While we all have expensive lock/security systems to protect our homes from burglars, but when it comes to the security of our personal information on our computers, a lot of us look the other way and hope that the everything works out on their own as we are not interested in spending big bucks on renewing our antivirus every year. If you're one of those who belongs to the anti-antivirus group, then you must give a try Kaspersky Lab's latest antivirus release, Kaspersky Free.

The Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow has recently released a free version of its antivirus software across the globe. The launch comes amid growing speculations in the United States that the cyber firm is vulnerable to Russian government influence.

Kaspersky Lab's founder, Eugene Kaspersky wrote a blog announcing the big release and said that the antivirus software is being immediately made available in the United States, Canada, and several Asia Pacific countries. The company plans to launch the free version of the software in several other regions in the coming few months.

In order to calm the nerves of people who have spent big money to buy their paid Kaspersky antivirus software, the founder of the cyber firm assured the customers that the free version offers just "the bare essentials" such as email and web antivirus protection and is not intended to replace the paid versions of the antivirus softwares. However, he did clarify that Kaspersky Free is capable of benefiting all past, present and future Kaspersky Lab's customers as it is capable of improving machine learning across its products.

Quashing rumours that the free antivirus release was a sudden move to gain back credibility the firm had lost after the rumours of it being under Russian government influence started doing the round, the company said that it had been meticulously working on the software for last 18 months now. In fact, the software went through a proper development phase that included carrying out pilots in several markets including Russia, China, Ukraine and Scandinavian countries.



20-years-old Kaspersky Lab has grown on to become one of the world's leading anti-virus software companies since its launch in 1997. While the company has been under scanner for several years now in the U.S. for having close proximity to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the concerns have grown to great heights in the recent times following Russia's invasion of Crimea and Russia's role in hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

All this while Moscow and Kaspersky have denied the accusations and asked the U.S. to furnish proper documents if they have any to support their bizarre claims.

Last month FBI agents visited the homes of Kaspersky employees as part of a counterintelligence probe. Reportedly, the Trump administration has also decided to remove the company from a list of approved vendors who sell technology products to federal government agencies in the country.

According to Kaspersky, its U.S. revenue has seen a fall of $156 million in 2016 from $164 million in 2014 due to false narrative about the company in the country.
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