Kaspersky Antivirus Free 2019 released!

Kaspersky Lab has just released their latest and greatest FREE version of their flagship product, Kaspersky Antivirus. And while half of the world is still panicking about Russian conspiracy bullshit, this one is a golden nugget. A really big one.

As you can see, it hasn’t changed much on the outside compared to version 2018. It’s still a very pleasant interface design.

What’s really new and exciting is what’s underneath the interface and you can see this in settings…

Granted, they have locked down the settings, but as an expert user, I believe their out of the box setup is great and doesn’t really need any fiddling with settings. Sure, I liked file heuristics at High sensitivity, but we gained System Watcher.

If you don’t know what System Watcher is, it’s an incredibly sophisticated behavior blocker capable of detecting malware based on behavior and not signatures. I’ve tested it several months ago and it was spectacular. Paired with Kaspersky’s KSN cloud, really good file heuristics and excellent signatures and we have a product that will seriously challenge pretty much all existing free antiviruses like avast!, AVIRA, AVG, Panda Free and Bitdefender Free. It’s REALLY good and while I’m an avast! aficionado, but I really like this new Kaspersky Antivirus Free 2019. It just works out of the box.

Give it a try, you might be surprised how nice it is.

DOWNLOAD

General Download (Select “The European Union” because others still serve 2018 version).

Direct Kaspesky FTP download

Kaspersky Antivirus Free finally released for everyone!

Kaspersky offered Kaspersky Antivirus Free to certain countries for quite a while. But yesterday, Kaspersky finally released it for everyone to use, worldwide.

Kaspersky Antivirus Free however does come with few limitations however (no way, really? 😀 ). As you can see from the main panel image, they disabled few options. And this trend continues in settings as well…

While most features missing in settings aren’t big show stoppers, lack of SystemWatcher however is. A bit. SystemWatcher is Kaspersky’s flagship behavioral blocker which is very powerful. Missing this component in Free version means it’ll perform considerably worse than their paid versions. Only consolation is the fact that Free version still connects to KSN, Kaspersky’s cloud system which does interact with SystemWatcher component on paid versions, meaning Free users benefit from SystemWatcher, but indirectly rather than directly. In an essence, a paid user of Kaspersky has to encounter a super brand new malware, that person will then supply the detection metrics to the KSN and you as a Free user will receive protection against that malware from someone else’s SystemWatcher indirectly via KSN.

This is how a detection dialog looks now on Windows 10. It’s utilizing native Windows notification system to show malware detection alerts.

Conclusion

While I don’t think it’ll pose an immediate threat to avast! or AVG which do provide full behavior blocker even in their Free version, it’s nice to have another option among free antiviruses. Kaspersky, despite lacking some core protection features will for sure still provide sufficient protection beyond what most of other free antiviruses provide. That especially applies to Windows Defender.

Only thing that is still uncertain is the fact that license says it will last for 365 days. What happens after that? avast!, AVG, AVIRA, Panda Antivirus free, all these are free forever. Will Kaspersky Antivirus Free only be “free” just for one year and then the fun is over or can you extend/renew this? Can’t find any info on this. We’ll see I guess…

UPDATE 2017/07/27

It seems Kaspersky Antivirus Free will be available for more than 1 year (365 days license). Some user on Kaspersky forum changed his date to 2020 and Kaspersky Antivirus Free said it expired and that it has limited functionality. After clicking RENEW button, he got another 365 days license. So, I guess that explains it all. Things may change down the line, but it seems to be set for free renewals as things stand now.

DOWNLOAD

https://www.kaspersky.com/free-antivirus

Bitdefender Antivirus Free 2017 released!

Some years ago, Bitdefender released a widely popular free version of their product in a very trimmed down version with minimal settings and most of detection based on cloud lookup opposed to full fledged protection offered by their main paid for programs.

It was very popular because it was free, fast and had very high detection ratio. But then Windows 10 came and there were problems with its drivers which for some reason never got updated even though their main lineup was fully compatible already. This new version (I call it 2017 even though it doesn’t have such official name) was in beta for quite a while, but has been released into public final version.

As you can see (apart from white border of the bottom screenshot merging with my page background 😛 ) it’s again super simple. You basically have no settings to control other than one button to initiate full system scan, one protection switch which allows you to toggle protection on and off on your own. Exclusions and quarantine are only under user control once something is detected first and user decides to release the file from quarantine and exclude it. You can’t exclude things in advance by adding file or folder paths on your own like in other antiviruses. Some don’t like this, but it’s perfect for most casual users since it just protects them with minimal interference and interface that isn’t overwhelming at all.

I haven’t yet tested it’s protection capabilities, but since it’s from Bitdefender which has always been at the top of all protection charts, it should be pretty effective despite lacking a lot of advanced protective features found in their paid product.

Be aware that Bitdefender Antivirus Free requires registration of a Bitdefender account and being logged into that account within the antivirus in order to use it for free. Registration itself is free, I just wanted to let you guys know, because I know some don’t like antiviruses which require this.

DOWNLOAD:

http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html

Bioshock Trilogy remaster coming fall 2016!

