When comparing avast! vs Panda Free Antivirus, the Slant community recommends avast! for most people. In the question“What is the best antivirus software for Windows?” avast! is ranked 14th while Panda Free Antivirus is ranked 16th.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Decent anti-virus protection
Pro Excellent protection
In benchmark tests done by av-test, Panda Antivirus got a perfect score.
Pro No more updates
Cloud antivirus means users no longer have to update their system or see dialogue boxes annoying them. Every year or two it prompts you to install major updates to the application, but that's it!
Pro Hassle free protection
Runs in the background and silently quarantines viruses with scaring the user.
Cons
Con Tries too hard to sell you the paid version
Con Too noisy
Avast! has sounds turned on by default. It also has a lot of blinky features of questionable use.
Con Makes your system slower than usual
Even though scans are not being run in background, it will slow your system.
Con Opt-out installation of Google Chrome
These advertising tactics are simply unacceptable.
Con Selling potentially identifying user data
Con Detection rate isn't too solid
Avast! is not the sort of antivirus product to give you peace of mind. In practice, it does miss some malware every now and then. You'll need backup virus protection, which raises the question why you should get Avast in the first place.
Con Expires after a year leaving computer exposed to new viruses
Expires and stops updating after a year after which the user's computer may become infected by new viruses not covered by existing patterns.
Con May interfere with hyper-V
Since avast has its own virtualization engine, it will cause issues with hyper-V.
Con Unable to detect some adware such as FADE adware
Con Blocks or causes issues on apps or games
Con "Smart Screen" feature
When running an unknown application, avast will run it wrapped in a sandbox environment first for scanning, then kill the process and re-run it again. A lot of applications do not like this.
Con Below average performance
While easy to use and never requiring updates, it does slow down the loading of programs. The rate of slow down ranks it below average performance for launching applications.
Con Popups asking you to buy
When you start your computer you will get a small ad for a moment asking you to upgrade to the paid version, if you are using the free version.