The user was duped into “consenting” to these changes by a pre-checked checkbox and ambiguous text in tiny type that’s in the middle of the installation process. Often bundled with unrelated software such as CD-burner PowerISO, Secure Search high-handedly changes a browser’s home page to AVG’s and sets its default search engine to AVG Search. The Toolbar DebacleĪVG’s browser toolbar, AVG Secure Search, is obnoxious adware. What? Yes, you read that right for reasons it never explained, a leading antivirus developer tried to kill the “RickRolling” meme! Fortunately (or not), YouTube quickly restored Astley’s video and RickRolling rolled on. In May, 2012, AVG Technologies issued a copyright-violation “takedown request” to YouTube which resulted in the removal of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video from YouTube. But Avast’s missteps have been trivial compared to the drunkenly insane shenanigans of AVG. Shortly after acquiring Piriform and its famous product, CCleaner, Avast discovered that someone had created a malicious version of CCleaner with a backdoor left open for hackers to use in invading users’ systems.

In 2012, Avast fired its outsourced tech support service, iYogi, after it was caught using misleading sales tactics to persuade users to buy unnecessary services. Avast went public in May, 2018, on the London Exchange, in an IPO that valued the company at $2.4 billion.īoth firms had their high and low moments in their long histories. Since October, 2016, the two firms have operated as one, maintaining the two popular brand names, but slowly merging their technology bases. Since then, Avast Antivirus has consistently taken top honors from several independent antivirus product testing services, and is now the number one security suite on Earth in terms of installed base.Īvast acquired AVG for $1.3 billion in July, 2016 at that time, AVG Antivirus was the third most popular product of its kind. The first antivirus program written for Windows 95 was the work of an Avast employee named Ondrej Vlcek.

market in 1998.Īvast, Inc., is also a Czech firm, founded in 1988 by Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kucera.

The first software licenses for AVG Antivirus were sold in 1997 in the UK and Germany the software came to the U. Here are the issues that must be addressed, but first a bit of corporate history:ĪVG Technologies is a Czech Republic firm founded in 1991 by Jan Gritzbach and Tomáš Hofer. It is high time for 'Avast Mom' to demand that 'AVG Dad' sober up and stay sober, or to take 'the kids' far from him.

Reason core security keep or uninstall