At the end of November 2012, AVAST launched our Free for Education program, giving business-grade antivirus protection to schools, universities, school districts, libraries, and other education institutions in the USA – for free. I have to say… things are going really well ;) (Albeit there is one unbelievable “but”…)

The number of Free for EDU applications dramatically surpassed our expectations and plans. Actually, within days we will reach 1 MILLION computers protected for free under the Free for Education program. Well, no surprise. We provide the schools with what they need, and since the schools are under great financial pressure from budget cuts, a savings of tens of thousands of dollars on IT security is a great a help for them. Overall, AVAST has now saved $2-3 million in IT-security costs to the participating schools, a calculation based on the average street price for such networked licenses.

However, there is one big ‘but’ that really surprised me. Over 15% of the applying schools admit they didn’t have ANY antivirus protection already installed on their servers, network, and endpoints. In other words, from the 933,209 computer seats for which AVAST has now provided the security, over 140,000 computers didn’t have any security installed before.

Just unbelievable ;(

And if you would think that it’s just the small rural schools without antivirus, you would be wrong. There are schools without antivirus in NYC, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta. There are Schools with as few as 100 computers and those with over 10,000 computers – previously without protection.

I’m really glad we launched the Free for Education program.

So stay safe and all the best in 2013!