AVG Technologies

AVG Technologies was founded by Tomáš Hofer and Jan Gritzbach in 1990 under the name Grisoft in Brno, Czechoslovakia.[1] At the time, Czechoslovakia was starting to transition from communism to capitalism.[1] Initially, Grisoft sold IT equipment and third-party software, in addition to its own antivirus product.[2] Grisoft grew as the country loosened its international trade policies, so it could exchange technology with companies in Europe.[1] By 1998, Grisoft had 13 employees.[3]

Grisoft later expanded to the US market, creating an American company called AVG.[3] Grisoft also expanded to Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany, and other countries.[4] For a time, the company was focused on bulk sales of antivirus software to computer manufacturers that sold PCs with Grisoft's software pre-installed.[3] It started marketing software directly to consumers in 2006.[5] In 2008, Grisoft changed the name of its parent company to AVG, the name already used for its software and for its American subsidiary.[6] TA Associates invested an additional $200 million into the company that year for a minority stake in the business.[7]

In 2001, Grisoft was sold to a venture capital firm Benson Oak Capital.[1] The firm then sold a 65 percent interest in Grisoft to Intel Capital and Enterprise Investors for $52 million in 2005.[1][8][9] The investments were used to fund a series of acquisitions.[1] Grisoft bought spyware company Ewido Networks in 2006[10] and browser security company Exploit Prevention Labs in 2007.[11] In 2009, AVG announced the acquisition of Sana Security, which analyzes software behavior.[12] This was followed by the acquisition of mobile security startup DroidSecurity and iMedix Web Technologies in 2011[13][14] parental control software company Bsecure in 2012,[15] and remote monitoring company Level Platforms in 2013.[16]

AVG Technologies filed an initial public offering in February 2012.[17] Additionally, former Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs was appointed CEO of AVG.[18] He led the effort to create a simple one-page privacy policy that discloses what data the company collects from users and what information about free users it sells to advertisers.[19]

In 2014, AVG announced the acquisition of Location Labs, a cybersecurity company focused on mobile devices, for an estimated $220 million.[17] AVG was acquired by Avast for $1.3 billion in July 2016.[20][21] By this time, AVG had 600 employees, $155 million in annual revenue, and 95 million users.[1] The combined entity became the world's largest antivirus company, with an estimated 20% of the market.[22] There were Avast or AVG installations on 160 million mobile devices and 240 million desktop computers.[23] The new combined entity incorporate their technology into combined software products and developed a new channel program to market them to small business owners.[24][25] A few months later, an American private equity firm, TA Associates, bought a 25 percent interest in AVG for $200 million.[1]

In 2015, AVG acquired the VPN company Privax[26] and an Israeli-based gallery app company called MyRoll.[27] It also released new software products for businesses that incorporate the technology of both companies.[25] In July 2017 AVG acquired Piriform, a UK-based company that developed CCleaner, a cleanup utility with 130 million installations.[28]

AVG develops and markets software for IT security, privacy, performance optimization, and other utility services on desktop computers and mobile devices.[29] It is one of the largest brands of cybersecurity software.[30]

AVG is best-known for its antivirus product.[31] AVG AntiVirus is a freeware program[31] that relies heavily on heuristic analysis to determine if a program's code is behaving like malicious software.[3][32] It scans a computer's documents, programs, and emails for suspicious behavior,[33] then rates each file's risk based on its behavior and alerts the user of files with a high rating.[32] AVG Antivirus has features intended to protect the user's PC from malware, phishing, and viruses.[34] It also has firewall, identity protection, anti-ransomware, anti-spam, and webcam control features for paid users.[34][35][36]

Avast also develops software for data backup, parental controls, and other services.[37][31] AVG produces a variety of other computer optimization and utility software products.[30][17] For example, a browser extension called AVG SafePrice looks for better deals online when the user is on a shopping site.[34]

A majority of AVG's revenues come from free users upgrading to paid versions.[37]

In May 2012, AVG Technologies issued a copyright claim, referred to as a 'takedown request,' for a YouTube video of 1987 pop song Never Gonna Give You Up, performed by British singer Rick Astley.[38][39][40][41] The video, which as of October 2015, has over 150 million views and 300,000 comments, had been uploaded in 2007,[42] and was restored within 24 hours by YouTube.[38][39][40][41] The video's name refers to the internet meme commonly referred to as 'Rickrolling,' where someone pranks others by tricking them into going to the video.

AVG's browser add-on, AVG Secure Search, has been criticized as being adware,[43] since it is frequently bundled with other software and is often mistakenly installed, and exhibits malware-like behavior. AVG Secure Search is also advertised to users of the free versions of AVG products.[44] Although the add-on offers legitimate malware-blocking capabilities, the default behavior of changing the internet browser's default search engine, homepage, and new tab page to AVG Secure Search is reminiscent of a potentially unwanted program (PUP), problems uninstalling the add-on have been widely reported,[43] and the add-on could potentially make an internet browser more vulnerable to attacks.[45]

• Official website