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Kaspersky now offers a free version of its security software

Kaspersky Lab has announced that it will now be offering a free version of its antivirus and security software.

This is a rather big move from a firm which usually charges as much as $50 (~R653) for it’s premium software. However, the firm recognises that not everybody has that money to spend on an antivirus solution.

“There are a lot of users who don’t have the ~$50 to spend on premium protection; therefore, they install traditional freebies (which have more holes than Swiss cheese for malware to slip through) or they even rely on Windows Defender (ye gods!),” Kaspersky Lab founder Eugene Kaspersky said in a blog post.

The founder notes that the free version of Kaspersky won’t compete with its paid products and is instead a lightweight version of the software. Users will get the bare essentials such as file, email and web antivirus.

Staggered release

The roll out of Kaspersky free will be staggered with the software being available in most of Europe, Asia, the US and Australasia right now. Africans will be able to get Kaspersky Free from 5th September.

Kaspersky Free global roll-out schedule.

So what’s the play here? Is Kaspersky just trying to increase its market share?

Well yes but there’s a better explaination – big data.

With more people actively using the software the firm reckons it can hone its machine learning capabilities using big data. The pay off is better protection for all no matter if you’re using the free or paid versions.

Of course come 5th September we will kick the tyres on this free version of Kaspersky just to make sure it’s as good as the firm claims.

[Image – CC BY 2.0 David Orban]

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