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Ukrainian Archive
avast! Free Antivirus – yes, it’s that good
New Zealand’s state MetService website was hijacked by malware (apparently a fake antivirus) during a particularly high time for traffic, according to a stuff.co.nz news article. The article has prompted more than 100 comments in the first day, mostly from understandably upset site visitors who may have picked up the malware on their computers.
Here, however, I just want to show you one comment, as it’s nice to see this sort of feedback in the real world. It’s no secret that we typically offer our free version in tests against our competitors’ paid-for versions, but even the results from independent testing facilities don’t feel as rewarding as feedback like this from our user community:
Fortunately for those MetService users who were not using avast!, they can install it now and run the avast! boot-time scan — and that should do the trick. 
Attack of the semi-fake antivirus
We know what fake antivirus is: malware posing as real antivirus while hijacking your computer and wallet. Then there is real antivirus: applications such as avast! and our competitors.
And now there is a third category: semi-fake antivirus. It’s not a blatant malware attack and may actually include a real antivirus application. From a strictly technical perspective, it might not even be called malware.
But one thing is clear: it is still taking money from consumers in a way that some would call fraudulent.
Recently, I got an email from the UK-based Computeractive about an irate customer wanting a refund on avast! Pro. It seems that the person went on the internet, searched for avast, and found a site offering special download services and videos. They ended up getting a messed-up computer and spending over $100.
And then there is the French Connection: avast2011.fr-01.net. Combining avast, the year, and a major French IT portal together into a very attractive domain name; hackers created Read more…
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