Panda Antivirus Titanium - Panda Software Review

Overall Rating

Simple to install

Crashed my PC

This program caused error pavsrv51.exe and my system failed to respond to normal programs like the internet. I lost most of the functions of my laptop. I had to uninstall. Tech support didnt seem to like you asking for a refund.

Members' Comments onJohn.'s Review

• disgusted on 21st Aug 2003

  I hear you brother. Panda, although taunted by Panda as being the equivilent to a cure for AIDS is lacking in many aspects, particularly in their non-existant tech support (or lack of). I had Panda Platinum and when I had problems, being the geek I am, I would send them (Panda's tech support) the exact dialogue from the problem. Cut and pasted it. And they would write back as if I has said nothing and say, do this or that and yet I had explained I had done that. So weeks could go by before I even got an answer. Finally, I would give up and try to find the solution online. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
  
  Recently, I tried to upgrade to Panda 7 Platinum from my version 6. Everytime I tried to navigate Panda's site to PURCHASE it, Panda's system refused to recognize my password and user name. I wrote and told tech support how I wanted to PURCHASE the program and was having problems. They didn't respond until I finally called them all bozo's out of sheer frustration. Then they answered and apologized. But when I had problems again, another person from Panda wrote me as if nothing was wrong and basically said that I was trying to upgrade from the wrong verson. You'd think if they were smart enough to find a virus, they'd be smart enough to have an error message come up that says I have a different version. Suffice to say, I told them I'd go elsewhere. I found McAfee, and another technical support disaster. I have Windows XP on a 2gig Dell computer with a 80gig hard disk drive and a gigabyte of ram. Nothing strange, yet McAfee refued to load. When I got on the tech support chat line ( a mere 40 minutes) I was connected to what seemed like a robot. Over and over things were told for me to do that I had already tried. I tried them again. They didn't work. The replies to each message were agonizingly slow. Sometimes minutes went by before the person would respond. I finally gave up and said I wanted to uninstall it. They gave me instructions (because it wouldn't do an automatic install!) that had about 120 entries for me to remove from the registry! Can you believe this?
  
  You know, I don't know what's worse, the virus companies and their high and mighty we don't care about you attitude once you've bought our duff software, or the virus itself. I'm ready to go and do an Abe Lincoln...go to my hardware store, buy a shovel and a chunk of coal and make that my new computer. Screw this all...

• mke1963 on 7th Feb 2004

  I agree and I haven't even received the software yet!!! I paid the $80 for Panda Internet Security and have then spent the rest of the day trolling about their website increasingly frustrated as e-mails bounce back (most e-mail addresses on their website are fictitious), web pages don't load, jumping from confusing web pages to more confusing webpages. It's a fiasco. If I hadn't already paid I would have just gone away. I have made the switch to Panda from the unspeakably bad McAfee (check out their VS8 user forum to see the sheer volume of complaints daily. There's hardly anything RIGHT with that product). After forking out hundreds of dollars to McAfee and never really getting previous versions working properly, I upgraded, it screwed my system, so I dumped them.
  Now it looks as if Panda is going to be just as bad.

• melaglyco on 16th Feb 2004

  I agree. Im not a techee by any means so I decided to take it for what it said it was. I installed and the next thing I know I can't even get to my flaming desktop. I just get this irrating little stupid panda icon and nothing else happens. I'm very upset.

• Robinlo on 5th May 2004

  For what it's worth, I have also had a bad experience with Panda. I have used Panda Titanium anti-virus on my Windows 98 system for over two years without incident, so I naively assumed that it would be a good alternative to Norton for use on my mother's newer computer, using Windows XP.
  
  After paying for the software with my credit card and installing it, I attempted unsuccessfully to download updated virus definitions. My mother's computer then crashed, took 20 minutes to restart, and crashed again immediately upon completing the start-up routine.
  
  It ended up costing her $60 to have someone properly clean up her machine.
  
  I emailed tech support and received zero response. Since then I have sent emails every second day to Panda's customer service address and have sent faxes to their California office - with zero results.
  
  This has been very disappointing because their product has done its job for me in the past and, unlike Norton, is completely unobtrusive. But they obviously can't be trusted to support their customers if anything goes wrong.
  
  It also means that Norton probably has one less rival to worry about in its bid to monopolize the anti-virus market.