Press Releases & News

AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0 now available in French

For the first time, the people of France can fight the silent threat of drive-by downloads in real time with a free, French language program

France - October 21, 2008 - AVG Technologies, the first European software developer to provide free real-time protection against the stealthiest threats to today’s Internet users, today announces the availability of the first French language version of its popular and widely-used AVG Free 8.0 security software.

“This is a timely announcement for French computer users,” said AVG Technologies’ chief executive officer JR Smith. “Research from our Exploit Prevention Labs division indicates that, during the month of August 2008, users in France were almost 30% more likely to encounter poisoned websites than the global average. The just-in-time protection afforded users of AVG Free 8.0 is the most effective defense against these stealthy threats available today.”

AVG Free 8.0 goes beyond the protection provided by other free security products to deliver just-in-time protection against drive-by downloads - invisible threats that can download malware onto a user’s computer without the user taking any action at all. This invisible infection process is the fastest-growing threat on the Internet today, and is widely used by organized criminals for identity theft and other commercial gain. These threats can be hidden in any type of website, and may remain on any given site for an hour, a day, or a week; the length of time a site remains infective often depends on how many visitors the site gets, as the criminals distributing the malware frequently have a target quota of information to steal.

The transient nature of these threats means they are impossible to track down using conventional anti-virus or anti-spyware products or, for that matter, most “safe-surfing” products. AVG’s unique Safe-Search protection is different because it protects users at the only time that matters – when they click on a url in a search results page. Users of Google, Yahoo and MSN searches will see a ‘danger – do not go here’ message when they try to access one of these poisoned pages. To make it even easier for users to protect themselves against these new threats, Safe-Search is incorporated into the new AVG Security Toolbar, so it’s always at hand.

AVG also provides a separate Active Safe-Surf capability in the commercial versions of its products, which adds real-time scanning to detect infected and potentially-infected content as users browse the web, outside of search engines. LinkScanner technology works with Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers.

AVG’s commercial products have been available in French for several years, but this is the first time the company has released a localized version of the free product.

“We strongly believe that all users, regardless of how they use their computers, have the right to a safe and worry-free online experience,” said Karel Obluk, chief technology officer at AVG Technologies. “We’re pleased to make that experience more accessible for users in France by providing our free protection software in French.”

AVG Free 8.0 is intended for personal and non-commercial use on single computers running Windows 2000, XP or Vista. While AVG Technologies does not provide support for AVG Free 8.0, the company hosts a website and forum for user-driven support at http://gratuit.avg.fr

About AVG Technologies

www.avg.fr
Founded in 1991, AVG is a leading international developer of Internet threat protection solutions for consumers, SMEs and small enterprises. AVG protects more than 80 million computer users around the world. The company has offices in Europe and North America, and employs some of the world’s leading experts in Internet security, specifically in the areas of threat research, analysis and detection. AVG’s award-winning products are distributed globally through resellers and over the Internet as well as via third parties through Software Development Kits (SDKs).

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Tommy Vaudecrane
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