Russia’s Kaspersky Lab on Tuesday announced it had launched its free antivirus software and that it was immediately available in the United States, Canada and some Asia Pacific countries. The launch comes after the US President Donald Trump administration had removed Kaspersky Lab from its list of approved vendors over concerns about its links to intelligence services in Moscow, Reuters reported.
“An increase in the number of installations of Kaspersky Free will positively affect the quality of protection of all users, since the big-data-bases will have more numbers to work with to better hone the machine learning,” Chief Executive Officer Eugene Kaspersky wrote in a blogpost.
The software will be available in India from September. The free version will not replace the paid one, but will provide basic protection including for email, web browsing, self-defence and automatic updates.
On July 12, the General Services Administration, that handles US government’s purchasing contracts, had said that the Kaspersky Labs had been removed from its list to “ensure the security of the US government systems and networks”. The company had denied the allegations and had said it had not helped any government in the world with cyber-espionage efforts.
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