BANGALORE, INDIA: AVG Technologies, the first global software developer to provide free real-time protection against the stealthiest threats to today’s Internet users, today announced their entry into the Indian home and small business security solutions landscape with the availability of its AVG Free 8.5 security software.

Today, almost everything that consumers value is on their computers. Almost every bit of high-value information including photographs, music, passwords and user names they use to access bank accounts, savings, investments, and insurance coverage. So at AVG, its their constant endeavor to go beyond average security needs and do everything in their power to prevent anything undesirable happening to Internet users or their digital identity while they are online.

Commenting on AVG Technologies’ India entry, JR Smith, chief executive officer at AVG Technologies said, “I am extremely delighted at launching our products in the Indian market. The Indian customer is well informed, discerning and price conscious and is forever on the lookout for products which offer value-for-money. I foresee a huge opportunity for AVG products in India as we offer the best solutions in the category. Our experts are constantly on the lookout for the latest threats, tracking what the bad guys are up to. They are focused on making sure our customers can surf, shop, chat, work, and play online safely and confidently.”

AVG’s home and small business security solutions suite in India would include AVG Identity Protection, AVG Anti-Virus, AVG Anti-Virus + Firewall, AVG Internet Security. In a nutshell, AVG would enable people and businesses to use computers with confidence and without aggravation by protecting them from disruption and loss.

“We strongly believe that all users, regardless of how they use their computers, have the right to a safe and worry-free online experience. Customers didn’t buy their computer to worry about security, and it’s our job to make sure that’s how things stay,” said Karel Obluk, chief technology officer at AVG Technologies. “We’re pleased to make that experience more accessible for users in India by providing our free protection software here.”

Following the free version, the company will be announcing other commercial products in India soon. AVG’s anti-virus products will be distributed in India by ‘Milestone Interactive Group’, a Mumbai-based distributor of digital devices, peripherals and interactive games and software.

About AVG Free 8.5

AVG Free 8.5 with Anti-virus, Anti-Spyware and LinkScanner units goes beyond the protection provided by other free security products to deliver just-in-time protection against drive-by downloads - invisible threats that can download malware onto a user’s computer without the user taking any action at all. This invisible infection process is the fastest-growing threat on the Internet today, and is widely used by organized criminals for identity theft and other commercial gain. These threats can be hidden in any type of website, and may remain on any given site for an hour, a day, or a week; the length of time a site remains infected often depends on how many visitors the site gets, as the criminals distributing the malware frequently have a target quota of information to steal.

The transient nature of these threats means they are impossible to track down using conventional anti-virus or anti-spyware products or, for that matter, most “safe-surfing” products. LinkScanner offers AVG’s unique ‘Active Surf Shield’ protection, which adds real-time scanning to detect infected and potentially-infected content as users browse the web with Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers. LinkScanner also offers ‘Search Shield’, which provides users of Google, Yahoo and MSN searches a safety icon next to each link returned on their search results pages showing which urls are safe to visit before they click on them.

AVG Free 8.5 gives you powerful, easy-to-use protection that works efficiently and unobtrusively in the background, letting you focus on using your computer and not having to worry about security. AVG Free 8.5 is intended for personal and non-commercial use on single computers running Windows 2000, XP or Vista.