Panda Launches New Cloud Antivirus Beta Testing Period with Prizes

Two years after launching the first beta of its Cloud Antivirus product, Spanish AV vendor Panda Security is opening a new public testing period for the program's 1.9 version.

The main purpose of the new Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.9 beta period is to test the network traffic interception functionality which is aimed at developing firewall functionality in future versions.

This interception targets HTTP and POP3 connections, but the program doesn't yet provide traditional firewall-like traffic inspection and filtering.

The new version is, however, capable of blocking HTTP requests on a per process basis thanks to the new Process Monitor component.

Blocking processes can be achieved by sending them to the program's recycle bin, from where they can be restored.

Other functionality added to Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.9 is the ability to disable BackgroundScan after the virus signature cache is synchronized with the cloud.

Users will also be able to exclude entire file extensions from the on-access scan instead of just particular files or folders and they will be able to disable detection of potentially unwanted programs (PUP).

Minor changes involve a new graphical installer and the storing of logs under %TEMP%\StubInstaller.log.

The toolbar installed by the program has also been modified. The ID Protect & Shopping has been removed and a new Toolbar Cleaner has been added.

In order to encourage users to try out the new program and report bugs, Panda will be offering several rewards. Ten $100 Amazon.com gift certificates will be awarded to the most active beta testers as determined by their activity on the Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta Support Forum.

"The winners of the gift certificates will be selected at the close of the promotion by the Support Forum Moderators amongst the users with the most amount of new (unknown at the time of posting) bug reports," the company explains.

In addition, free licenses for the PRO version of the program will be given out to other active testers. The promotion will end on August 1st, 2011, but this doesn't necessarily mark the end of the program's beta period.

Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta 1.9 can be downloaded from here.