
Avast acquires rival AVG for $1.3B to create a security software giant - davidiach
http://venturebeat.com/2016/07/07/avast-acquires-rival-avg-for-1-3-billion-to-create-a-security-software-giant/
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Slaul
I haven't used AVG or Avast in years. Personally, I have found that Microsoft
Security Essentials and Malwarebytes antimalware has been sufficient for me.

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Sarkie
I used to use MSE as it was so light, but it seems to be awful.

[https://www.av-test.org/en/compare-manufacturer-results/](https://www.av-
test.org/en/compare-manufacturer-results/)

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pfg
I'm quite skeptical about "independent" AV test sites like these, especially
when they come to the conclusion that solutions that would essentially make
the AV industry obsolete are inferior ("AV industry" meaning third-party AV
solutions in this context). There's a big incentive for them to come to that
conclusion, otherwise they'd have no reason to exist any further.

Relevant quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when
his salary depends on his not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair)

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iancarroll
I don't think you'll find anyone, paid or otherwise, who would say MSE
performs better than commercial solutions. It's weighted in favor of better
solutions, obviously, but MSE is pretty much the baseline of the industry.

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Noseshine
No doubt about it. The question is if it's worth it. Yes there is a risk - but
a population that largely accepts risk from unhealthy eating or smoking should
IMHO not be all that worried about the in comparison about the (a 2nd IMHO)
small increase in risk when using MSE compared to an annoying product. Also,
ones own behavior, like how do you handle or react to email attachments, how
up-to-date do you keep your system, what websites do you visit (a 3rd IMHO)
probably has a larger impact than your choice of anti-virus software.

In addition, if the anti-virus software annoys users enough they soon start
ignoring its popups and always just click them away, so that they end up
missing actual alerts.

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HarshaThota
In addition to those, there is also a risk that the 3rd party AV solutions
themselves have security holes. I know Google Project Zero has found a few
issues that make you question whether you are not opening yourself up to worse
attacks by using these products than you would by not using them.

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KevinEldon
While these companies do sell products I thought one interesting point was
'The combined company will have access to “400 million endpoints”'. That's 400
million mobile devices and computers that are collecting information about
accessed URLs, attempted exploits, installed software, usage patterns and a
bunch of other potentially valuable information for consumer marketing,
security analysis, and market analysis.

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groby_b
Huh. Avast, eh? The same company that sold almost uninstallable 3rd-party
crapware in Germany, together with AVG, who're happy to MITM you to sell your
data?

Do I remember that correctly?

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revelation
It's hilarious how such a huge industry has become of something that has
soberly assessed very little value or effect.

In fact, considering the massive vulnerabilities in AV software discovered by
e.g. Googles Zero project, I'm pretty sure the security gain has already
slipped into "negative effect" territory five years ago.

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ht85
I keep seeing this point of view around IT communities, and I think it shows
how out of touch most people are with the average user capabilities, or just
being pedantic.

AV software isn't there to prevent ingenious hackers to take control of random
computers. Yes, it actually might create more surface for that purpose.

It exists because most users do not have any understanding of the platform,
and will just click on "accept", "yes" and "ok" hoping things will turn out
well. AV are pretty decent at mitigating that. At the cost of some performance
loss, you'll avoid having a bunch of ads and popups take over your computer,
or at least mitigate the phenomenon.

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penguinduck
But for such a user the choice is not third-party AV or nothing - Windows
comes with AV software - so the true benefit of an AV product is only in how
much better it is than the integrated one. That difference needs to be more
significant than the product's drawbacks AND price.

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forcer
I wonder by how much ego played its role in this acquisition and how much
commercial terms. Prague based Avast acquiring its Brno based rival. There
have always been rivalrly between those cities too. Definitely the biggest
tech transaction in Czech Republic? If we can still say that with so many
offices they have worldwide

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nikolay
Journos didn't take the opportunity to title this: "Avast acquires rival AVG
for $1.3B to create a vast security software company".

Anyway, it's amazing how high the price ticket of a company is that is no
match for the real security ones!

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Daviey
ugh, AVG has always been my go-to AV for home Windows users.. I hope the Free
edition will remain.. (Even though they have been trying to aggressively
convert users to the pay version for years)

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j_jochem
Doesn't Windows anyway come with a free antivirus solution these days? If so,
this might be a good opportunity for Windows users to get rid of the nagware.

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adventured
Windows comes with a solid piece of software called Windows Defender. It does
the job very well. I've been running it for years without any problems. It
never gets in the way, runs moderately fast, never bogs my system down, it's
free, and it updates very regularly. I don't know what else I would ask for.

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ommunist
Bejesus! One should assess environmental impact of CPU cycles wasted on
antivirus protection. And based on result of such research - ban operation
systems, which architecture allows execution of malware. Yes, a large market
of "security" software will be lost. But this will be for good.

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freehunter
So we should ban Linux, Mac, BSD, Android, iOS, and Windows... what's left?
BeOS? Maybe we should assess the CPU cycles wasted by trolls on the Internet
and band anyone who doesn't think about their comment for five seconds before
posting...?

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ommunist
iOS.

