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Avast is now free for schools and libraries in the USA
Starting this week, we have made most of our Avast antivirus products and solutions free for use by schools and libraries in the US. This is just the first step and if it is successful, we will extend it worldwide. We are doing this for a couple of reasons. First, even though schools need security products, in these tough budget times, they need the ability to focus their spending on teaching. A couple of us here at Avast used to run the government and education sales at Symantec some years ago. We know that schools spend a lot on security—money that could be better spent on teaching.
The best just got better
A Google alert just popped up this review from Android Authority titled: “The best just got better“. And I just love the writeup from the author Simon Hill…
“After trying a number of Android security apps and comparing their performance in independent tests it is easy to recommend Avast Mobile Security as your best option. The sheer variety of features is more in keeping with a premium app, but it is still completely free.”
So if you have an Android phone – and according to the latest data by Gartner there should be about 450 million of you out there – go to Google Play and get the best rated security app. For free.
I’m still having my old Nokia but I guess time has come to get the shiny Galaxy S3 and install as well 
Defense center and a piece of luck
One of our users sent us a sample of rogue AV for analysis. He didn’t attach further informations and the binary was heavily obfuscated, so I decided to give it a shot inside a virtual machine. A virtual image of clean (freshly installed) Win XP was used to run it and this screen appeared:
Avast! Free Antivirus, Version 5.0: “…nothing short of a miracle”
Virus Bulletin, one of the most respected reviewers of security products, wrote a very detailed review of the Avast 5.0 beta products in their January issue (http://www.virusbtn.com/files/Avast-Jan2010.pdf). This is a lengthy review but to me the best line was their summation of the new free product: “the free version being available to all without charge is nothing short of a miracle”. There was also a review of it in the recent AV-Comparatives test of performance/system impact. The product scored the highest rating: A+.
With the new Free Version 5.0, we attempted (and we think succeeded) to raise the bar on free security products. We decided that our new free product needed to be the best antivirus product in the world—not just the best free product. We think we have succeeded, or come darn close. Now you the users (and of course the reviewers) can let us know…. Read more…
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