Panda Free Antivirus

Panda Free Antivirus is fast and free, boasts the top score in real-world protection, and offers a USB drive cleaner.

Pros

High security scores: Panda Free Antivirus scored an impressive 99.9 percent in real-world protection from AV-Comparatives, edging Bitdefender out of the top spot. Scanning in full mode took us about six minutes, which is fast for a free scanner.

Easy USB rescue setup: Panda includes a rescue USB tool that scans and removes viruses from your hard drive. The walk-through will show you how to install Panda Cloud Cleaner onto your flash drive, so that you can then boot your PC with Cloud Cleaner running.

Metro-like design: Panda Free Antivirus comes dressed like Windows 8. Each tiled module behaves similarly to the Windows 8 tile screen, complete with rearrangeable boxes and colors. Add more tools by upgrading to one of the premium versions.

Cons

Browser tampering: Panda includes some minor annoyances during installation. If you miss the opt-out prompt, your default browser search will automatically change to Yahoo, and your home page will be taken over by MyStart. You can avoid these results, but some users will still find the behavior annoying.

Bottom Line

Panda Free Antivirus has significantly boosted its protection score. As you make your way up through the pro versions, Panda Antivirus begins offering some of the more compelling tools, like backup schedulers, and removes browser offers from the installation process. The modern, Windows-8-style look hasn't changed much from last year's appearance, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. Panda Free Antivirus doesn't offer a lot of bonus tools but is a solid release that will protect your PC.