposed by default, but a manual approach is also available.

Thus, tighter security level is enforced if you connect to the Internet from a public place and other computers will be prevented from accessing your shared resources. On a local network though, the measures are more lax, allowing access to shared printers or files.

As mentioned before, the firewall comes with a list of applications for which rules have already been created. This helps a lot with decreasing the amount of notifications whenever a legit program sends or receives data over the network. For the bunch outside the list, though, you will get alerts accompanied by options to allow or deny the connection permanently or on a temporary basis.

Permission management in the firewall is quite easy to handle as there aren’t complicated settings. You can assign custom permissions and allow the connection only one way and through specific ports with using custom communication protocols (TCP, UDP or both). This can also be network dependent.

During our tests Panda GP’s firewall managed to hide typically vulnerable ports of the system but not all of them. The rest of them were closed and visible.

        

Identity Protection

Leaking of confidential information is also a field covered by the suite. This module lets you define the data you want to prevent from leaving your computer without your consent. Whether we’re talking about passwords, bank accounts, email addresses, social security numbers, PINs or credit card numbers, Identity Protection component keeps it all on the computer. A message will pop up asking for your permission.

In our tests we managed to go around this protection using a common, but not so popular instant messenger. However, users of Yahoo! Messenger and MSN have nothing to worry about. We also tried sending private data through email and failed with both Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird.

With phishing things are a bit more worrying though. With protection adjusted to medium sensitivity, which is the default setting, we managed to open no less than 14 fraudulent websites out of 20. Raising the bar to high sensitivity brought a 25% improvement and only 9 pages could be accessed.

There is also an option to block calls to unauthorized numbers. This is useful only if you connect to the Internet with a modem.

        

Anti-spam

This module, like everything else in the suite, runs mainly on its own taking just a few hints from the user. Except for turning it on or off, creating a list of trusted senders and indicating the automatic action to be taken in their case, there are no anti-spam adjustments.

In the documentation of the suite the developer informs that spam selection process is automatic, but the user can intervene and train the anti-spam engine. Panda GP anti-spam support is not limited to Microsoft email clients (Outlook and Outlook Express) but also covers solutions from other developers, according to the suite's documentation, as long as you're using POP3 (Post Office Protocol) to retrieve you're email.

If you have a different email client, you will have to create the "Spam" folder yourself and create a rule to guide them straight to that location and not the inbox. Even if this is not too much effort it would have been nice to see better support for other email clients as well. The same applies for Outlook 2010.

Testing of anti-spam did not go too well in our case, as the engine did not find any invalid messages as they downloaded. Our email clients for the testing were Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Parental Control

Compared to what other security suites are offering and the price of Panda Global Protection 2011, this module lacks one serious feature: the possibility to limit the online activity or even computer usage. Even imposing restrictions to launching specific applications is missing from the set.

What Parental Control does offer though, is web content control. And we all know that the Internet can be the place of all knowledge but also of plenty of evil. You can create whitelists with pages that can be freely accessed and blacklist those with inappropriate content.

A set of already configured user profiles lets you impose web content restrictions according to the user type selected: kids, teens, employees. You can customize any of these by choosing the categories to be filtered out; and the options cover a wide area: weapons, nudity, gambling, Internet tools, drugs, etc.

Creating whitelists and blackilists to enrich the pool of restricted links as well as enable exceptions is as flexible as Parental Control in Panda GP 2011 can get; but it is an easy way to control the content that loads in a page and the one that should be blocked.

        

Maintenance

In order to increase the performance of your system Panda GP 2011 relies on a junk file cleaner and a disk defragger. The features they bring to the table are quite scanty though, considering the price of the suite.

Cleaning actions include emptying the Recycle Bin, delete fragments of lost files, temporary data and IE history, cookies and temps. All this can be done into one single sweep with absolutely no problems. You have the choice to pick the areas you want to clean.

The defragmentation tool included in this section is the simplest possible because there are absolutely no options or settings available. Simply start the process and wait for it to finish. You do not get to choose the drives to optimize and no analysis of the state of the volume is made prior to defragging.

Backup feature is also present under this menu. It lets you create safe copies for the most important files on the computer either locally or online, through the service offered by Mozy; regardless of the destination path of the backup you can protect the archive with a password.

Restoration of a backup is part of the deal too, the application being able to place the file either in its original location or to a path of your choice.

The Good

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The Truth