As a result of the freemium model, the number of users of the software grew to one million by 2004 and 20 million by 2006. īy 2001, Alwil was experiencing financial difficulties, when it converted to a freemium model, offering a base Avast software product at no cost. Alwil rebuffed acquisition offers by McAfee, who was licensing the Avast antivirus engine. However, by the late 1990s, the company was struggling financially. In the 1990s security researchers at the Virus Bulletin, an IT security testing organization, gave the Avast software an award in every category tested, increasing the popularity of the software. In 1995, Avast employee Ondřej Vlček wrote the first antivirus program for the Windows 95 operating system. The new regime severed ties with the Soviet Union and reverted the country's economic system to a market economy. The cooperative was changed to a joint partnership in 1991, two years after the velvet revolution caused a regime change in Czechoslovakia. The cooperative was originally called Alwil and only the software was named Avast. Afterwards, he asked Eduard Kucera to join him in cofounding Avast as a cooperative.

At the Institute, Pavel Baudiš discovered the Vienna virus on a floppy disk and developed the first program to remove it. They studied math and computer science, because the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia would require them to join the communist party to study physics. The founders met each other at the Research Institute for Mathematical Machines in Czechoslovakia. The company's main product is the Avast Antivirus along with tools such as the Avast Secure Browser and the Avast SecureLine VPN.Īvast was founded by Eduard Kučera and Pavel Baudiš in 1988. It is dual-listed on the Prague Stock Exchange and on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. At the time, AVG was the third-ranked antivirus product. In July 2016, Avast acquired competitor AVG Technologies for $1.3 billion. It had been a private company since 2010 and had its IPO in May 2018.

Īvast was founded by Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kučera in 1988 as a cooperative. In August 2021, Avast's board of directors agreed to an offer of US $8 billion. In July 2021, NortonLifeLock, an American cybersecurity company, announced that it is in talks to merge with Avast Software. The company has approximately 1,700 employees across its 25 offices worldwide. Avast has more than 435 million monthly active users and the second largest market share among anti-malware application vendors worldwide as of April 2020. is a Czech multinational cybersecurity software company headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic that researches and develops computer security software, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Avast founders Eduard Kučera (left) and Pavel Baudiš (right) in 2016 with their spouses, who run the non-profit Avast Foundation for community developmentĪvast Software s.r.o.

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