Free anti-virus scanner hits the cloud

Avira has added cloud technology to the latest version of its popular freebie anti-virus scanner.

Version 10 of Avira AntiVir, released on Tuesday, adds cloud-based detection to a free-of-charge security scanner that competes with similar products offered by (Czech-firm ALWIL's) Avast and AVG.

All three firms aim to move consumers to fuller featured paid-for security suites as well as selling security software pitched at the SME end of the business market. Each of the three has had to step up its game following the release of Microsoft's Security Essentials freebie scanner last September.

The incorporation of cloud-based technologies is an industry trend across paid-for and now freebie scanners designed to respond to the growing volume of malware variants (50,000 a day, according to industry estimates) produced by the bad guys.

Traditional techniques, like pushing revised signature detection files from central servers, are struggling to cope, hence the need to switch architectures to add crowd-sourced malware detection to the mix.

Read more: The Register

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