As you may or may have not heard about it, Bioshock trilogy is getting remastered including all add-ons, expansions and DLC’s and it will arrive in early September 2016.

Only game out of three that won’t be remastered is Bioshock Infinite because developers believe it already meets today’s standards of quality expected from modern games on modern gaming systems. This means proper wide screen support, 1080p and 60fps. I hope They’ll also include FOV fixes because that crap was stupid even for Bioshock Infinite. I had to hack it to get higher FOV. So, there’s that…

IMPORTANT!

One important fact though for PC gamers, if you have Bioshock 1, Bioshock 2 with Minerva’s Den DLC and Bioshock Infinite listed in your Steam library, you’ll be eligible for free remastered update that will otherwise cost around 60€ as a standalone package on release day.

What this means is, if you have retail copy of Bioshock 2 you can add it to Steam library (just enter the CD KEY into Steam). Bioshock 1 can’t be added and you probably already have Infinite on Steam since I think it was only released there anyway or at least most bought it there. You can grab Bioshock 1 cheap on Steam till 4th July 2016 during summer sales. So, you can greatly reduce the total cost if you act fast! If you don’t own any of them, you can buy all 3 for around 15€ which is still very cheap. Again, just till 4th July 2016 during Summer Steam sale!

I’ve already prepared all 3 games on my Steam account and I’ll just give away the retail one to my younger cousin. I guess it’s time to introduce him to a world of a bit more complex games 🙂

SimCity 2000 SE for free!

Good morning everyone (unless if you’re not from Central Europe, in which case, happy Easter!). Today, nice people at EA are giving away yet another classic, this time around it is Simcity 2000 Special Edition. I don’t think it needs any further description except that it is a grand daddy of all city construction games in which you can make towns, cities, make them successful or burn them down to the ground with tornados, fires, riots and aliens. Aliens! 😀

You can grab the game here:
https://www.origin.com/en-ie/store/buy/simcity-catalog/pc-download/base-game/special-edition

I can’t find the end date for this giveaway, so grab it before it’s too late!

Enjoy!

Peggle Deluxe for Free!

This time around, EA is giving away PopCap’s Peggle Deluxe. It’s a puzzle game where you have to take down various objects on a predefined “playground” with limited number of balls. Sort of like a blend of Breakout, Worms and Scorched. It’s a bit old and doesn’t look as awesome as some of the latest PopCap games, but it’s still fun to play.

https://www.origin.com/en-ie/store/buy/peggle/mac-pc-download/base-game/standard-edition

Offer will last till 5th August 2014.

Enjoy! 🙂

Plants vs Zombies Game of The Year Edition for Free

Wow, EA at it again. In a positive way! After free Battlefield 3, here comes the all time classic Plants vs Zombies. A cartoonish 2D arcade game with plants defending the garden against zombies. And it’s WAY better than their latest 3D Garden Warfare nonsense. That one is nowhere near as good as this original. And best of all, it even works on Windows tablets with full touch control. I’m playing it all the time on my ACER Iconia W4.

DOWNLOAD:

https://www.origin.com/en-ie/store/buy/plants-vs-zombies/mac-pc-download/base-game/standard-edition

This awesome deal will last till 2014-06-16. Make sure you grab it because it’s just awesome! Only on EA Origin.

Have fun!

Battlefield 3 now free!

Like with Dead Space few weeks ago, EA has been generous again. This time with a free copy of Battlefield 3 through Origin client.

Visit:

https://www.origin.com/en-ie/store/buy/battlefield-3/pc-download/base-game/standard-edition

And enjoy! I’ve bought this game when it was released and despite never playing multiplayer portion of it, I really enjoyed the single player. Graphics and sound effects were very good, interesting worlds and action and it was decently long. And now that it’s free, you just can’t go wrong with it (if you haven’t yet played it). I don’t know what happened at EA for them to be so generous all of the sudden to give away pretty much new games, but hey, who cares. Bring us more of this good stuff! 😀

OFFER IS ONLY VALID TILL 2014/06/03 !

avast! Protection Tweaks

I’ve launched a new sub-page for avast! Antivirus configuration tweaks which provide the least intrusive experience with maximum protection and performance. If you just want antivirus to silently sit in the corner of your desktop and do its job when malware is detected, then you’ll love it. All the animations, information pop ups and sounds are interesting at first, but over time, they do get a bit annoying (at least they did for me). My configuration file takes care about that and much more.

Access the sub-page on the link below or through the right side Pages panel…

avast! 17 Protection Tweaks

Dead Space game free on Origin

Grab it while you can! I have no clue how long this deal will last, but it is a great deal, so don’t hesitate.

LINK:

https://www.origin.com/en-ie/store/buy/dead-space/pc-download/base-game/standard-edition

Dead Space is one hell of a game with fantastic graphics, dark atmosphere, amazing story and can easily be marked as spiritual successor to games like System Shock 2 with all the weapons and abilities upgrades, inventory, purchasing system and interaction with the world. It’s a truly amazing experience that you’ll never forget. You can trust me on that!