Security Software, to Free or not to Free
The myth surrounding free anti virus software solutions.
Lets face it, we all know that sunshine is free, and dirt as well, but the rest, if we want decent service, guarantee, after sales service, quality, no hassle, and recent code, it usually comes at a price. I was searching Google for free security software lately and had no trouble whatsoever finding a myriad of links that all pointed to websites advertizing exactly what I had searched: free security software.
In most cases, this was true at face value and on first sight. But as I dug a little deeper, even the websites boasting “we really mean FREE” all had commercial intent. Sure, I know that those who make use of GNU based software solutions can get free security software.
But that too has drawbacks, for either one is dealing with code technology that is under development or in beta stages of testing; or they cover all risks recorded up to 6 months ago, which means that computers running these applications are wide open to newer threats. And even most of these offer automatic updates, …if you subscribe at a price.
I could indeed keep my computer secure and risk free without spending a dime, yes, its possible, I cannot deny it. All I need to do is download trial versions from any of the large companies and run these for the period they allow you to try out the program. When its time to pay, I just unistall the program and download another one. But that means I will have to do this at least twelve times a year.
I tried it once. I had Norton’s excellent anti-virus on my hard drive and the twelve months license had expired. So I unistalled it and tried another program. My PC suddenly ran so much slower than before. I must admit, at the time, I was still on a 233 MhZ chip when the market was pushing the first 2000 Mhz machines. I soon found out why.
It seemed that Norton had uninstalled all components except the root protection components, so that in effect, I had now two security programs and two firewalls running simultaneously. Needless to say that for the inexperienced user that I was at the time, it was the event that pushed me over the edge. I went out and bought a faster computer.
And I stayed away from all offers that boasted “free”, especially if it involved security software. I mean, lets get real. Have you ever shopped around for bandwidth? Well, it has an average cost of around 1$ per gigabite if you are not in the busines as a pro (who can buy it much cheaper).
So do some math. In case you are willing to offer a free security software program that people can download and it “weighs” only 40 Megabites, by the time 100 000 users have downloaded the software, you will have used 4000 gigabites of bandwith and you will get a bill for 4000$.
Lets checksum this. A gigabite is 1000 megabites. This means that when 25 people download the program, they have consumed 25 x 40 megabytes = 1000 megabytes, or 1 gigabyte. At a rate of 25 downloads per Gigabyte, one hundred thousand downloads means that you will indeed use 4000 Gigabytes of bandwidth.
By the time 10 million users have downloaded your program, and companies like Symantec, MacAfee or BitDefender all boast more than 100 million users, the amount for bandwith is already at 400 000 dollars!!! Even if you can get bandwidth at discounted prices, once you hit larger audiences, the cost of keeping servers that can allow for so many people to download the software also has to be factored into the equation.
I believe it now becomes more clear as to why free software is a myth and it is high time we stop fooling one another on this issue. If you really want free stuff, you will be asked to contribute in another way. Many advertizers are willing to buy the software for you if you will allow them to show you their ads.
It goes like this: you start your computer and before anything else happens, your security software kicks in. Your sponsor makes a pop up window appear with this days’ ad. To make sure you read it, a question in relation to the ad has to be answered. You react accordingly and if your answer isn’t ok, a new question appears until the sponsor is satisfied you have absorbed his message. Only then does your PC boot properly.
What? I was done in the past and they abandoned these schemes because they didn’t work? You’re probably right. But I’m willing to bet the farm that in the near future, its the way schools will teach children and employers will train employees, or get important messages to be learned. Its easy to imagine the internet cafe of the future boasting free online computers based on this idea…
