Avast acquires rival AVG for $1.3 billion

[Arthur]

I wonder if the amount of upselling and bloatware in their free anti-virus programs will dramatically increase soon? AVG is already really bad.

 

Sources: Ars Technica, The Register, VentureBeat

 

Avast has agreed to acquire Amsterdam-based AVG for £1 billion (~$1.3 billion) in an all-cash deal to grow its business in markets such as the Internet of Things.

 

The two companies were founded in the Czech Republic in the late 1980s and early '90s. Avast, which is still based in Prague, said that it expected the buyout to help it "gain scale, technological depth, and geographical breadth."

 

Avast said that the combined firms would create a network of more than 400 million endpoints, of which 160 million are mobile: they will act as sensors to provide information about malware threats.

 

"As the definition of online security continues to shift from being device-centric, to being concerned with devices, data and people, we believe the combined company, with the strengthened value proposition, will emerge as a leader in this growing market," said AVG chief Gary Kovacs.

 

The £1 billion price tag represented a 33 percent premium over AVG's closing price on Wednesday, Avast said, before adding that it would finance the nuptials using cash balances on hand and committed debt financing from third party lenders.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Arthur

[localzuk]

Interesting move. Hope Avast doesn't let the AVG stuff ruin their own software! Avast is currently far superior to AVG.

[bossman]

@localzuk

 

Ditto that thought!

[3s-gtech]

Totally agree. Stopped using AVG in around 2005 as it became so slow and heavy. Avast is excellent, yearly nag prompts being bearable.

[DalekSec]

Stopped using AVG years ago, got fed up with pop ups, and never really used avast. Is that the annoying one that when it pops up It talks to you?

[localzuk]

Stopped using AVG years ago, got fed up with pop ups, and never really used avast. Is that the annoying one that when it pops up It talks to you?

 

Yep. But you can disable that.

 

It does give random popup notifications trying to up-sell though