The main driver for this decision has been the evolution of the methodologies employed by AV-Comparatives. We are happy to see that cloud-scanning components of products are also tested and this of course is important for testing Panda products as they incorporate not only signature-based cloud-scanning but also cloud-heuristics.
We will participate in all the main tests of AV-Comparatives (On-Demand, Retrospective, False Positive, Malware Removal, etc.) as well as the new Whole-Product Test which is a very promising test which replicates user experience.
However AV-Comparative’s Retrospective Test (which consists of freezing a 2-week old signature and testing against new malware to see how good the heuristic engine is) still does not use cloud-heuristics which are present in Panda products. Even though this methodology will penalize Panda’s products to some degree, we believe it is important to be present in the rest of the tests performed by AV-Comparatives.