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Danger level 3
Type: Potentially Unwanted Application

PANDAViewer

PANDAViewer is probably one of the least important and least useful application that you can find on your system. Although this file explorer and image viewer software seems to work just fine, it is not really a good quality program; and, this is not even the reason why we have labeled it as a potentially unwanted program (PUP). We have found that this PUP is identical to Picexa and belongs to the so-called ELEX family. This questionable program sets a potentially risky search engine as your homepage in Google Chrome. Also, it is possible that you install it along with other free programs that bundle malicious software installers. Therefore, you may have more serious security-related issues on your system right now that could cause further problems and infections. Since you can find reliable free programs on the web that would have more functions and more use to you, we suggest that you remove PANDAViewer from your system. Unfortunately, the uninstaller does not work properly and leaves lots of mess behind, which is another reason why we consider this program potentially unwanted. Please read our full report to find out how you can eliminate this questionable PUP entirely.

It is possible that you are searching the web for an image viewer application and somehow end up on the official webpage of this PUP at pandaviewer.com; even though we do not think that too many users install this tool through this channel. This is a very simple webpage with limited information about this software. To be frank, it is not very convincing but it is possible that some inexperienced computer users would still find this PUP a good choice to install. But when you are searching the web for an image viewer application, there is little chance that you find this software on the first pages of the results unless you know its name specifically and include it in your search keywords. We have found that it is possible that this PUP is also distributed on the web in freeware bundles to make sure that it is spread as widely as possible.

What you may not yet know is that installing a bundle is always risky unless it is the reliable and legitimate kind. However, when you download your target software from questionable sources, such as torrent and freeware pages, it is quite likely that instead of a standalone installer you will download a package of programs that may contain several useless PUPs and malware infections as well on top of an authentic free program. If this is how you may have installed this application, chances are that there are adware programs, browser hijackers, Trojans, fake alerts, or other potentially unwanted applications on board, too. This is why it is important for you to know that you should stay away from questionable and suspicious websites, i.e., you should only use official and reputable pages to download software and updates as well.

Also, it is essential that you do not engage with any third-party content, including advertising, if you do not want to drop a bundle of threats or end up on malicious websites. In addition to all this you should also make sure that your target is really worth installing. Although this PUP is clearly not the greatest threat to your computer you might encounter, we still believe that you should remove PANDAViewer from your system. But this may not be enough to restore the security of your PC and therefore we also suggest that you use a reliable malware scanner to find all other questionable programs as well.

This low quality software promises you "smooth visual experience" whatever that means, supposedly maximizes the realism of your photos, and opens big image files within 1 second. We have found that its features are rather limited and you can only use this file explorer to set pictures as your desktop, save or delete files, and a few other basic functions. As a matter of fact, you can use your Windows File Explorer to do all this. But, if you want a proper image viewer, we suggest that you do your web search to find a decent application that you can actually trust. This PUP may collect information about you, including your IP address and store it on its web server, which is stated in its Privacy Policy. It is also a bit suspicious that this application installs its own search engine (Search.pandaviewer.com) as your homepage in your Google Chrome browser and this search engine redirects all your queries to a Google search results page. Unfortunately, it is possible that these results might be modified and contain potentially unreliable third-party ads and links, which can pose a threat to your virtual security. All these above facts concerned, we believe that it is best to delete PANDAViewer from your system.

Another bit of bad news regarding this PUP is that it is not that easy to eliminate it fully. Unfortunately, its uninstaller leaves lots of leftovers. Still, you can locate and use this uninstaller via Control Panel as a first step. Then, you can move to the second part of our instructions below that refer to the removal of the aforementioned leftovers. If you want to do the whole process manually, we have prepared all the necessary steps for you below this article. However, it is possible that you do not want to go through all this hassle to clean your system yourself. Therefore, we recommend that you employ a professional anti-malware program, such as SpyHunter that can automatically take care of all known malicious and unwanted programs for you.

How to remove PANDAViewer from Windows

  1. Locate the shortcut icon on your desktop ("PandaViewer.lnk") and bin it.
  2. Press Win+E.
  3. Locate and delete these directories:
    %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PandaViewer
    %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PandaViewer
    %USERPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PandaViewer
    %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PandaViewer
    %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\PandaViewer
  4. Press Win+R and type regedit. Click OK.
  5. Remove these registry keys:
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{2EACA990-BDCF-47DE-86F3-5505B3A588C6}
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{2EACA990-BDCF-47DE-86F3-5505B3A588C6}
  6. Exit your editor.
  7. Empty your Recycling Bin.

Remove the leftovers

  1. Press Win+E.
  2. Delete these folders:
    %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\PandaViewer
    %PROGRAMFILES%\PandaViewer
  3. Press Win+R and type regedit. Click OK.
  4. Remove the following registry keys:
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\PANDAViewer.tif
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\PANDAViewer.tiff
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\PANDAViewer.png
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\PANDAViewer.jpg
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\PANDAViewer.jpeg
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\PANDAViewer.gif
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\PANDAViewer.bmp
  5. Then, delete these blank registry value names that have these values:
    HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.bmp\UserChoice\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.bmp")
    HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.gif\UserChoice\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.gif") HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.jpeg 2000\UserChoice\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpeg")
    HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.jpg\UserChoice\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpg")
    HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.png\UserChoice\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.png")
    HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.tiff\UserChoice\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.tif")
    HKLM\Classes\.gif\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.gif")
    HKLM\Classes\.j2c\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpeg")
    HKLM\Classes\.j2c\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpeg")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jp2\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpeg")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jp2\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpeg")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.bmp\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.bmp")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jpe\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpg")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jpeg\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpg")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jpeg 2000\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpeg")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jpg\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.jpg")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.png\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.png")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.tif\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.tif")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.tiff\OpenWithProgids\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.tif")
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\PANDAViewer.bmp\[blank] ("PANDAViewer.bmp")
  6. Modify the following registry value data as shown:
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.bmp\[blank] "PANDAViewer.bmp" change to "Paint.Picture"
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.gif\[blank] "PANDAViewer.gif" to "giffile"
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jpe\[blank] "PANDAViewer.jpg" to "jpegfile"
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jpeg\[blank] "PANDAViewer.jpg" to "jpegfile"
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.jpg\[blank] "PANDAViewer.jpg" to "jpegfile"
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.png\[blank] "PANDAViewer.png" to "pngfile"
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.tif\[blank] "PANDAViewer.tif" to "TIFImage.Document"
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\.tiff\[blank] "PANDAViewer.tif" to "TIFImage.Document"
  7. Exit your editor.
  8. Empty your Recycle Bin.
  9. Restart your computer.
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