AVG celebrates 25 years?

[Ronen E]

Hi,

Just a strange question that popped.

I received an email message (spam?) announcing that AVG is now 25 years old. A quick calculation sent me back to 1991. Strange, I thought. Did anyone really pick the AV feature importance as early as that?... Intrigued, I looked up the company's history and found this (Grisoft is the original company's name):

Grisoft was founded in 1991 in Brno, Czech Republic, with the goal of providing the most reliable protection against computer viruses. From the beginning, it was a company focused on developing its own scanning engine, which has been critical to the success and reliability of its product line – the award- winning AVG Anti-Virus.

As far as I remember, the Internet was not widely used in 1991, and even email was not extensively used outside the USA. I find it strange that software viruses were prevalent at that time to a degree that actually triggered a commercially successful company. Does anyone here know more about the subject and can explain the background / need that led a bunch of guys in the then-Czechoslovakia to start such an enterprise?

Thanks,
Ronen.

 

[Marc]

I don't know the long time-line off hand, but this is interesting:

Timeline_of_computer_viruses_and_worms

 

[Ronen E]

I don't know the long time-line off hand, but this is interesting:

Timeline_of_computer_viruses_and_worms

Thanks, that's very illuminating. It seems that by 1991 the problem had some noticeable volume for a decade or so, and AV software was in the works for some years.

On a personal note, I seem to have forgotten how much we used to utilise floppy discs to transfer files between isolated computers (being naive enough not to worry about infections), and that stand-alone networks were not uncommon long before the advent of the Internet... It's interesting how technological progress seems to overwrite one's consciocness sometimes...

The first malware I actually remember from that timeline is Michaelangelo, from 1992.

 

[Marc]

At 66 it's interesting to watch old movies - Even the 1950's and 60's and 70's. Not to mention TV shows. The curve is increasing quickly, but yes - One sort of eases into new technology. It's like getting older. It seems like you're in your 20's and the next thing you know you're in your 60's saying things like "I used to be able to do that".

Local TV is running Johnny Carson reruns and we talk a bit about how we liked Carson so much. But in rewatching, it's hard to remember when in our area for years we only had 3 TV channels.

We watch a lot of old films and have a pretty big collection including some old 1890's Edisons, etc. When we watch I remember my father and his recollections of the first time he saw an airplane fly overhead, and how neat trains were.

Yea, at least for me, "the way things were" seem to fade to some degree as I get used to new technology. I look at my iPhone and it's just amazing that 10 years ago nothing like it, much less at the size.

I remember a Mac "virus" from around 1990. All it would do is infect 3.5" floppies. It didn't erase files or anything like that, and to "clean it" you only had to reformat the floppy disk and delete the "program" from the Mac. My, how times have changed.

 

[PaulJSmith]

I've been using AVG on my machines at home for years, which replaced ZoneLabs after they became too update crazy. Never knew they were that old.

 

[Ronen E]

I've been using AVG on my machines at home for years, which replaced ZoneLabs after they became too update crazy. Never knew they were that old.

Talking about update crazy, on my Windows machines not a day or two go by without an AVG update, usually one that requires a full restart to take effect.

 

[PaulJSmith]

Talking about update crazy, on my Windows machines not a day or two go by without an AVG update, usually one that requires a full restart to take effect.

Yeah, mine's been doing that a lot lately, too. Even when I turn off my machine (which I do every day), at next boot it still wants to restart. Apparently, "free" comes with inconvenient strings attached.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Sometime around 1990 I got a floppy with a game on it from a coworker. Along with the game came the Yankee Doodle virus, which was completely innocuous aside from periodically playing Yankee Doodle on the PC speaker. I got rid of it but I don't remember how. I remember the computer, though. A 386SX-16 with 1MB of RAM and a 40MB hard drive.