Just how much do you need your security suite to do for you? Antivirus protection is a given, and most suites offer firewall protection.
Parental control is a common add-on.
But really, the precise mix depends on the security company, and on the product line.
Panda's current product line is a-bubble with choices, from Panda Free Antivirus, through Panda Dome Essential and Panda Dome Advanced, to Panda Dome Complete, reviewed here.
Upgrading from Advanced to Complete gets you a password manager (with encryption) that didn't impress us as a standalone, a very simple cleanup tool, and a one-trick anti-theft system.
Most users would be better off combining Panda Dome Advanced with a top-tier password manager.
Upgrading to Panda Dome Complete also involves a considerable boost in price.
A single license for Panda Dome Complete lists for $106.99 per year; for $118.99 you get three licenses.
That's way out of line with the top-tier security mega-suite pricing from most competitors.
You get five Webroot licenses for just $79.99 per year; a five-pack of Panda costs $130.99.
At $89.99 and $99.99 per year, respectively, five-packs of Bitdefender Total Security and Kaspersky Total are still quite a bit cheaper than Panda.
You can use your Panda licenses to install protection on Windows, macOS, or Android devices.
Note, though, that the protection on macOS and Android is precisely what you get with the less expensive Panda Dome Essential.
Panda charges $178.99 per year to protect 10 devices.
A Symantec Norton Security Premium subscription gets you 10 licenses plus 25GB of hosted storage for your online backups for $109.99 per year, barely more than a one-device Panda license.
If you want to install protection on every single one of your devices, you can do so for $202.99 per year.
With Kaspersky Security Cloud, you get 20 licenses (which is, practically speaking, close to unlimited) for $149.99 per year.
McAfee Total Protection lets you install security on every Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS device in your household for $99.99 per year.
Yes, I'm talking a lot about pricing, because Panda's is off-kilter with the rest of the world, at just about every level.
It's also true that these prices are often discounted, but so are the prices of competing products.
Like all members of the current Panda product line, Panda Dome Complete displays the minimalist icons representing its features against a serene nature image.
This background image changes from time to time.
I've seen a mountain lake, a seascape, and a ladybug on a leaf, among others.
It's a nice change from the usual white or slate gray background.
I do find the plethora of icons a bit confusing at this top-tier level.
When you scroll the main window down, you can barely get all 22 of them onscreen at the same time, and the labels don't display until you point to an icon.
I was pleased to discover a button I had overlooked in previous reviews.
Cryptically labeled "Aa," it puts labels on all the icons.
Of course, doing so means you can no longer see them all at once, but it's still helpful.
Shared Features Redux
The products in the Panda line are like those Russian nesting dolls, with each one containing all of the smaller ones.
Open them all and you'll find the smallest, Panda Free Antivirus, with each stage adding features.
Everything you get in Panda Dome Advanced is also part of this suite, so I hope you'll read that review.
Here's a brief rundown of my findings.
Lab Test Results Chart
Malware Protection Results Chart
Phishing Protection Results Chart
Performance Results Chart
The independent labs give Panda decent scores, resulting in an aggregate lab score of 8.9 points based on two lab reports.
Bitdefender, tested by three labs, came up with a perfect 10 points.
Avira Internet Security Suite($56.99 Per Year (20% Off) at Avira) and Kaspersky, tested by all labs, earned 9.9 and 9.6 points respectively.
Panda earned a just-decent 9.0 points in my hands-on malware protection test.
Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus earned a perfect 10 against the same set of malware samples, and eight others outscored Panda.
In my malicious URL blocking test, its Safe Browsing component did nothing, and real-time protection eliminated just 35 percent of the malware downloads.
That score is among the lowest.
Bitdefender, Norton, and Trend Micro took 99 percent in that test.
The phishing protection test also proved too much for Panda; its 46 percent detection rate is among the lowest.
In an unusual twist, Panda Dome Essential (for Mac) scored much better, with 86 percent detection.
