Avast, one of our past favourite desktop antivirus applications, is acquiring one of it’s biggest rivals, AVG Technologies, for $US1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) in cash. The deal will give Avast access to hundreds of millions of devices.
In a statement made on the Avast company blog, Avast CEO Vincent Steckler said the deal will give Avast access to over 400 million devices that currently use Avast or AVG’s software. This includes 250 million PC and Mac users, and 160 million mobile users. The actual acquirement process will take a few months, says Steckler, but you can expect positive changes for the company in the near future, especially when it comes to their threat detection efficiency. Avast will be able to gather more threat data to improve user protection on PC, Mac and mobile, and even start branching out into internet of things hardware. And Avast will have access to AVG’s Zen mobile technology that’s used to protect an entire family’s devices from just one primary device. The combo also means they will be able to improve technical support to business users. You can learn more at the link below.
Avast and AVG: a Future Together [Avast Blog via PC World]
Comments
2 responses to “Avast Antivirus Acquires AVG For $1.7 Billion”
“Will give Avast access to over 400 million devices that currently use Avast or AVG’s software.” Don’t they already have access to the devices that are using Avast software?
I was recently asked to audit a system for a small team. They were using Avast for their security. One system was infected with DMA Locker and there were numerous other nasties that had been missed by Avast on other systems.
I organised for Kaspersky to be installed to detect and remove most of the problems (except DMA locker). Kaspersky has a few issues, but from my experience, it detects better than Avast does.
I would not recommend Avast or AVG to any of my friends. I would also never recommend a free anti-virus, especially when some good commercial products can be sourced at a reasonable price.