Kaspersky has finally launched its free antivirus software after a year-and-a-half of testing it in select regions. While the software was only available in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, China and in Nordic countries during its trial run, Kaspersky is releasing it worldwide. The free antivirus doesn't have VPN, Parental Controls and Online Payment Protection its paid counterpart offers, but it has all the essential features you need to protect your PC. It can scan files and emails, protect your PC while you use the web and quarantine malware that infects your system.
The company says the software isn't riddled with advertisements like other free antivirus offerings. Instead of trying to make ad money off your patronage, Kaspersky will use the data you contribute to improve machine learning across its products. The free antivirus will be available in the US, Canada and most Asia-Pacific countries over the next couple of days, if it isn't yet. After this initial release, the company will roll it out in other regions from September to November.
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Kaspersky launches its free antivirus software worldwide
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday July 26 2017, @11:45PM (3 children)
For those of us who require Windows, what anti-virus is the correct choice these days?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @12:37AM
For Windows 10, MS Security Essentials is just as good as any other resident antivirus, costs nothing, and at least the API is decently implemented.
For Win 10, who cares? The OS itself is a virus.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday July 27 2017, @02:29AM
Run it in an emulator in Linux: if it gets a virus, wipe and reinstall.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @06:52AM
There are plenty of sites [av-test.org] that offer regular test suites for all major virus programs.
Kaspersky has been and remains the #1 choice. If you're going for the red scare nonsense (they literally offered full source code access to the US government - so much to hide...), the other top options in terms of results look to be Norton, and Trend Micro. Avira is also top ranked but has recently missed some major attacks. Norton and Trend Micro also give some false positives from the data used, Kaspersky had 0.