Letter to Panda Software

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave
  • Start date Start date
Mike said:
The few words I can read are (beside the panda bear logo) "Panda", "upgrade"
and "today only"

What they want me to upgrade TO, I have no clue, as the rest is too garbled
to read. But even if I couldn't read anything, the Panda logo kind of gives
it away.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you complained to them, good for you.

Several times in the last couple of years I installed Panda Antivirus
for people because it was software that came with their new motherboard,
or whatever. In every single case, I was asked to uninstall Panda and
install something else, because in every single case, the user found the
PANDA software to be ANNOYING.

People ~should~ complain.
 
Larry said:
I found that the only online scanner that will try to
disinfect, or delete is Trend Micro's House Call. Unfortunatlly, it
seems unable to detect alot viruses, and malware that other scanners
find.
Click to expand...

No one product finds and cleans them all. Everybody should scan with
more than one, IMHO. BTW, IMHO, Trend Micro's Housecall is a wonderful
service.
 
Larry said:
When all software developers start supporting other OSes, then
I'll switch, but when that happens, all OSes will be riddled with the
same problems.
Click to expand...

Ditto.
 
Mike said:
Read up on open source sometime. The WHOLE WORLD is a much better
development team than anything that Microsoft could afford to buy
Click to expand...

Sure, unless you want to play OBLIVION.
 
Read up on open source sometime. The WHOLE WORLD is a much better
development team than anything that Microsoft could afford to buy,
VER. -Dave
Click to expand...


I have did the open source thing mutiple times before. None of
them support what I use, and none are able to get the dependencies
straight. As soon as you upgrade them for one software, 5 others
break.
 
No one product finds and cleans them all. Everybody should scan with
more than one, IMHO. BTW, IMHO, Trend Micro's Housecall is a wonderful
service.
Click to expand...


I used to agree, but when F-Prot for DOS is able to detect,
and clean what House Call can't see, I lost faith.
 
Larry said:
I used to agree, but when F-Prot for DOS is able to detect,
and clean what House Call can't see, I lost faith.
Click to expand...

No one product finds/cleans ~everything~.
 
Sure, unless you want to play OBLIVION.
Click to expand...


Awww, but after most people switch to linux, there is no fricking WAY that
all your favorite games won't be ported over. -Dave
 
Mike said:
If I was the ONLY computer user in the family, it would be running linux. I
dual-booted for a while. But even if you dual-boot, you still need a
firewall and antivirus program to protect windows. -Dave
Click to expand...

I have separate windows and linux machines connected with a KVM switch, with
each being connected to the LAN hub separately. Machines are so cheap now
you can't afford not to have two... or more...

Dual-boot is a real nuisance.

--
Cheers, Bev
=================================================================
"In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has
had to worry about where the next meal would come from."
-- Peter S. Drucker, who invented management
 
Larry said:
I used to agree, but when F-Prot for DOS is able to detect,
and clean what House Call can't see, I lost faith.
Click to expand...

A curious thing. I'm not concerned about how much time it takes so I told
f-prot to check ALL files and report back, which I seem to remember it used
to do. Now "all" seems to mean only a few hundred rather than the thousands
on both drives. What gives?

--
Cheers, Bev
=================================================================
"In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has
had to worry about where the next meal would come from."
-- Peter S. Drucker, who invented management
 
f-prot to check ALL files and report back, which I seem to remember it
used to do. Now "all" seems to mean only a few hundred rather than the
thousands on both drives. What gives?
Click to expand...

Well, malicious software can only run in files that can ummmmm, run.
Therefore only a very small percentage of all the files on your hard drive
are the ones that really need to be scanned. -Dave
 
Well, malicious software can only run in files that can ummmmm, run.
Click to expand...

April Fools! Despite what you apparently think, you didn't wake up in
1988 this morning!

Actually, this date may be incorrect...macro viruses may have been around
even then, and that's only one example. Nevermind the image file viruses.

For that matter, I'm not really sure the boot sector would be counted as a
file that can be run (this is up for debate however, as technically it
IS), and viruses have been living there since day one.
Therefore only a very small percentage of all the files on your hard
drive are the ones that really need to be scanned. -Dave
Click to expand...

A more accurate phrasing would be only a very small percentage of all the
files on a hard drive are all but guaranteed to be safe, and therefore can
be excluded. Pure ASCII text files are safe last I checked. Then again,
one could argue that an HTML file is ASCII text...

Or, to put it bluntly...executable file viruses have been the least of our
worries for some time now. Any program that scans ONLY .exe or .com files
is worse than none at all, because it's just giving fools a false sense of
security.
 
Dave said:
Well, malicious software can only run in files that can ummmmm, run.
Click to expand...

Actually, I once had that nasty little MBR virus that did nothing except
spread itself around through merely inserting a floppy and closing the door
-- it infected the HD, which then infected every floppy you inserted whether
you tried to read it or not. It was a real nuisance to clean hundreds of
floppies. The only reason to go to the bother was that if you didn't you
couldn't check for other malevolent viruses. That one, BTW, was the only
virus I ever got -- and I know exactly who I got it from.
Therefore only a very small percentage of all the files on your hard drive
are the ones that really need to be scanned. -Dave
Click to expand...

Yeah, but still... Did it show me everything before just for cosmetic
reasons and now they figure we're all sophisticated enough to not need false
reassurance?

--
Cheers,
Bev
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
"Only wimps use tape backup; *real* men just upload their
important stuff on FTP, and let the rest of the world
mirror it ;)" -- Linus Torvalds
 
Therefore only a very small percentage of all the files on your hard
Yeah, but still... Did it show me everything before just for cosmetic
reasons and now they figure we're all sophisticated enough to not need
false reassurance?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what the reason was for changing the scan. I suspect it has to
do with usability issues. I know that my scheduled scans check all files on
the workstation (server actually, but being used as a workstation) at work,
and it takes most of an hour. During that time, the PC slows down. It's a
VERY fast PC by today's standards, it just has a bazillion files on it. :)
If I could set the antivirus to ignore data files (most of the files are
data), I'm sure it would perform a lot better.

That's why I'm guessing it's a usability issue that forced the change. The
scan is looking for (x number of viruses) times (y number of files). Both
numbers are increasing faster than raw system speed, so something's gotta
give somewhere. :) -Dave
 
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