Posted by Virus Bulletin on Jul 16, 2015
This Throwback Thursday, we turn the clock back to 1996, when VB looked at what was available to protect your computer free of charge.
Today, the 'freemium' business model is a familiar one, and one that we commonly see in the world of security solutions: businesses offer a product or service free of charge, but charge a premium for additional features and functionality. Where AV software is concerned, the model works very well — free software is a strong encouragement for home users to secure their systems, and it works as an excellent marketing tool for the company in question, the idea being that satisfied users of the free product effectively market and advertise the premium product by recommending it to friends and colleagues.
An increasing number of AV companies are now offering free products — Avast, Avira, AVG, Bitdefender, Fortinet, Qihoo and Panda to name just a few.
Back in 1996, however, the picture was different — so different, in fact, that not even all anti-virus companies had an online presence, and where "free" anti-virus software was concerned, it was largely a matter of shareware or using evaluation copies of software.
In September 1996, VB summarized the state of free downloadable anti-virus software — finding more that was 'almost free' or free only under certain (temporary) conditions than was actually free. The report can be read here in HTML-format, or downloaded here as a PDF (no registration or subscription required).
Posted on 16 July 2015 by Helen Martin
