Kaspersky Free Antivirus has been released, and is now available for free to all Windows users. The rollout of the free antivirus software was being phased and users from some countries like Russia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, etc. being able to download it first. Users from countries like USA, Canada, etc. were able to download it a little later. It is now available for all.
UPDATE: Kaspersky Free antivirus has been discontinued and you get Kaspersky Security Cloud Free now instead. This one gives you remote control and management options that Kaspersky Free Antivirus does not support. That is the main difference between the two.
Kaspersky Free Antivirus for Windows PC
Kaspersky Free Antivirus offers basic anti-malware protection for Windows users like file, email and web antivirus, automatic updates, self-defense, quarantine, etc; and will not include advanced security features like Privacy Protection, Parental Control, Safe Money, Online Payment Protection, Secure VPN Connection, etc., which paid products like Kaspersky Internet Security have to offer. As a result, it is expected to be lighter and quicker.
Said Eugene Kaspersky,
There are a lot of users who don’t have the ~$50 to spend on premium protection; therefore, they install traditional freebies (which have more holes than Swiss cheese for malware to slip through) or they even rely on Windows Defender (ye gods!). 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.
Once you download the installer and run it, you will be welcomed with the following screen. Click on Continue to proceed with the installation.
Once Kaspersky Free Antivirus is installed, reboot your computer and open it. The UI is easy to understand and operate.
You basically have two buttons that will work for you. The Scan button and the Database Update button – if you need to manually perform these operations.
Clicking on the small wheel in the bottom left corner will open its Settings.
You can configure the settings for File Anti-Virus, Web AntiVirus, IM Anti-Virus and Mail Anti-Virus. Click on the thumbnails to see the settings for these functions.
You can go here to download the setup file for Kaspersky Free Antivirus.