McAfee and Webroot scored the same on both platforms, detecting 100 percent and 97 percent respectively.
At the free level, you get a feature-limited VPN, a component that vaccinates USB drives against autoplay-based infection, and a Rescue Kit that lets you run an antivirus scan from an alternate operating system.
Panda Dome Essential adds a simple firewall, a whitelist-based application control system, and a network analyzer that warns about Wi-Fi dangers that goes beyond merely reporting a lack of password protection.
There's also a virtual keyboard that can foil both hardware and software keyloggers.
Just below the Complete edition reviewed here is Panda Dome Advanced.
Upgrading from Essential to that edition gets you a simple parental control content filter that does what it promises, but no more.
The Data Shield component balks ransomware by banning all unauthorized access to protected programs.
In testing, Data Shield handled real-world ransomware, including a modified sample that got past other layers of protection.
Few modern security products put a serious crimp in system performance.
Panda slowed the boot process a bit, but how often do you reboot? It earned a reasonable score in my hands-on performance tests.
Note, though, that adaware, Bitdefender, ESET Internet Security, G Data, and Webroot had zero impact on all three tests.
Panda Dome Essential, Advanced, and Complete all let you use your licenses to protect macOS and Android devices.
Note, though, that upgrading from Essential to Advanced or Complete has no effect on protection for other platforms, despite the higher price.
For a full understanding of everything that comes with this suite, you really should read my review of the next-smaller suite, Panda Dome Essential.
The remainder of this review will concentrate on what distinguishes Panda Dome Complete from Panda's lesser products.
Password Manager
Passwords are everywhere, and many people still deal with the onslaught by using weak, easy-to-remember passwords, or by memorizing just one and using it everywhere.
Either way, you're asking for trouble.
You need to use a unique, strong password on every secure website, and the only realistic way to manage that is with help from a password manager.
At Daxdi, we advise everyone to install and use a password manager.
Just maybe not this one.
Panda's password manager is a licensed version of AceBIT Password Depot.
In fact, the only visible difference is "Panda Secure Vault Edition" added to the title bar.
I'm sending you to my review of that product for the gory details on why we rated it just 2.5 stars.
At first launch, the password manager presents a cryptic screen with two choices, DB Manager and Exit.
Most users will guess Exit isn't the right choice, and many will figure out how to create a new password database in the DB Manager.
But it's not an auspicious start.
As with most password managers, you set up a master password at the start, and it does help with identifying strong password choices.
You can also choose to authenticate using a key file in addition to or (bad idea) instead of the master password.
You can sync passwords across multiple devices, but like Enpass Password Manager and Ascendo Data Vault, Password Depot requires that you set up third-party cloud storage for syncing.
Clicking the browser extension just brings up the dated-looking main window, which must remain active at all times.
It does automate password capture and replay, but not as smoothly as many competitors.
The random password generator ensures true randomness by seeding the random number generator based on the way you move the mouse across a dated Matrix-style screen of falling characters.
This will surely appeal to the tinfoil hat crowd.
More importantly, it defaults to creating long, 24-character passwords using all character types.
A big page of options to control distribution of characters in generated passwords can only reduce the pool of available choices; ignore it.
The password manager's ability to fill passwords by simulating keystrokes means it can handle application passwords, though the implementation is awkward.
Its Password Analyzer rates all your passwords by the length of time to crack them, but makes the process of updating poor passwords difficult.
A minimal form-filling component lets you store personal data, credit cards, and so on.
However, using this data to fill web forms is a manual, field-at-a-time process.
There's no automated password updating, no secure sharing, no password inheritance, and no two-factor authentication beyond the option to use a key file.
What Panda offers just isn't a good password manager.
If you don't already have one, I'd suggest using the free LastPass instead.
I'm assuming that after paying for this rather expensive suite you won't have cash left over for a commercial password manager, but LastPass beats out many of its commercial competitors in features and ease of use.
