Virus Bulletin, a leading publication on computer security, is organizing this week’s 21st annual Virus Bulletin International Conference in Barcelona, Spain. And AVAST is a proud platinum sponsor. So if you are in Barcelona these days and you have couple of minutes to spare, visit the Hesperia Tower Hotel where the event is held. You will get a chance to meet many of the security enthusiasts who have dedicated their lives to fighting viruses and malware. Read more…

Yesterday’s post about how difficult it is to get a building permit for even a neon sign sparked some interesting Facebook discussions. Clearly getting any sort of building permit is not an easy task in the Czech Republic. Our own experience at AVAST shows that getting a permit for a small sign can easily take 3 months. But, we should not be unthankful. At least at AVAST, we did GET the permit.

I mentioned AVG in my blog yesterday as the other well-known antivirus brand from the Czech Republic. In case you don’t remember, some time ago AVG was actually called Grisoft after its founder Mr. Jan Gritzbach – GRItzbach SOFTware. And the Grisoft company was located here: 49°12’9.262″N, 16°36’23.723″E  (view the satellite image).

Since then, the company has changed its name. They have even moved their offices. But the GRISOFT logo is still there, laying flat on the roof. I wonder if it was ever mounted and visible or if it is still waiting for the official building permit.  ;)

In case you didn’t know, almost half (!) of all home computers in the world are protected by antivirus products coming from the Czech Republic. That’s because both AVAST antivirus and AVG have been and are still developed here. This does make me wonder why: Why here? The Czech Republic is a small country and even though its borders are surrounded by mountain ranges we are hardly a valley – at least to say – of silicon. As far as I can tell, there is no obvious reason for this. Speaking of technology, the only other thing we gave to world is the word “robot” (invented by Czech novel & play writer Karel Capek who used it in his play R.U.R. in 1921).

So why antivirus? I really don’t know but I do know why we are no longer famous for construction and buildings. It is all thanks to our system of building permits. But it wasn’t always like that. Read more…

Have you ever been to a party where someone boasts about the antivirus he has just installed? I haven’t. And believe me even when we go to bar with the guys here from office, this isn’t what we talk about. At normal parties, people talk about the last holiday, argue over iPhone and Nokia, cars, ice hockey (in the Czech Republic) and sports in general (other places), politics (everywhere), hardware and gadgets, latest movies, mothers in law, kids and schools – but not about antivirus. I think this is because all of these subjects are, in one way or another, aspirational. Everybody understands and has opinion about politics and sports. On the other hand, most people with PCs don’t even know WHAT security brand they have installed and Mac users keep saying that they don’t need any. Read more…

Yesterday, I was chatting on Skype with my friend from Italy.  We have known each other for years and he was always great help whenever I needed to translate something into Italian, or when I needed to understand specific local vocabulary (I love the sound and meaning of “sfigato” for example) or the meaning of various hand gestures (it seems to me that when Italians speak, they always have their hands in front of their noses moving in wild gestures). Our chat yesterday evolved around an update on the children before turning into how he – my friend – got scammed by bunch of crooks. I thought he was quite unfortunate because of the consequences for him (can’t really go into the details) and because Italy is a rather safe place … at least based on the EUROSTAT statistics which monitor all crimes reported to the police. And since we are in on-line security business, and since EUROSTAT has loads of data on the ON LINE USAGE and CRIME, I pulled out a couple of reports for you as well. Read more…

It is a very quiet day in the office today because it is a DAY OFF. Yes, it’s a state holiday on Wednesday thanks to Saint Wenceslaus I. Wenceslaus –or ‘Vaclav’ (quite a common name for boys in Czech) was the Duke of Bohemia. On September 28^th in the year 935, he was killed by his younger brother Boleslav (today, not such a common boy name) in a small city called Stara Boleslav about 30 kilometers north of Prague. Boleslav wanted to be the local duke and indeed he was for the next 6 years until his own death. Why Boleslav chose Stara Boleslav as the place to commit this murder is not so clear today. The legends focus on Wenceslaus and several of them would be a good topic for blog post, but most Czechs today remember him only thanks to the holiday on September 28^th. In my view ‘a day off on Wednesday’ is one of the best inventions of mankind. Read more…

For 10 years now, AVAST has been giving free antivirus protection to home computer users. What started on June 1^st 2001 as an innovative step to bring the avast! brand to users around the globe without expensive advertising has worked very well indeed. Over 130 million users are now protected by avast! Free Antivirus and while it may sound like a cliché, even the users who have the free version are very valuable to us.

For starters, it is you, the users of the free version, who give us priceless word-of-mouth advertising. The majority of new users know about AVAST only because it was recommended to them by their friends (hence, we don’t pay for any advertising). You help us to translate the software (avast! is now available in 38 languages and 11 are now being finalized). You help each other and us at the Support Forum and, last but not least, you help us to find new viruses via the CommunityIQ system. Read more…

I love the marketing endorsements that tell you that “the beer you are about to drink has been brewed since 1845”. I wonder how it really did taste 160 years ago Sure, the basic ingredients were the same but is it really the same taste? Selfishly, it is my tastes right here and now that matter  – not what it was 120 years before I was born. Actually I found a reference to some monastery brewery that has been brewing beer since 1455! Still the same great taste?  I doubt it!  Gutenberg invented the printing press around that time and printing as such has evolved a bit since then. I can tell, because I have a 10-year old dot-matrix printer that is completely out-of-date and a 5-year old laser printer that is about to join it in the attic. Read more…

Is free antivirus really the best? Can you depend on it? Is free antivirus better than…? These are typical rhetorical questions from someone who is trying to SELL computer protection to you. Since we are providing Free Antivirus, we of course know the answer Rhetorical or not, let’s try to answer it. Read more…