Panda

Panda still exists and is still updated. Panda Security, the Spanish company behind it, was acquired by WatchGuard in 2020, which folded the technology into its wider security business — but the consumer products, the Panda Dome antivirus range and VPN, remain maintained, updated and on sale. So if the brand feels quieter in the UK than it once was, that's marketing, not abandonment: development continues under WatchGuard's ownership.

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Yes — Panda Free Antivirus provides basic real-time protection at no cost, and it never expires. The paid Panda Dome tiers hold the rest: the firewall, parental controls and cleanup tools, with the unlimited VPN reserved for the top Premium tier (the free VPN allowance is very limited). The Dome Advanced plan we track covers five devices at US$64.49/yr for the first year. A reasonable free baseline; upgrade when you want the suite features around it.

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Decent rather than leading. Panda delivers solid everyday protection with a distinctive, easy-to-navigate interface, and its family plans — unlimited devices on the top tiers — are a genuine value angle. In the most recent independent tests, though, its scores sit somewhat below leaders like Bitdefender and Norton, and there's some performance impact on modest machines. That gap is why it sits towards the tail of our UK ranking: a valid option for households prioritising simplicity and device count, not the pick if maximum detection is the goal.

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For most people, Panda Dome Complete is the most balanced: it adds the firewall, system cleanup and parental controls on top of the core protection. Panda Dome Premium is the everything tier, adding the unlimited VPN and priority technical support. The Dome Advanced plan we price in this comparison is the step below Complete, pairing the core protection with the firewall and parental controls. Match the tier to what you'll actually use — the VPN is the main reason to reach for Premium.

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The free version never expires — you can run it indefinitely. Paid Dome licences are typically annual and renew automatically, and as across this whole category the renewal costs more than the first year: the Dome Advanced plan starts at US$64.49/yr and renews at US$86/yr. So: free lasts forever, paid lasts a year at a time — and the smart habit is checking the renewal price, or switching off auto-renewal, before year two bills.

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Open Panda, run a full system scan and let it detect and quarantine what it finds, then review the quarantine and delete the confirmed threats. For stubborn infections that survive a normal scan, use the boot-time scan — it runs before Windows fully loads, catching malware that hides while the system is running — or Panda's dedicated cleanup tools. If something keeps returning even after that, a second-opinion scan with a removal specialist such as Malwarebytes is the sensible next step.

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