One attack successfully disabled part of Panda's real-time file scanning system, allowing us to download malicious files without detection. Testing Panda's self-protection revealed a couple of vulnerabilities. Malware sometimes attempts to disable an antivirus before launching a full infection attempt, so it's important any security app can defend itself.

(Image credit: Panda Security) Self-protection It's not perfect - too many buttons just open a browser tab, rather than do anything locally - but we found it reasonably easy to use.

Functions are grouped into ten buttons (Scan, VPN, Support and so on) hovering your mouse cursor over a button displays a caption, reminding you what it does clicking a button takes you to that area, where a Back button returns you to the main dashboard when you're done. (We checked Panda's Support site to find out what 'Show Panda News' was supposed to do, but couldn't find it mentioned anywhere. We found a 'Show Panda News' switch in Settings, and turned off, hoping this would help but no, it didn't make any difference at all. There's another small annoyance in a regularly updated banner at the bottom of the dashboard, with links to various blog posts on the Panda site. You must scroll down to access everything. The app has two rows of buttons for various functions, but Panda leaves so much free space to the photo, that the second row of buttons is out of view. This looks good, but creates an immediate usability issue. Panda's interface stands out immediately for its desktop-style wallpaper background.

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