The most notable improvement is that we have gotten rid of the initial account registration which used to be mandatory for first-time installs. Panda Cloud Antivirus will not ask for account during install anymore. Only if you want to participate in the Cloud Antivirus Support Forums will you need to create an account.

I have Cloud Antivirus 1.0 already installed. Do I need to download & install this version?
Not really. This new version incorporates hotfixes which you probably already have installed anyway. To check if you have them installed, simply browse to “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users” (XP) and you should see a subdirectory called “HF_PCA_somenumber”.

I have the hotfixes installed but I still have some problems with Panda Cloud Antivirus. Should I install this version?
Yes you might want to give it a try. Below you can find some more detail of what this version fixes which is not included in the existing hotfixes. In order to install this version on top of the one you already have, first uninstall your current version, then reboot and finally download & install the new version from http://acs.pandasoftware.com/cloud/CloudAntivirus.exe.

What’s the changelog of this version 1.0.1?

1. Preactivated version does not require account creation during install
2. Fix for certain conditions of stuck quick & full scan
3. Improved cloud-heuristic detection for unknown malware - From HF_2
4. Improved prevalence algorithms for priorization of new malware - From HF_2
5. Fix of problems scanning certain files in system directories - From HF_1
6. Fix for loss of connectivity after malware disinfection involving LSP - From HF_1
7. Improved cloud-heuristic detection - From HF_1

More details can be found here.

You can participate and cast your vote here:
http://www.cloudantivirus.com/forum/poll.jspa?pollID=50051

Note: you will need an active Cloud Antivirus forum account to vote.

EDIT: I just reset the poll as some users reported problems submitting their votes. If you did submit correctly before, please vote again.

As you can imagine we are all very happy and would like to thank all of you who have helped during the long beta testing period to improve the product. You can read the full review in the following link:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355827,00.asp

While you’re at it, make sure to “Rate this product” to show other users how you feel about Panda Cloud Antivirus.
   

Take the poll and help us design the next versions of your new favourite antivirus:
http://www.cloudantivirus.com/forum/poll.jspa?pollID=50103

Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta is finished. Version 1.0 is finally here!

First of many thanks to the millions of beta testers and specifically to those who have given us feedback and helped improve the product. We think we have fixed all the issues you have reported.

If you have any of the previous versions installed (Beta1, Beta2 or Beta3) do the following:
1- Uninstall your current version.
2- Reboot your computer.
3- Download version 1.0 from http://www.cloudantivirus.com and install.
4- If you already have an account from Beta3, you can use the same one. Otherwise the installer will prompt you to create a Cloud Antivirus account.

As a reminder, don’t forget to use the Panda Cloud Antivirus Technical Support Forum for posting any issues you might experience.

Thanks again for helping us create this great free antivirus !!!

I really encourage all of you to start using the Support Forums as we have our entire Cloud Antivirus project teams from support, QA and development participating and looking forward to interact with you guys.

Don’t be shy and visit our new support forum, drop us a note or let us know if you’re having any problems. Even if you simply want to say hello or drop suggestions for future versions, we’ll be happy to hear about it.

Some of the most important and notable changes over the previous version are the following:

• New improved interface.
• New website design and services.
• New Collective Intelligence Real-time Activity Monitor.
• New Technical Support Forums.
• Fixed slowness of PC after install.
• Fixed most cases of scan stuck at X% and errors during scan.
• Fixed “Problems with Internet connectivity” popup message.
• Fixed BackgroundScan by deactivating many unnecessary operations.
• Improved performance based on cache optimization (much less CPU utilization).
• Improved performance based on memory management (less memory consumption).
• Improved management of Recycle Bin and restoration of disinfected objects.
• Improved quick scan option.

Panda Cloud Antivirus Beta3 introduces a new website at http://www.cloudantivirus.com where people are able to create accounts and use those credentials to login to their Panda Cloud Antivirus product instead of using license keys which need to be renewed every year. This allows users to access the online Support Forums and other Panda Cloud Antivirus services which we’re still building.

Altough the editorial did not include Panda Cloud Antivirus in the ranking chart as it could not test the retrospective detection using 2 and 4 week old signatures (as Panda Cloud Antivirus works in the cloud and therefore cannot use 2 & 4 week old signatures), it had this to say about Panda Cloud Antivirus:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/290839/review/cloud_antivirus.html

Among all of the free antivirus software we tested for our latest roundup, Panda Cloud Antivirus was the best app at blocking known malware.

The approach is intended to take advantage of the latest signatures without the need for signature-database updates–and if its excellent showing at detecting malware in AV-Test.org’s zoo of half a million samples is any indication, the approach works. Panda’s app produced an impressive 99.4 percent overall detection rate.

For now, we can’t give Panda’s app a complete score, but its impressive ability to detect malware makes it well worth keeping an eye on.

The final detection rate ranking of the full collection of malware, taking into consideration updated sigs and products, is the following:

1. Panda: 99.4%
2. Avira: 98.9%
3. Avast: 98.2%
4. MSE: 97.8%
5. AVG: 95.8%
6. Comodo: 74.6%

This is great news and motivates us even more to continue working hard to release a 1.0 version that offers top detection and protection for free

Basically we’re interested in getting as much feedback from the 64bit and Windows 7 community as possible. If you’re one of these guys or gals, we want to hear from you. Please send all feedback regarding this Preview Release to beta@pandasecurity.com or send your comments to this blog post.

Downloading
The download link is the following:
CloudAntivirus-Beta3-0.08.83-Preview.exe
EDIT: changed link to point to a more reliable server.

Installing
If you have a previous version of Panda Cloud Antivirus, you’ll need to manually uninstall that first, reboot and then install the Beta3 Preview.
Note: The Beta3 Preview can also be installed on XP/Vista 32bits, even though we’ve not tested it in these platoforms.

Workarounds
Remember that under x64 the registry entries for the different workarounds mentioned in this blog are different. They are the following:

Activating advanced logging:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodePanda SecurityPanda Service Host]
“tracePath”=”C:\Logs_CloudAV”
“traceEnabled”=”1″

Disabling BackgroundScan:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodePanda SecurityPanda Service Host]
“BackgroundDisabled”=”-”

Enabling Exceptions:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodePanda SecurityPanda Service HostExceptions]
“CreateMiniDump”=dword:00000001
“ToMessageBox”=dword:00000001