File Encryption and Shredder
There's always the possibility that a data-stealing Trojan might get past Panda's defenses and survive long enough to send your secrets back to its owner.
If you've protected your data with encryption, though, that Trojan won't find any secrets to steal.
Likewise, even a snoop who got past your computer login (or sat down at your desk after you logged in) won't have access to your encrypted files.
Panda installs the File Encryptor component the first time you use it, but it's not a Panda product.
Like the virtual keyboard and password manager, this component comes from AceBIT, source of Password Depot.
Encryption is a common feature in top-tier security suites, but most handle it differently.
Bitdefender, Kaspersky Total Security, and quite a few others let you create one or more encrypted storage containers, often called vaults.
When the vault is unlocked with a password, it behaves just like any drive or directory.
But when you lock the vault, the files and folders you've put inside become totally inaccessible.
With Trend Micro Maximum Security($49.95 5 Devices / 1 Year at Trend Micro Small Business), you only get one vault, but it's a bit different from the rest.
Where most vaults have a fixed size, defined at creation, Trend Micro's expands as needed.
And if your device gets stolen, you can remotely seal the vault so even the password won't open it.
Panda encrypts each file or folder separately; there's no concept of a vault.
You can create a self-extracting archive, one that you can share with others who don't use Panda (or Password Depot).
You can set it to securely delete the originals.
And, importantly, you can store the password in the supplied password manager.
As I found in testing, that last step doesn't work unless you first initialize the password manager, as described above.
If you encrypt a folder, Panda creates a separate encrypted version of each file in the folder.
Not what you wanted? Check the box to create a single output file and you'll get one encrypted file containing the folder's contents.
Encrypting sensitive files is good; leaving the unencrypted originals lying around is bad.
As noted, the File Encryptor includes an option to securely delete those originals, and you should always check that box.
Kaspersky always makes shredding the originals part of the encryption process.
You can also securely delete any file or folder by choosing from the right-click menu.
The File Shredder component has no configuration options.
Checking with my Panda contacts, I learned that it overwrites files three times before deletion, in accord with the Department of Defense standard.
PC Cleanup
The PC Cleanup page looks to have four components: Free up space on my PC; Scheduled cleanup; Boot Manager; and Defragment drives.
However, the defragment choice simply brings up the built-in disk optimizer, which in any case operates in the background.
Boot manager just lets you enable or disable startup programs, without the option to delay startup offered by similar features in Norton, G Data, Bitdefender, and others.
I did find it mildly surprising that the Boot Manager flagged Panda's own URL filter as risky.
And scheduling simply schedules runs of the basic free space cleanup.
That leaves free space cleanup as the only significant feature.
What does it do? By default, it empties the Recycle Bin, deletes temporary files, and does something unspecified to "Windows registry files." Checking with my contact at Panda, I found that this entry actually refers to deleting log files; it has nothing to do with the Registry itself.
Panda also clears the cache for Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox.
You can optionally set it to delete defective entries in the Registry, and wipe cookies and history for the three browsers.
The cleanup tool does what it promises, and does so quickly, but it's a very limited solution.
You can get finer control over cleanup in any modern browser by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Delete, and emptying the Recycle Bin is a snap.
Some competing products do quite a bit more.
Trend Micro and BullGuard Premium Protection help you find and eliminate duplicate files, even when they have different names.
Bitdefender and BullGuard show the biggest files on disk, so you can consider deleting any you don't need, and these two also analyze the impact of startup programs on boot time.
And so on.
Simple Anti-Theft
Installed on Android, Panda offers both antivirus and anti-theft, which is par for the course.
Panda Dome Complete extends a limited version of the anti-theft feature to your laptops running Windows.
You can log in to your Panda account and locate a missing laptop.
In testing, I never got to see this feature in action.
I tried to activate it, but the process just didn't work.
I even spent an afternoon with the VIP tech support that comes with the top-tier Panda Dome Premium.
Two tier-one agents and one...
